

A 310-Foot Tree
Clip: 11/1/2025 | 2m 6sVideo has Closed Captions
An artist/photographer sets out to create a 310-ft portrait of a redwood tree.
Meet Sarah Bird, an artist who creates portraits of redwoods and other trees using art forms such as photography, drawing and sculpture. Her portraits are often true to scale, and her latest ambition is to create a 310-foot portrait of a 1500 year old redwood tree and display it in an urban setting. She just needs to figure out how to do it.
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A 310-Foot Tree
Clip: 11/1/2025 | 2m 6sVideo has Closed Captions
Meet Sarah Bird, an artist who creates portraits of redwoods and other trees using art forms such as photography, drawing and sculpture. Her portraits are often true to scale, and her latest ambition is to create a 310-foot portrait of a 1500 year old redwood tree and display it in an urban setting. She just needs to figure out how to do it.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- This grove is really extraordinary.
Something about being in the trees that tells me to like... Do less.
Go slow.
[gentle contemplative music] You know, maybe it just gets me out of myself, I don't know.
[camera shutter clicking] [gentle compemplative music] Trees have been the focus of my work for about 25 years.
Four or five years ago, I was taking photographs of old-growth redwoods, and I was physically sort of emotionally blown away, and I needed to understand what that was about.
The scale and the grandeur take us out of the daily stress of our lives.
[gentle contemplative music] The trees give us perspective.
I love sharing the experience and my enthusiasm and my kind of love of the trees.
And it's also complicated because there is nothing like this.
This experience of me standing here in this air and this incredible place, it can't be reproduced.
[birds chirping] So... What do I do?
[chuckles] I've made prints that are 10, 12 feet across and equally high, in which we see a portion of the tree, but in its true scale.
I bring that sculptural sense into the photographs, brings our physicality into it.
I'm looking to create that kind of visceral connection.
[gentle contemplative music] My latest ambition is to photograph and print an entire coast redwood tree life-size, so that's 320 feet or so, and to... [camera shutter clicking] [city traffic whooshing] bring it into the urban environment.
I think it can be really, really powerful.
[feet thumping lightly] [gentle contemplative music]
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: 11/1/2025 | 1m 39s | Meet a scientist who has dedicated his life to uncovering the genetic secrets of redwoods. (1m 39s)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: 11/1/2025 | 2m 10s | How spending time among redwoods and other trees sparks awe and enhances our well-being. (2m 10s)
Video has Closed Captions
Preview: 11/1/2025 | 30s | Discover the secrets of the redwoods -- the tallest and among the oldest living beings. (30s)
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