Photo by Hannah Letinich.
Chlorophyll prints and essay by Shin Yu Pai
When I was an undergraduate student in college, I traveled down to the Florida Panhandle following a major hurricane year, and spent my spring break planting trees for the Nature Conservancy. Growing up in California, an appreciation and awareness of trees was always important to me, whether a regard for the non-native palms or deformed Joshua trees springing out of the Southern California landscape, or the giant redwoods and sequoias in Northern California that revealed to me the secrets of time and history.
I’ve come back to trees in my recent work, in exploring the history of logging and environmental stewardship related to trees for the City of Redmond and also working with local leaves and plants in my work with alternative photography. For this piece for TNC, I wanted to make an image that could evoke a relationship to everyday action: tree planting and environmental stewardship.
