The City’s Forest

Perhaps it’s just because I enjoy framing street scenes, or perhaps it’s because the latest Find Your Eye lesson is on starting a series, but I stumbled on a new series topic in my photography last week: The city’s forest.

I first noticed an interest in capturing these trees planted along the street when we visited Hood River, Oregon a couple of months ago. I was attracted to the light and shadow. The shape of the tree contrasted with the shapes of the architecture. The interaction of these bits of nature brought into our hard, urban world. It’s as if we know we need the trees at some deeper visceral level, so we mark out spaces in regular intervals along our streets to make room for them. They shelter our path from the sun in the summer and the rain in the fall. They provide color and beauty. They are silent witnesses to the lives bustling under and around them. They survive and thrive, even where we neglect them.

Can you imagine our neighborhoods and towns without these trees? I can’t. Or maybe I can, but I don’t want to. I am always sad when a tree lining a street dies or has to be cut down. The trees we plant are physical extensions of the heart of a place, and something changes when a tree is lost.

I’m on the hunt now, to capture the city’s forest. To celebrate the life of these trees in manmade places.