The bottom half of the frame is all trees. The light of a summer midday bounces white off the treetops, and the shade beneath sinks in dark, so that the green forms several layers. A few roofs and one red brick house barely show through the leaves, and no roads or people are visible.
The city stands far off as a thin band. A dome and a few glass buildings raise their heads above the tree line, and above them is a sky without a single cloud. What the photographer made the subject is clear. Not the buildings, but the green holding the buildings up.
City trees make shade, cool the heat and catch the rainwater. The roots grip the soil, and the leaves move carbon from the air into their bodies bit by bit. All of this goes on without a sound, every day, inside those layers of leaves.
A scene like this does not come about on its own. Someone planted them there, decided not to cut them down, and gave them time to grow. It takes decades for a tree planted today to reach the thickness in the photograph.
At the lower left, where the leaf shade is deepest, a bicycle stands parked. The saddle is empty and the pedals are not turning. It looks like a trace of someone who stepped into the shade for a moment to escape the midday heat and stopped the wheels. While the glass buildings far off throw the light back, what let a person's day rest was those few layers of green.
Looking at the photograph again, the forest holds the city rather than the city holding the forest. Which of the two is closer to the view outside the windows of the neighborhoods we live in.
