Wild Bonsai - Montezuma Bald Cypress Ed. 1 of 25

I enjoy creating things that are surreal but subtle, things that make you look twice, so the idea of putting artfully crafted bonsai trees into a landscape environment appeals to me. To look at a tree in a landscape and have it look not quite right but not quite wrong either.
I’ve always been fascinated by bonsai trees. The level of patience and planning required is extraordinary. Years of careful pruning and care go into the creation of these living works of art and the results are certainly worth the effort.
Similarly, the production of this image required care and patience. The considerable time spent painting the highly-detailed masks allowed my mind to drift to background concepts whilst I worked. In my mind, I developed a relationship with the tree and sought to create a complimentary landscape that highlights and compliments the bonsai.
On the day I shot the source images at the National Arboretum in Canberra there was a light rain and very few people around. It was very peaceful and I wanted to convey that sense of quiet in the final image.
With the literal translation of “Bon-sai” meaning “planted in a container”, I wonder if removing them from their container and placing them in the wild makes them something else?
Original image of bonsai taken at National Arboretum, Canberra. Bonsai artist - Grant Bowie.
Watermark does not appear on printed image.

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Photographer and digital artist Jane Long was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1970. Currently based in Brisbane, Australia, she combines photography and photomanipulation to create slightly surreal images that straddle the line between reality and fantasy. Completely self-taught, she has worked with Photoshop since 1994, both commercially and for personal work. More recently she has delved wholeheartedly into photography, concentrating on conceptual work. However digital art remains a passion and forms an integral part of her work. Deciding to move into the fine art market in April 2014, her first series “Self-Preservation” received several accolades including several images being listed as finalists for the Macquarie Photography Prize and “Cured” being announced as a semi-finalist for the Moran Photographic Prize. Her next series “Dancing with Costică” shot her to international exposure with features on over 150 prominent photography and general interest websites including ABC News US, Daily Mail UK, Daily Mail Australia, SLR Lounge, PetaPixel, Bored Panda and BuzzFeed as well as a number of photography magazines and Romanian TV! The series was exhibited at the Romanian Embassy in Canberra, Australia in March 2015 and December 2016, at the Romanian Photo Festival in May 2015 and she was selected as a core artist at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale in September 2015. Her work has also been shown at the Affordable Art Fairs in Stockholm, Hamburg, London, Singapore and Hong Kong through Retrospect Galleries. Interest in her personal work has continued as well as commercial work for Decca Records artist Aurora who commissioned her for the album artwork for her debut release “All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend” as well as other record and film poster works. In 2019 she was a finalist in the Click 19 photography awards and is a finalist in the Olive Cotton Award.