What she showed me left me speechless. This pine tree — my God! Over four meters trunk circumference, that's quite a statement. I shot Raphaella there back then, but the tree's true size? It didn't come across in my pictures at all. I would've had to back up forty meters for the full shot. Then Raphaella would've been just a pixel, and that wasn't exactly the plan.
What really pissed me off: All those names carved into the bark. You know those types who used to stick their gum under school desks? Complete assholes like that drive me nuts. Some things just never change.
Years later… 2016, Ibiza again. I'm picking up my assistant from the airport, we're cruising around the island a bit. And bam, we're standing in front of this tree again. What a coincidence! So I shot Playmate Charlotte there too.
The tree and I, we were slowly becoming buddies.
Then came 2022, working on my book Mellow. It was pouring buckets, fourteen degrees Celsius, a medium-sized disaster for nude photography. But I thought: Maybe the tree will protect us from the rain. So I drove to my tree with Tezz. And lo and behold — in these photos you can finally see what a giant it really is. It became a fantastic calendar motif, despite the weather.
Last year then: My model cancels last minute and I'm stuck on Ibiza. What do you do? Right, you visit old friends. So back to the tree.
But something was off. It seemed… more tired?
Back home I did some research. What I dug up is truly astonishing:
Let that sink in. When this tree began to sprout, people were still building castles. Plague and cholera weren't even properly in fashion yet. Columbus hadn't even dreamed of America. And this pine? Was already standing there, growing leisurely along.
In 2023, a nasty storm had really done a number on the old lady. And then those pigeons! They've crapped all over half the tree. Do you get used to that after seven hundred years? I doubt it.
Sometimes I think about how many photographers have already stood under these branches. Wedding couples, families with screaming kids, drunk tourists with selfie sticks, and me with my naked models. The tree has seen it all. It's the ultimate witness to time. Has watched as the sleepy hippie island became a jet-set paradise. How dirt roads became streets and crooked fincas became million-euro villas.
Hopefully it'll stand for a few more centuries. If you're ever on Ibiza and have half an hour to spare — go there. The Pi ver de Can Besuró stands in Sant Miquel de Balansat and has been officially protected as natural heritage since 2003.
And who knows, maybe we'll meet there sometime. I'm the guy with the camera who keeps a respectful distance and definitely doesn't carve names into the bark.