THE LIVERPOOL TREE

Back in the late 70’s when I was a photography student working on my Liverpool “Vauxhall” project, I produced quite a number of images of trees. This subject had been an important one to me at that time. I very much viewed the tree as a metaphor for Liverpool itself. I actively looked out for trees that, like the city had been established and seen good times but had subsequently suffered, for one reason or another, and was showing signs of barely hanging on.

Some of the images came close to my ‘ideal’ example but none quite matched what I had in my mind. So for my degree show, I decided to do a composite where I picked the best tree from one location and grafted it on to a better background. Rather than do this photographically (I did not have the skill to do that at the time and of course Photoshop didn’t exist), I made a black and white pencil drawing. I have attached a photo of that drawing for your info as it was at the time the closest depiction of my concept of THE Liverpool tree.

Contributor: John McDonald