Creative Commons Photo Remix: Tree of Life Collage

October 05, 2025

Creative Commons Photo Remix: Tree of Life Collage

Six various images from Creative Commons sources of roots, bark, trees, branches, and blossoms, in various seasons, are edited on a black background to form the shape of a cross. From bottom to top: (1) an image of tree roots with fall leaves on the ground, (2) Lower middle image: oak bark; (3) Middle image: a Washington oak tree in the summer; (4) Left of middle: three frozen branches; (5) Right of middle : leaves of a Japanese maple blooming in spring; (6) Top image: the crown of a palm tree reaching into the open sky.

Using copyright free images from a Creative Commons Search Portal, I chose six photographs of tree-related imagery to form a collage. I call this collage "Tree of Life," a representation of the Biblical/mythical tree of life found in the center of the Garden of Eden. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Tree of Life, or just need a brush up on the mythology and symbolism, the fruit of this tree is what sustained Adam and Eve's immortality in the Garden. Once they were banished for their sins, they were no longer permitted to eat of this tree and were condemned to live as all of us must--as mortals. The tree also pops up again in the Bible's final book, Revelation, where it is restored to humanity in the center of New Jerusalem after the Second Coming. I've always found it fascinating how Christianity was quite malleable in the first millennia or so after its founding. For instance, Christian writers, artists, and architects incorporated many tree motifs and symbols that appealed to practicioners of various polytheistic religions (which, no doubt, made converting to Christianity easier on them). I arranged these various tree-related images into the shape of a cross to capture the essence of this unity between that which came before Christ and that which came after, and I chose images from all four seasons to reflect the passage of time that we must all experience as a condition of our mortality.

Image Credits from Bottom to Top of the Collage:

(Bottom) "Tree roots" by Tim Green aka atoach is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

(Bottom-Center) "Tree Bark Texture 04" by SixRevisions is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

(Center) "the oak tree" by oliver.dodd is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

(Left-Center) "Freezing Rain on Tree Branch" by Nicolas M. Perrault is marked with CC0 1.0.

(Right-Center) "Leaves of Friendship" by CarbonNYC [in SF!] is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

(Top) "Palm tree" by Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar is licensed under CC BY 2.0.