Two pictures, two pines

Two pictures with the same three ingredients - and taken at the same place... Same two collected pines, and same bonsai amateur! (Me.) I don't know exactly when the first picture was taken, but it must be more than ten years ago. In this picture you can see the top of a small bush behind the left pine - in the second picture (from today) that bush has grown to a tree - the three trunks you see behind the same pine.

Although I hate to myself in a picture, it is sometimes comforting to see old pictures like this. When I think my bonsai are never good enough, I can look at an old picture and say "at least the trees are better than they were before". At least the wooden box and plastic bucket has been exchanged for bonsai pots...