If you have had the pleasure of traveling to Sequoia National Park, you have seen some extraordinary beauty. The entire park is full of gorgeous trees, breathtaking views, and phenomenal scenery. Most of the trees in the park are thousands of years old allowing you to take in all of the history, age and wonder encompassing this magical area. There is a tree in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range east of Visalia, California located in the Sequoia National Park, that researchers estimate is about 3,200 years old. It measures in at 247 feet tall, which is surprisingly not the tallest tree in the world, that is a California redwood which measures in at a whopping 379 feet. If you take it to account all of the bark, branches and general size, this one is arguably the largest tree in the world. But, when doing research on a tree so large, it is impossible to obtain a photograph that shows the entire length of the tree. Leave it to National Geographic to make this possible though. I introduce you to the magnificently beautiful, and rightfully nicknamed, “President” tree.
This photograph above is actually a mosaic, made up of 126 photographs, in order to capture the stunning full-length shot of the President Tree.
According to one of the researchers, Steve Sillett, he states ‘We know that there are trees that have bigger trunks, but when you add up all of the wood beside the main trunk – all of the limbs, all of the branches, all of the bio-mass above the ground – this tree is likely the biggest,’
National Geographic wanted to capture a stunning photograph of the President tree in order to give its readers a real visualization in order to understand the sheer magnitude of this behemoth.
It took the National Geographic photography team a total of 33 days in order to capture all of the images necessary to create the mosaic.
Capturing the photograph was no easy task, watch the below video to see how it was done.
More info: National Geographic
National Geographic did not disappoint, that is for sure. The beautiful 5 page spread of the President tree can be found in their December, 2012 issue. “The reason we want to do these portraits – people get it. When they see the tree in its totality without distortion, they gasp,” said photographer Michael Nichols. Have you seen any living thing this large before? Where was it? I can only imagine what it is like to see the President tree in person. I imagine it would really put into perspective our size compared to some of the magnificent things sharing this planet. What are your thoughts?