Tree Portraits

I began this series of Tree Portraits in January 2008. This particular selection of trees is taken in different areas (barrios) of Buenos Aires. I treat each tree as an individual, centering them in the composition as I would a person. The tree is the protagonist. I am intrigued by how each one has a personality of its own. An expression conveyed through its size, build, ‘posture’; the ‘attitude’ expressed through the display of its branches. I am also intrigued by the relationship between the tree and its surrounding, the concrete or brick base it stands in, or meager hole that it has been granted, the walls behind it. I find there are parallels between the trees and us: their individuality as well as the sense of fate. How they have been fated to grow or not, flourish or suffer, and ultimately die within this urban environment of concrete walls and pollution. — Emma Livingston