Some years ago, before I had a wife and a family, when I could take an entire summer to travel and live out of my car, I worked in concert with some non-profit organizations to visit and document people working the land. I travelled throughout the Midwest and the South in the U.S. I walked through forests, fields and farms with workers, researchers, policymakers, landowners and learners of all stripes. If anything united all of these people I visited it was an interest in caring for the forests where they were, even if their work was not directly tied to the trees, necessarily.

I watched people plant trees and cut them down. I watched them live in buildings made from those trees and grapple with how to find comfort without needless destruction. I spent time with families and close communities also people who largely wanted to get away from society. I hit the furtherst northern points in Wisconsin, butting up to magnificent Lake Superior and sweltered amongst the pines in Mississippi in August. Photographs barely scratch the surface of the experience, but I hope the below selection does some justice to the working lives and the places of the people who allowed me to spend time with them.