TCLF to Partner with American Photo Magazine on Landslide 2010

TCLF is pleased to welcome American Photo magazine as a sponsor and curator of original photography for the 2010 Landslide initiative: Every Tree Tells a Story.Since its inception in 2003, the Landslide initiative has spotlighted more than 150 significant at-risk parks, plazas, gardens, horticultural features, and residential subdivisions. The photography, to be undertaken by nationally and internationally-recognized regional photographers, will again help us do so by calling attention to these landscape features that embody our shared landscape heritage. The images, along with the history, threat, and ways in which the public can become involved will become part of both online and traveling exhibitions to be launched this fall.

Russell Hart, Executive Editor of American Photo, will commission and curate photography of the twelve selected Landslide sites. Hart has written for American Photo for over 20 years, and is now the magazine's executive editor and editor of the magazine’s college edition, American Photo On Campus. Previously he was senior editor at Popular Photography and contributing editor to Photo/Design, Outdoor & Travel Photography, and Petersen's Photographic and has contributed articles on photography to publications such as The New York Times and Views: The Journal of Photography in New England. Hart co-authored Photography (Pearson/Prentice-Hall), now in its second edition and The Photographic Essay: William Albert Allard (Little, Brown).

Hart notes, “Trees have always been a profound source of visual inspiration to photographers, from mammoth-plate prints of champion specimens by the 19th century's Carleton Watkins to recent vertical panoramas of redwoods by National Geographic's Jim Balog. Yet they are also a challenge to photograph, not just because of their size and complexity but because it isn't easy to capture their sheer magnificence—to do justice to the largest and arguably the most important living thing on the planet. So this year's Cultural Landscape Foundation initiative will be both a delight and a test for the photographers American Photo invites to participate, and the results will be a visually forceful reminder to the viewing public not to take their arboreal cohabitants for granted.”

While the annual Landslide initiative focuses attention on significant cultural landscapes and landscape features that are threatened, the threat is not always as immediate as a looming bulldozer. Often times, even with thoughtful stewardship, a lack of awareness of a resource’s significance can be a threat. Sarah Kinbar, Editor of American Photo, says, “Trees can be understood in so many ways, and a photographer’s eye reveals a tree’s multiple facets, uncovering new experiences of trees for viewers who might be used to passing them by. American Photo is proud to showcase the results of this partnership in our pages because by doing so we are creating an opportunity for new art to be seen while at the same time elevating the public’s understanding of trees that have marked the passage of time, influenced the fundamentals of our culture, and are now threatened for a variety of reasons.”

American Photo is a bi-monthly publication that focuses on creative photography, offering a unique visual environment and an authoritative editorial voice that inspire and inform an audience of advanced photography enthusiasts and photo professionals. Along with American Photo, TCLF is also again partnering with Garden Design magazine and, for the first time, are proud to have The Davey Tree Expert Company as a Presenting Sponsor and American Forests as an Educational Partner.