Tree spirit?

Last fall when Jamie and I were in Charleston, SC - one of our favorite cities in America - we went to see an old oak tree. The Angel Tree is believed to be over 1500 years old and is considered to be the oldest living thing east of the Rockies.

There were only a few people there and one of them was a photographer who had his tripod setup. He seemed to be waiting for the sun to slowly move into just the right position. He offered to take a picture of us with the tree and struck up a conversation. Jamie quickly became bored with the conversation and headed for the gift shop. I don't remember much about the conversation, but I do remember that he had a layover in Charlotte on his way back home from New York to the San Francisco Bay Area and decided to extend his layover, rent a car and drive 3 hours to photograph this tree.

The photographer handed me his business card when we parted ways and thought I might look him up later to see what he photographed. The card said, "TreeSpirit Project." I didn't really know what that meant other than he was probably a nature photographer. I pocketed the card and went on my way.

I don't remember when it was that I realized what was on the back of the business card. I think Jamie found it. I may have glanced at the back and noticed a black and white photograph of a tree taking up the entirety of that side of the card. What I didn't immediately notice were the fully nude people IN the tree. They were sprawled over branches in postures that didn't hide a thing.

I later found out that the TreeSpirit Project is an effort to save trees by - what else? - photographing trees with nude people in and next to them.

To my knowledge there were no nude people in the Angel Tree when we visited it. I haven't found them in any of my pictures of the tree and I was taking pictures at the same time as that guy was. But I have to wonder if they were around, just waiting to strip down and jump in the tree when enough people left.

I like trees, but I also like wearing clothes.