Last month at a hip co-working space in Oakland, I spread out over a hundred proof prints from my project Sap in Their Veins and watched as Alyssa Coppelman (picture editor and researcher with Harpers, PBS, Oxford American and Adobe Create) went to work.

These portraits of loggers from the late 80’s are currently traveling as an exhibit; Alyssa is one of the very talented team members assisting me in bringing the series to book form.

So much has changed in the book publishing landscape since Urban Forest was published in 2003 ( Don’t have a copy? You can purchase here).

As she moved freely among the images on the tables, Alyssa asked insightful questions about the project’s history, the people and the oral histories that accompany some of the images. She pointed out new visual connections in this work that is so familiar to me.

By day’s end we were both excited about the shape and direction we were headed. We expect editing and sequencing to be complete by the end of January.

In early 2020 we’ll make the decision to self-publish or to shop the project to book publishers. This time around in my book process it’s exciting to have the options and these remarkable professionals helping me.