Baobab Avenue Photo

Photographer’s Note

This is the famous "Baobab Avenue" which lies about 30 miles east of Morondava, a town on the west coast of Madagascar. We drove this road on our way to the Kirindy nature reserve where we were to see varieties of lemurs and snakes and birds. This was a better piece of road, because for most of the journey we had to contend with enormous pot-holes and ruts which were really only negotiable with a four-wheel drive vehicle.

The Baobab tree is also known as "Baob" or "Monkey Bread Tree" or "Bottle Tree". They are also often referred to as “Upside-down Trees”. There are eight species of the genus Adansonia and these particular ones are Adansonia grandidieri. All eight of these species exist in Madagascar, one of the species exists in mainland Africa and another in Australasia.

The size of the trees can be judged by the comparison with the people in the picture. They have an enormous girth (12 to 20 feet in diameter) and their trunks contain large quantities of water. The baobab is not a useful source of wood though the fruit and leaves have been eaten. It is estimated that some of these trees can survive for 5,000 years.

AROBN54, mauricet, marjan, snunney, feather, WhiteRose, jarvmobile, Royaldevon, renerob, alonsote, skydive, broglia, Asiulus, ku-fotak-chtik has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

mpb001 (4600) 2007-05-19 20:34

Facinating shot, John. Nice rich, color and details of a scene many of us will not get to in person. TFS
Mike

honeto (609) 2007-05-19 21:42

Great shot. I have never seen this kind of trees before. Amazing, thanks for sharing!
Good POV and colors.
Hasan

AROBN54 (10755) 2007-05-19 23:12

Wow, what extraodinary trees!! And what a great shot you have of them. They almost look unreal. Great POV and superb colors. What an amazing sight. That is just so cool. Thsnks so much for the great photo and a good note to explain them. Kindest regards,
Shelly

marjan (6081) 2007-05-20 2:42

hi john, nice shot but too much noise on the sky. Interesitng and useful notice.
Marjan

snunney (34830) 2007-05-20 5:59

Hello John,
A very good perspective looking down the avenue of these interesting trees with their strange shapes. Good idea to include the people in picture to give a real sense of scale. Good colours and sharpness.

jhm (82461) 2007-05-20 7:16

Hello John,

You chose a very well angle, this gives a very nice perspective and fantastic depth, lovely with the specially trees beside the way, you did very well addition the people for the scale, very well done.

Best regards,
John.

feather (49860) 2007-05-20 16:30

Those trees are indeed a fantastic sight. the people eyou included are great for scale. This must be amazing to see in reality.
Kath

psychache (1831) 2007-05-21 8:42

Boababs are great and you have nice capture. TFS

WhiteRose (10) 2007-05-21 12:25

Hello John

Wow, what a stunning place. You've done it justice with your photo. The sky looks a little noisy but the colours are great.

Cheers

Richard

jarvmobile (569) 2007-05-21 16:11

Wow....I saw some of these trees in Africa when I was there but nothing like this. Amazing!

The composition is nice and I like the people giving aome indication of the size. And the colours, colours of Africa. Takes me back...

Thanks

Lisa

Royaldevon (5928) 2007-05-22 17:50

Hello John,
Great pov down the road which leads the eye deep into the shot. The trees look like giant mushrooms! Good detail and composition. Kind regards,
Bev :-)

jean11-3 (2799) 2007-05-23 15:27

Hello John, I have seen shots of these trees before but I think that yours is probably one of the best.Great POV,looking down the road and seeing so many close together is very impressive.
Good idea having the people for the scale of these trees.
Good colour.Informative note, tfs.
Best wishes Jean.

renerob (601) 2007-05-24 6:58

Hi John,
What a shot I've never seen trees like this, they are amazing and i do like the colour of the path way, the people show just how big these trees are fantastic shot John also i like your POV nice one,
Regards Irene

colibriav (1568) 2007-05-25 3:47

Hola John:
Magnifica las imagenes de los Baobab (Imbondeiros en Angola). Estos arboles me llamaron muchisimo la atencion cuando estube en Angola, en 1994. Es la imagen tipica para identificar Africa, el Imbondeiro y su tierra roja.
Un saludo desde España:
Pablo

alonsote (244) 2007-07-21 8:45

Hi John,
i had never seen this kind of trees before, It must be incredibly impressive be there. the scale of things loses its meaning looking at these trees.
regards
Alonso

skydive (111) 2007-08-28 16:30