Heart of the Dragon Image by Beth MoonSan Francisco-based photographer Beth Moon shares images from her 14 year journey to document some of the world’s most precious assets: our rarest trees. Moon’s frankly feminine trees remind us of a time when goddesses ruled human psyches.

Beth Moon employs a labor-intensive platinum and palladium process for her prints, creating images that possess incredible detail and tonal range on the spectrum of grays, blacks and whites. Like so many artists featured on AOC, Moon hopes her art with put humans in closer touch with nature.

“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, celebrating the wonders of nature that have survived throughout the centuries,” Moon writes in her artist statement. “By feeling a larger sense of time, developing a relationship with the natural world, we carry that awareness with us as it becomes a part of who we are. I cannot imagine a better way to commemorate the lives of the world’s most dramatic trees, many which are in danger of destruction, than by exhibiting their portraits.”

Avenue of the Baobabs Image by Beth Moon