Breathtaking photographs by Beth Moon capture world’s oldest trees illuminated by starlight

By Maha Hassan Last updated Mar 17, 2019

You might think rainfall and temperature are one of the greatest limiting factors for the growth of the trees. However, recent scientific studies prove that cosmic radiations are the main reason behind the existence of some the world’s oldest and most interesting trees in the world. This revelation led the San Francisco-based Photographer Beth Moon to discover the beauty of the ancient trees at night, against the extraordinary star-lit background of the sky.

Moon has been photographing the fascinating exquisiteness of ancient trees since the last 14 years but all those images were captured during the daylight. The photographer recently experimented photographing the trees at night and realized how the character of the age-old trees deepens with time, as the sun sets. Moon then initiated the “Diamond Nights” projects which focused on capturing old quiver and baobab trees in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia.

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The photographer discovered the subject of the images during the day and retraced them at night with the help of the collection of stones which she kept as an indicating mark.

As the images were captured, the artist also observed noticeable differences in the size and shape of the tree buds with respect to the constellation in the background. Hence, Moon dedicated each image’s title to the name of the constellation that was responsible for illuminating the ancient trees such as, Corvus, Hydra and Cetus.