A digital photographic method is presented which is able to reconstruct the profile of the stem on standing trees up to a height of 12 m and to provide a fine level of detail. The method uses two digital photographs taken at 90° to each other and does not require special illumination conditions. A method is proposed to perform the data acquisition process from the two photographs and to transform the stem dimensions and 3-D position from pixels to units of length. The accuracy of this method for measuring tree shape was tested by comparing the results with those obtained from a laser system. The comparison showed that the photographic method provides a good assessment of standing tree shape.