- I'm Nancy Floyd, I live in Bend, Oregon, and I'm a photographer who's working on a project about trees.

(subtle bright music) - Oh my gosh, look at that.

- Look at the color.

(subtle bright music) (birds chirping) (camera shutter clicking) (subtle bright music) (camera shutter clicking) (subtle bright music) (subtle bright music continues) In 1982, I mentioned to a friend it would be interesting to see myself age over 20 years.

So I started this project called "Weathering Time."

(subtle bright music) It started with me just with a camera in the corner of the room on a tripod.

And every morning at nine o'clock... (camera shutter clicking) I would make a picture.

But because they were environmental portraits, which included the rooms where I lived, where I hung out, sometimes with my friends, sometimes with my family, it showed sort of the social cultural life that I had lived, sort of my generation.

And then at 20 years, I had an exhibition, and that's when I realized that I couldn't stop this project, that it really was a lifelong project.

That would be its significance, to see how things change.

(gentle music) A few years ago, I turned 63, and there was this photograph of myself with my mother at 63, and I decided to do a reenactment photograph, where I stand in the same position that she was standing in, and took a picture so that there's a diptych of me standing there, and then my mom.

And then two years later, I was 65, and I had a photograph of my dad.

And that's what really surprised me 'cause I had no idea that I looked like my dad, and I looked so much like my dad.

(gentle music fades) (birds chirping) Until 2009, I was primarily a portrait photographer, a documentary or environmental portrait photographer.

And I've won quite a few awards, and then 2022, I won a Guggenheim.

(insects chirping) (subtle pensive music) And in 2009, I went to Death Valley for the first time.

And while I was there, I learned that my mother was dying, and within the next month, she had passed away.

And so I started going out there just with the idea of getting away and sort of mourning my mother and just being in this beautiful desert landscape for the first time.

(subtle pensive music) (subtle pensive music continues) And by the third year I was there, I realized that I could do a project, and not necessarily showing you what's around me.

(birds chirping) I was more interested in sort of the personal space because the desert is big and vast, and how can you tell the story of the desert?

I can tell the story of me in the desert.

(subtle pensive music) And that led to the exhibition, "Walking Through the Desert with My Eyes Closed."

(subtle pensive music) (birds chirping) (engine whirring) (engine sputtering) And how big did the madrones get?

- As as tall as the oaks more or less.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- In 2021, I started a project called "For the Love of Trees."

And I'm following stakeholders, those people who are doing work that will advance sort of tree growth or sustainable logging for the future.

(camera shutter clicks) - This is a little natural fur that seeded in.

We planted no fur here because the fur was dying, but some has come in, so I'll let it grow.

- And my focus of that is to follow these people and learn what they do and sort of just be like a fly on the wall, where I just spend a day with them or a week, or in sometimes years.

And that then leads into the second part of the project, where I go out and photograph the trees on my own, trying to make work that's both personal to me and also can have some meaning to other people.

- The green trees that you can see a little... - Sarah and her family are sustainable loggers.

And they are trying to bring back areas of the forest that have been clear cut by planting trees to see what will grow.

And her goal is to create a forest that's diverse and that can survive climate change.

- So these are sequoias that were planted several years ago.

There's one behind you too, you can see.

These are one of our good hopes for a conifer species that will thrive into the future.

- One of her big initiatives is to bring back oak trees because that area was an oak forest at one point.

- There's a very successful planted oak.

This is a pride and joy, I guess you'd say.

Taller than I am.

(chuckles) (camera shutter clicking) - When I photograph, I photograph across the scene, and I'm putting together multiple images to stitch together to create a panoramic.

They won't completely overlap.

You'll be able to see that they're, you know, even without the black line, you'd be able to see that they're pasted on top of each other.

But I'm also looking for, in the case of a person, I want them to look good in the photograph, in the case of the landscape, I'm looking at the sky to see if it looks at a level that I think is going to enhance the foreground.

What makes me do this is, when I think that there's a sense of time passing, so as a viewer, you're not feeling like the seamless image, you're noticing the construction of it, and it's kind of like looking through little windows.

And this is the final frame.

(upbeat music) (birds chirping) Her son started a mill, and that mill is used for oak trees.

And they've also started a business where they put in fine floors or building cabinets and things.

It's really beautiful work.

(bright mellow music) So this is the dehumidifier room, which is the last place that the wood comes before it's shipped off.

I'm really interested in the tags that are on here, and just the different sizes of the wood.

And I'm also interested in when there's knots in the wood 'cause I really like that sort of texture, that contrast against the beautiful oak that's here.

(bright mellow music) (bright mellow music fades) An iconic tree is a tree I fall in love with.

And it could be a big monumental tree, an old tree, but it could be a very small tree.

And I think what inspires me about trees is that I have to stay around them for a while to get to know them.

And that sounds kind of like, you know, whatever, but it's not.

When you're sitting there, you hear it as the wind brushes by it.

You watch the lizards or the other animals that are running around the forest, and so you get to know sort of that environment.

And that's really important for me in terms of knowing the place.

(birds chirping) (wind rustling) (camera shutter clicks) (wind rustling) The most iconic tree to me is the ponderosa pine because I have a 140-foot one in my front yard.

And when I saw the house in the beginning and saw that giant tree next to it, that was it.

(camera shutter clicks) We had a lightning strike, and it started at the top of the tree and came down the tree, went into the ground, split a rock in half, took out the water system to a neighbor's house, and the tree exploded, and for blocks away, there are tree parts.

(wind rustling) (birds chirping) (camera shutter clicking) (bright mellow music) (camera shutter clicks) (bright mellow music) (birds chirping) What I've really learned through this process is how patient people can be, and how thoughtful and sensitive they are to the environment and the needs of not only themselves, but others.

They won't know what their work will be, you know, 100 years from now, but it'll make a difference to people.

I admire them so much, and I think what it does for me is, it helps me feel like I'm contributing something myself, even though I'm just taking the pictures, making the pictures.

As an artist, it makes me feel good to show others just how amazing these people are.

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