It's That Time of Year Again
Peter Marlow
G.B. ENGLAND. London. Clerkenwell. Discarded christmas trees after January 6th. Cutting up the family tree. 2004. © Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos
I have just spent an hour and a half with a saw and many plastic rubbish bags clearing up the family Christmas tree at home in London. Not my favorite job, as my children, safely out of the way at school, think we have same tree, called "Charlie", each year. "Charlie" gets collected after Christmas and sent to Scotland to be re planted, so each year it has to come back bigger, and this year, at three metres plus, it was almost impossible to transport it up the stairs!
Click image for a larger view. The lost Christmas trees of Clerkenwell, London. © Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos
It is also at this time of year that the area I live in in London is dotted with abandoned trees simply dumped on the street to be collected and re-cycled by the local council. In 2005 I made a short collection of pictures of this phenomenon, which is I am sure repeated all over the world.
I hope my children don't read the Magnum Blog!
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Reader comments (12)
Your reportage shows well why we should *not* cut down a tree just to keep it in our home for 2 weeks and then throw it away. Is our life so much worse without a Christmas tree?
Comment posted by Ahto T. on January 8, 2008
Funny! Fantastic idea to photograph. Here in Austria we have some "collecting places" at the street where everybody puts their tree.
Comment posted by Daniel K. Gebhart on January 9, 2008
"I hope my children don't read the Magnum Blog!"
Why only your children?
Comment posted by Martin on January 9, 2008
Wow. I had no idea that Londoners liked their Christmas trees so much.
Over here in Canada, we have tree farms just for Christmas trees, so there's a sense of it being a renewable resource. I live just outside of the city (Montreal) in a suburban residential area, and all we have to do is toss it at the end of the driveway on the appointed day and a truck comes along and whisks it away. They're ground up and used for compost for the town's flower beds.
Comment posted by Ed Hawco on January 9, 2008
As I was a little snippy this morning, I should explain that I have not so much a problem with Peter's Lost-Christmas-Tree-Project..
Although IMO it is not so exciting.
But we all do a lot of work, that is not so exciting.
I am just a bit disappointed that Magnum is not in a position to operate the blog regularly with more interesting topics.
Probably, I'm too naive, to much imposed to the myth of Magnum.
No offence, Peter!
Martin
(Please excuse my bad englisch)
Comment posted by Martin on January 9, 2008
haha! all these trees tell me a little stories about their origin.
top row, second from left: moses, left with care hoping that a generous soul will pick it up and give it a second chance at life.
top row, first on right: tree running away from its abductor
next to top row, second and fourth trees: trees teetering home after too much eggnog at the office party.
the tree in the lowest left hand corner looks like it was abducted, killed, and "dumped" by a serial killer. maybe someone should call the authorities. 0_0
Comment posted by rosa on January 9, 2008
Here's a nice idea that some folks in Dublin enacted a couple of years ago - planting all the discarded trees in the beach on the day that they were deposited for collection by the council (the collection point was right by the beach).
Some pix can be seen here http://andrewcondon.smugmug.com/gallery/1129497
Comment posted by Andrew Condon on January 9, 2008
I didn't want to comment on this blog entry, because I found these Christmas tree photos by Peter Marlow to be so pedestrian that I wanted to scream -- and I'm tired of making negative comments on the Magnum blog. But then non-Magnum photographer Andrew Condon posted a link to his photos of discarded Christmas trees. Wow. Great stuff, Andrew: weird, magical, engaging, and creative -- just what I would expect from a premier photographer at the world's most venerable agency!
Comment posted by Terry Carroll on January 10, 2008
I think this is a hilarious set of photographs and a great idea. It's fresh Peter! Always love your blog entries!
Comment posted by Lea Kast on January 12, 2008
why people do that? don't know, but I know, why did you make that photos ;)
Comment posted by Artur Rawicz on January 12, 2008
I had the idea of a serial about disposed christmas trees around christmas eve already. Unfortunately in Heidelberg, Germany the used trees were being collected no more than January 12th. In London the christmas trees appearently have been recycled already... and Peter Marlow had the same idea.
Now I'm no more fancy to do that serial... well...
Comment posted by pgs on January 14, 2008
Do say ad nauseam that when all else fails, trees always sell like hotcakes. Anybody left at Magnum making photos of anything moving that moves? No, I don't mean naked tits & ass.
Comment posted by Stupid Photographer on January 31, 2008