David Bayles is a master when it comes to portraits. He supported himself going through Brooks each summer working in the forests, cutting down trees. Being a logger is very dangerous work. He photographed the loggers at work and at play. His recordings of the loggers talking and telling their stories, is amazingly revealing of the life and death moments the loggers face. After reading about their lives and hearing them talk, I have a whole new level of respect for their work.   David has many on-going series of portraits. His images on The Elders are outstanding. He lives in Oregon. As he wonders through the forests gathering ideas about trees, his themes develop and then he goes out and shoots. He took me to one of his special places. The old growth trees were the first ones to be cut down. They have these human-like characteristics. Large notches are carved out of the trees, so the loggers can slip into these wedges boards they will stand on to saw up the trees. When you enter the forest and see what David now calls “The Elders”, it is as if they were in a court, keeping silent, yet preparing to question the witnesses. When David and I arranged the dates of my coming up to his neck of the woods, I asked him if I could do a portrait of him shooting. When my time arrived, he had taken me to the first Elder he had photographed. The forest was overgrown on a hillside and it was raining.   David is looking back, recalling a simpler time in logging. The forest on the viewer’s left is more orderly, while the forest on the right was a bit more wild and represents the future.