Description: in this posting I present 5 of my favorite wallpaper images, all of which feature a single, lonely tee typically surrounded by an expansive sky and/or field.

There is an image that I’ve been using as my wallpaper for a very long time of a single, lone tree in a brown field, illuminated by the brilliant orange of a sunset. I am not sure where I downloaded it, but it was featured in numerous screenshots that I have put up on Freewaregenius. This is probably my favorite wallpaper image ever, and works really well as a wallpaper because of the large single-color areas without much activity. Thankfully, I was able to find more information on this image by searching for its filename on Google, and was able to trace the photographer Michal Karcz’s page on deviantART (more nice photography there, including variations the tree theme). You can download a hi-res version of this wallpaper image here. (Note: the images that open when clicking on the thumbnails have all been degraded, but I am providing links to pages where you can find hi-res versions for all of these).

Now I usually do not put much effort into seeking wallpaper images, and am in fact inclined to use the original Windows XP “Bliss” wallpaper that is the default provided by Microsoft. However, every once in a while I will browse image/wallpaper sites out of curiosity. Thus I was browsing an image site and downloaded a handful of images, my favorite of which, once again, depicted a single lone tree surrounded by a vast expanse of sky and field. Unfortunatley this took place some time ago and I can no longer trace back what the site was that it came from, but you can download this image here.

But it was when a wallpaper image that a co-worker had on his machine caught my eye - again, of a single lone tree with a big expansive sky as its backdrop - that I was finally becoming conscious of a pattern. For some reason, I am drawn to this type of image; I am not sure why this is the case, or what ’meaning’ this image might have or be a symbol of (if you have ideas please share them in the comments section below). At my request my coworker emailed me the image and I was able to search for the filename on Google and find a link for it here.

Having become conscious of a the attraction that this type of image held for me, the idea came to me to create a posting about it on Freewaregenius. (It even occurred to me that when I reviewed Photoree, the image recommendation engine, I initially posted it as “Phototree” until someone pointed out the mistake).

I therefore set out to do some searching on Google for variants of “lone tree”, “lonely tree” and similar search strings. I wasn’t really expecting much, so imagine my surprise when I found a posting on a personal blog that explored the exact same subject. “I am not sure why I like pictures of lone trees”, the author wrote, ” … maybe I like them because its the contrast of the vertical objects to the horizontal background regardless of how ridiculous they are”. Hmmm. I’m not sure that this purely compositional analysis resonates with me at all, but I did like one of the pictures that he had chosen a lot, and I am including it in turn in my selection of lone trees. Interestingly, we had one image (the one from my coworker, above) in common. One thing that I want to say about this image is that I think I would have liked it much more without the row trees in the backgroud, but its still a very good one. To download this picture, go here.

Next I turned to some other photography resources that I like to explore this further and see if I can find other lone tree images. Interestingly, I found a “lonely tree” tag on Flickr, but although there were plenty of images there, there was scarcely a single one that I found powerful in the same way as the ones above (the two or three that captured my interest were not available as hi-res downloads and I disregarded them).

However, I did find one image on Flickr that caught my eye. This one is far too colorful for me to use as a wallpaper, but it is precisely the brilliant, vibrant colors that make it so interesting, and so beautiful to look at. Go here to download it.

Closing remarks: I will speculate about any symbolism or meaning in these images. You can always say that trees symbolize life, being rooted somewhere (and therefore belonging), but I think for me the relationship between sky and earth (and tree) is also impotant. I think these are as much about the sky as they are about the tree, and to some lesser extent they are also about the open fields.