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Wily South Africans clean up scenic landscape with clumsy attempt to disguise cellphone towers as trees

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South African cellphone tower disguised as a tree

South African photographer Dillon Marsh’s latest photographic series tipped us on to some hidden gems that we most likely would have never noticed – cellphone towers disguised as trees.  The cellphone infrastructure often provides an incompatible fit with our typically scenic landscapes but those wily South Africans devised an interesting and to some, funny, solution to the problem.  Beginning in 1992, they began disguising cellphone towers as trees.

As Marsh pointed out:

“In certain cases the disguised towers might not be noticed.  But then an undisguised tower might not have been noticed either.”

To dress up a cell tower in plastic foliage can cost up to $150,000, four times the cost of a naked mast and the clumsy results are oft times comical, introducing yet another “invasive species” to the mix of indigenous plants.  Check out the photo montage below.

Sources: Dillon Marsh, Wired Magazine, Wikipedia
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