There’s a fine line between hoarder and archivist—but Brian Kelley just about sits in the second camp. From maps to discarded MetroCards, the New York photographer and collector may own a fair bit of ‘old tat’, but rather than stash it all away in shoeboxes gathering dust, he lets it out into the world.
Published by Standards Manual, the two part Parks series is a true treasure-trove of outdoor ephemera, displaying Kelley’s extensive collection of National Park Service maps and brochures—documenting not just the visual history of the US National Park Service, but the evolution of graphic design and the printed page across the 20th century.
His Gathering Growth project applies the same thorough process to photography—as he lugs around a large-format camera into ancient woodland on the endless search for the biggest and oldest trees in the United States. After all, if a tree grows really tall in the woods and no one is around to take high-quality photographs of it, is it even really that tall?
I talked to him about old maps, big ol’ trees and the buzz of going where no one has gone before for outsiders.
Roman Candle Magazine 