Venerable and majestic as it is, the pictured river red gum is neither the tallest, nor most massive, nor oldest example of the Australian mainland’s most widely distributed and most widely-loved eucalypt species.
The pictured tree, however was “the hero” in the most famous photograph ever taken of Eucalyptus camaldulensis.
87 years ago one of the most influential Australian photographers saw this tree, standing on a sparsely vegetated plateau, with Wilpena Pound’s flanks behind it.
The tree has stood there for at least several centuries; “the Pound” is circa 800 million years older.
Harold Cazneaux (aka “H.P. Cazneaux”) captioned his 1937 tree portrait, The Spirit of Endurance.
Substantial manipulation of photographic images is by no means something which “arrived”, via digital cameras.
(digital technology has, however, made it enormously quicker and easier for photographers to “enhance” their images, or to let their cameras do so, automatically …or to falsify them, entirely)
Ansel Adams’ celebrated Sierra Nevada and Yosemite images were shot long before the arrival of “digital cameras”, let alone “photoshop”, “AI” et al, but all of Adams’ published works involved a lot of “work”, post shutter-click.
(click here for an examination/explanation of one of Adams’ most “iconic” photos)
Here is Cazneaux’s most famous photo:
He intentionally reversed the negative!
And that is only the most glaringly apparent of Cazneaux’s various “manipulations” of “the original”.
I photographed what is now known as “The Cazneaux Tree” at 4.25 pm on 05 June 2023.
The sun would not be putting in another appearance on that memorable winter’s day, and we were less than half an hour away from warmth and wine at Wilpena Resort.
Click here for more about the “Cazneaux Tree”, and how to access it.
Click this for background on Cazneaux’s photo.
Pelican Yoga’s next destination is a southern Italian place which many millions more tourists have reached.