Image by photographer Adrian Houston
Dear Readers, the Tree Council is a charity that ‘brings everyone together with a shared mission to care for trees and our planet’s future. We inspire and empower organisations, government, communities and individuals with the knowledge and tools to create positive, lasting change at a national and local level.’ They provide a variety of grants and schemes, from encouraging people to be volunteer tree wardens or young tree champions, through providing grants for research and community orchards. So I was fascinated to see this billboard campaign, which is aimed at increasing awareness of the beauty and importance of trees. See which is your favourite!
There are two photographers, Adrian Houston ( I love his images, above and below)….
Photograph by Adrian Houston
and Rob Kesseler, who takes a different, micro approach. I think the horse chestnut pollen below looks a bit like the mutant plant from ‘Little Shop of Horrors’. His book, ‘Seeds – Time Capsules of Life’ looks absolutely fascinating.
Photograph by Rob Kesseler
Digital artists Rob and Nick Carter created an AI image of an English oak, based on a painting from 1870, ‘The Old Oak’ by Jacques Dupré, which is in the National Gallery. It’s worth having a look at the artist’s webpage – they are doing some very interesting things, and are the first living artists to exhibit at the Frick Collection. Here’s their image…
The Old Oak by Rob and Nick Carter
…and here’s the original. Clearly, the image above has reimagined the tree and the landscape as it approaches autumn. The little person sitting under the tree in the original picture seems to have not liked the look of the clouds in the altered one…
‘The Old Oak’ by Jules Dupre
And finally, there’s an image by graffiti artist Joe Webster. This is a really joyous evocation of looking up through golden leaves to the sky above, and I love the energy and colour in Webster’s images – have a look at his web page to see some more.
Image by Joe Webster
So, these images will be going up on billboards around the country. Which one is your favourite? I’m dithering a bit, so will be interested to see what you think. Over to you, Readers!
My favourite is the first one. beams of light AND an old tree, but I do really appreciate the joy in the Joe Webster.
They are both lovely, aren’t they….
I’d give the gold medal to the Adrian Houston and silver to Rob Kesseler. The Joe Webster one looks like there’s a bit of graffiti in the middle. Maybe that was the way it was meant to be but, if so, I don’t ‘get’ it I’m afraid. I normally hate the idea of AI images, but it does look much better than the original, which looks nothing like any oak tree I’ve ever seen. It looks leafless and diseased!
I love all the photographic images, but I am intrigued by the graffiti and the AI image too. It’s nice that there’s something for everyone 🙂
The first two will have the most widespread appeal, but personally I love the Joe Webster one, and have checked out his other stuff, which is amazing. He’s yet another artist that I would never have heard of if I didn’t read this blog.
Yes, I like Joe Webster’s other stuff a bit more than the image that’s being used in the campaign, actually…I learn so much through writing this blog! Glad it’s useful!