Book Celebrates 'Trees of Needham'

Growing up in Needham, Andy Caulfield always had an interest in photography, and after graduating from Needham High School in 1973, he headed west, graduating from the commercial photography program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

Caulfield has spent his career specializing in marketing and architectural photography, a field that has taken him to 70 different countries. But, as the saying goes, you can always go home, and for Caulfield, home is Needham.

“If it’s a good experience, you want to come back,” Caulfield said, noting that the move was family-driven and he had also always liked the northeast.

After moving back to Needham, Caulfield met graphic artist Kevin Keane, who was his neighbor’s son-in-law. The two always talked about collaborating on a project, but they could never quite come up with something that would work. Then the idea of a book featuring photography of trees from around the town of Needham came up, and they both felt it was perfect.

“The idea was Kevin’s, but I’d been shooting [trees in Needham] since 1997,” said Caulfield, who has always had an interest in nature.

They had to decide which trees to take photographs of, something that was not an easy task considering the large amount of nature in Needham.

“We decided to go with pretty images,” Caulfield said. “We gravitated toward the ones that were more hidden [with no power lines].”

Keane’s role was to do the layout of the book once Caulfield finished taking the photographs, and then Caulfield gave him some input after seeing the initial layout. The book came out in December, and they released a calendar last year as well. There is a new calendar for 2012 as well. The book and calendar are available at , the  gift shop and directly from Caulfield and Keane at http://treesofneedham.com/.

One interesting thing to note about the Web site is that they are working to get identifications of the types of trees in the book online. That should be done soon, according to Caulfield.

Some of the photographs are still being showcased at the . They will be there until the end of this month. It is the second show of prints at the library.

“We looked at it as a way to showcase our skills,” Caulfield said of putting together the book. “It was a very successful personal project. We were co-collaborators: he couldn’t have done it without me, and I couldn’t have done it without him.”