Rita Leistner’s Forest for the Trees returns to a kind of work she knew before becoming a documentary photographer. She planted trees between 1984 and 1993, then spent two decades working in photography and photojournalism, often in conflict zones. In 2016 she returned to the cut-blocks left by industrial logging in western Canada. Over four years, she lived in remote bush camps with a community of about one hundred tree planters, photographing the people, their work and the surrounding land.
The publisher’s preview images show workers carrying equipment across rough ground, planting among fallen branches, and gathering beside vehicles. A portrait of a tattooed back places the outline of a forest on the body; another photograph turns toward treetops beneath a night sky. Strong illumination and dramatic skies give several of the portraits a heightened presence, while the tools, clothing and uneven terrain keep attention on the physical conditions of the work. These examples introduce the project’s movement between individual workers, shared camp life and landscape.
Leistner approaches tree planting through her own experience of its demands. The publisher places the profession at an intersection between industrial forestry and contemporary concerns about climate change. That context makes the photographs relevant to questions about how landscapes are changed, how they are replanted, and whose labor makes that work possible. The project also produced a feature documentary released in 2021.
Published by Dewi Lewis Publishing in 2021, this clothbound hardback contains 256 pages and 160 color plates, with texts in English and French and an interview by Don McKellar. It measures 290 × 250 mm according to the publisher. The book offers readers a sustained photographic encounter with a working community and the environments it inhabits.
