Our planet is beautiful.

In fact, most of us have absolutely no idea just how lucky we are to live on Earth.

So far, our planet is the only one in the known universe capable of sustaining life as we know it. This makes Earth a special place, but there are many other things about Earth that make it a planet unlike any other.

When was the last time you took half an hour from your busy schedule to contemplate the world around you? Maybe just go to the beach, and watch the sunrise? Go to the lake and listen to nothingness?

When was the last time you took a nice long walk—leaving your cell phone at home—in a park, a forest, or went hiking or on a picnic?

The truth is that our extremely rapid way of life has made us slaves of ourselves, slaves of time, slaves of society, slaves that live life completely blindfolded, ignoring the beauty that surrounds us every single day.

Earth is beautiful, and as society moves deeper into a technological era, we forget how to appreciate our surroundings, and how lucky we are to call Earth our home planet.

Beth Moon understood just that when she decided to venture out on a 14-year-long journey to photograph our planet’s oldest trees. The results? mind-boggling images that will help you appreciate Earth like never before.

Trees are special. Each one is unique. Each one is magical on its own.

Beth Moon—a photographer based out of San Francisco—traveled around the globe to capture some of that magic. Her trip took her to different places and allowed here to record some of the most remarkable ancient trees that she found.

Her unforgettable trip took her to countless places; the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. She dared go where many others would not in order to take that perfect photograph. Some trees she photographed grow in isolation, on remote mountainsides, private estates, or nature preserves; others maintain a proud, though often precarious, existence in the midst of civilization.

“Standing as the earth’s largest and oldest living monuments, I believe these symbolic trees will take on a greater significance, especially at a time when our focus is directed at finding better ways to live with the environment” explains Beth Moon.

The results of her 14-year-long journey were later published in a book called: “Ancient Trees: Portraits Of Time”.

This handsome volume presents nearly seventy of Moon’s finest tree portraits as full-page duotone plates. The pictured trees include the tangled, hollow-trunked yews—some more than a thousand years old—that grow in English churchyards; the baobabs of Madagascar, called “upside-down trees” because of the curious disproportion of their giant trunks and modest branches; and the fantastical dragon’s-blood trees, red-sapped and umbrella-shaped, that grow only on the island of Socotra, off the Horn of Africa.

Enjoy in these incredible images:

(H/T aNewKindOfHuman.com)

Source: Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time by Beth Moon