THE MAGIC OF OLD-GROWTH FORESTS

Photographing some of the oldest—and largest—living organisms on the planet

When i was a boy, I loved climbing the old oak trees in New Orleans City Park. I would hang from their branches and fling my legs into the air with unfettered delight. I would scoot my way up the trees’ twisting limbs until I was a dozen feet off the ground and could see the park with new eyes. These were the same trees my mother climbed as a young girl, and the same ones my own children climb when we travel back to my hometown to visit. Live oaks can live for centuries, and the memories made among them can span generations.

For his most recent project, Old Growth, the photographer Mitch Epstein traveled around the United States to document some of the country’s most ancient trees: big-leaf maples, eastern white pines, sequoias, redwoods, birches. Definitions vary, but Epstein considers old-growth forests to be areas that have been untouched by humans and allowed to regenerate on their own terms. Much of this land in North America has been destroyed in the centuries since European settlers arrived on the continent; Epstein wants his photographs to call attention to what remains, in order to protect it…

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