Why photograph city trees? Why, when the light licks the façades of buildings, accentuating their lines, drawing the contrast between the ordered, geometric forms of their architecture and those of the fractal silhouettes of trees, my gaze tirelessly turns. Where does this recent imperative to plant trees along our boulevards and avenues come from? Beyond their refreshing shade on hot summer days, what does their presence tell us? What does it tell us? What does it evoke? Our forest roots? The necessary presence of a chirping urban fauna? Without them, how would we see the seasons? Time markers? "Forests were the first temples of the Divinity, and in forests men got the first idea of architecture". Chateaubriand, Génie du Christianisme (1802)