I spent July of 2006 in Rome teaching a course in art and architecture. While there I ventured out to Tivoli to see Hadrian's Villa. I was amazed at how enormous the estate of this former Roman Emperor was. It went on for acres and acres with the crumbling ruins of buildings, vast ponds and pools, and everywhere you looked, ancient gnarled olive trees. I have been told that olive tree are able to live for incredibly long periods of time, and these look like they may have been around when the buildings there were getting their first coat of paint. They reminded me of figures in variously twisted and anguished poses. I probably took as many photos of the trees as I did of the rest of the ruins, and when I developed the film I had shot some of them in color and some in black and white. I have reproduced all of them here in black and white because I like the contrast, and trees become more about compositon.
