Dream beneath
the desert sky.

A History

In December of 1986, Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn set out with the members of U2 on a several day journey across the desert landscape with the purpose of shooting the artwork for their upcoming untitled album. On the evening after the first day's shooting, Corbijn told the band about Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia), hardy and twisted plants in the deserts of the American Southwest, and he suggested the inclusion of them in the album’s artwork. The following day, Bono declared that the album should be titled The Joshua Tree. The following morning while driving on Route 190 near Darwin, they spotted a lone-standing tree in the desert. Corbijn had been hoping to find a single tree, as he thought it would result in better photographs than if he shot the band amongst a group of trees. They stopped the bus and photographed with the lone plant for about 20 minutes, something the Edge called "fairly spontaneous"

That spontaneous 20 minute photo session forever tied the Yucca brevifolia with the band. 1987’s “The Joshua Tree” became one of the world’s best selling albums and is frequently listed amongst the greatest albums of all time. In 2014, “The Joshua Tree” was selected for preservation in the US National Recording Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress.

A Future

While the songs on The Joshua Tree have been recorded for preservation, sadly the album’s namesake lies dead on the desert floor of the Mojave Desert. Estimations speculate that the tree fell in the year 2000 and in that time fans of the band have come from all over the world to experience this hallowed ground.

The goal of this project is to digitally preserve this piece of musical history through 3D recreation. In January 2020, I visited the location of this historic site and took 3,937 photographs of the tree and its surroundings in order to construct a perfect 3D model recreation.

Pictures were taken to capture every inch of of the tree in its current state. Using the process of Photogrammetry the goal of this project is to recreate the site in Virtual Reality so fans across the world who will never have the chance to visit the remote physical location can have the chance to take a closer look at the tree and experience how hundreds of U2 fans have honoured this site.