CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/18/2025

A new, “best-of” edition of bookseller favorite, 'Women in Trees'

Based on the anonymous flea market photography collection of Jochen Raiß (1969–2022), Women in Trees highlights a motif that had, until the first edition of this beloved 5 x 7 hardcover, previously gone unremarkedupon, but which is immediately recognizable to all who encounter it now. “Ostensibly, the photographers didn’t have any particular aesthetic intention,” Raiß writes, “and yet, a number of them have created images that possess a remarkable depth and beauty: looking at the camera, a woman is standing a little bit higher than the photographer in the fork of a branch. She is leaning back in the tree and because of the interplay of light and shadow her body virtually melts into it. Is it the pattern of her dress or the shadows of the leaves that we see on her skirt? When looking at the photo, it becomes a hidden-image picture. Boundaries seem to dissolve, and the branches and arms, the woman and the tree, overlap. The chance composition of this picture is perfect. The tree’s obstinacy does not allow for the woman to take any other position; surely, she wasn’t deliberately arranged in the tree in that manner. That an image of such fascinating aesthetic quality has been created from this chance arrangement is why I consider it a masterpiece.”