Instagram is where discovery happens fast. A tree appears in the feed, in a story, in a quick comparison, in a photograph taken during a walk.

This site is where those observations become slower, searchable, and easier to revisit.

Here, a tree is not only an image. It can become a story, a species profile, a walk, a question, a memory, an absence, or a small entry point into urban ecology.

The goal is not to turn every reader into a botanist. The goal is to make trees easier to see, easier to name, and easier to appreciate in the places where everyday life happens.

A street tree is never just decoration. It gives shade. It marks the seasons. It changes the sound of a pavement. It hosts birds and insects. It softens hard surfaces. It becomes part of the identity of a corner, a square, a school entrance, a bus stop, or a street we cross without thinking.

And sometimes, when it disappears, we realise how much it had been doing for us.

TREES I SAW is for paying attention to that.

All the trees shared through the original project are photographed in black and white.

This is not only an aesthetic choice. It is a statement.

The natural world is full of colour, but the way we treat it often is not.

In cities, nature is frequently reduced to background, decoration, or something secondary to buildings, traffic, commerce, and speed. Trees are present, but they are not always truly seen. They give shade, oxygen, beauty, shelter, memory, and life, yet they are often treated as if they were optional.

Removing colour becomes a way of asking the viewer to look again.

When a tree appears without its expected green, something changes. We begin to notice its shape, texture, bark, shadow, structure, rhythm, scars, branches, roots, and presence. The image becomes quieter, but also more direct.

Black and white creates a small tension: trees, which we usually associate with colour and life, appear in a world that feels more fragile, more silent, and more urgent.

The absence of colour becomes a visual reivindication: a quiet protest, a reminder that something essential is missing when cities forget nature.

At the same time, the project is no longer only a personal archive. Through #treeisaw, other people are adding their own trees, their own cities, and sometimes their own colours.

That matters too.

If black and white is the project’s way of saying that our relationship with nature has lost colour, then the growing use of #treeisaw by others becomes a hopeful sign: the movement is gaining colour.

TREES I SAW uses black and white to say:

We need to see trees again.

We need to care for them.

We need more life in our streets.

And when others join in, with colour or without it, the message grows.

Every tree published through the project carries the hashtag #treeisaw.

At first, it sounds simple: this is a tree I saw. A tree encountered during a walk. A tree noticed from a bus stop, a street corner, a park, a square, or a neighbourhood route.

But the phrase also contains another sound: saw as in to cut.

That ambiguity matters.

A tree I saw can also remind us of a tree that was sawed. A tree that was removed before most people noticed it had become part of their daily landscape. A tree that gave shade until one day it did not. A tree that stood quietly in a place, until the place changed without asking.

This play on words became part of the identity of the project because TREES I SAW was born from loss.

One day, the tree near the bus station was cut down.

It was not a famous tree. It was not a monument. It was not necessarily the kind of tree people would travel to see. But it had been there. It belonged to the rhythm of an ordinary place. And when it disappeared, its absence became visible.

That moment changed the way the city was seen.

The hashtag #treeisaw is therefore both an archive and a warning. It gathers trees that are still here, while quietly remembering that they may not always be.

But it is also becoming something shared.

When other people use #treeisaw, the phrase opens up. It is no longer only about the trees I saw, but also about the trees we saw. Trees from other streets, other countries, other climates, other memories, other ways of looking.

Some people keep the black and white language. Others publish in colour. Both gestures are welcome.

The original absence of colour remains part of the project’s identity. But the colour brought by others shows that the idea is alive, moving, and growing beyond one account.

It says:

I saw this tree.

I noticed it.

I do not want it to disappear unnoticed.

And together, we are learning to see more.

This site brings together several kinds of content.

Blog essays

Short and long reflections about trees, streets, cities, seasons, memory, public space, and the small discoveries that happen while walking.

Some essays will begin with one tree. Others with a neighbourhood, a question, a colour, a leaf, a fruit, a shadow, a photograph, or an absence.

The blog is a space for observation. It does not rush to explain everything. It follows details, asks questions, and connects trees with the way we live in cities.

Tree Atlas

An expanding archive of urban trees seen in real places.

The Tree Atlas is not meant to be a complete scientific database. It is a living field notebook: species pages, identification notes, photographs, locations, visual details, and accessible explanations for people who want to recognise trees around them.

Each page aims to answer simple but useful questions:

• What tree is this?
• How can I recognise it?
• Where was it seen?
• What makes it interesting?
• What role does it play in the urban landscape?
• What would be missing if it disappeared?

The Tree Atlas is built from real encounters, not abstract lists. Every tree begins somewhere: on a pavement, beside a wall, in a square, near a school, along a road, beside a bus station, or in the middle of an ordinary walk.

Walk-based notes

Some trees are best understood as part of a route.

Walk-based notes collect observations from specific streets, parks, neighbourhoods, and city fragments. They are a way of reading the city through its trees: not as isolated specimens, but as companions along a path.

A walk can reveal patterns that a single photograph cannot: where shade appears, where trees disappear, where roots break the pavement, where birds gather, where people stop, where the city becomes softer.

Urban tree stories

Every tree has a context.

Some trees are connected to migration, memory, childhood, heat, shade, community, neglect, care, beauty, resilience, or disappearance. TREES I SAW looks for those connections without exaggerating them, allowing the ordinary presence of trees to become meaningful again.

A tree can be part of a personal memory, but also part of a shared public life. It can belong to a street without belonging to anyone. It can be passed by thousands of people and still remain almost invisible.

This site is a way of making some of those presences visible.

Because they are everywhere, but often unseen.

Because they are living infrastructure.

Because they make cities more breathable, more walkable, and more human.

Because a single tree can change the way a street feels.

Because learning the name of a tree can transform it from background into neighbour.

Because trees remind us that cities are not only made of concrete, glass, asphalt, and noise. They are also made of shade, roots, leaves, birds, insects, seasons, patience, and care.

Because when a tree is cut down, something more than wood is removed.

Because when a tree is noticed, something begins to change.

Because attention is a form of care.

The tone of TREES I SAW is warm, curious, accessible, and precise without becoming academic or generic.

This means:

• observation before opinion;
• curiosity before certainty;
• clear language before technical jargon;
• beauty without romanticising;
• ecological awareness without alarmism;
• botanical accuracy without losing wonder.

The writing here is for people who like trees, cities, photography, walking, nature, design, public space, and small details.

You do not need to know botanical terminology to enjoy the site. When technical words appear, they should help, not exclude.

The aim is not to sound like an encyclopedia. The aim is to help people look more closely.

@kundukundu began as a visual observation project: photographs of trees seen in streets, neighbourhoods, and everyday urban spaces.

Over time, it became more than a collection of images. It became a way of noticing how trees belong to the life of a city: how they frame buildings, soften concrete, create shade, mark seasons, and quietly shape the emotional atmosphere of a place.

The black and white language became part of that identity. It removes distraction, but it also carries a message. It says that nature should not be treated as an accessory to urban life. It asks for more attention, more respect, and more care.

The hashtag #treeisaw gave that visual language a name. It joined together the trees that were seen and the trees that might one day be lost.

Now, as more people use the hashtag, the project is also becoming a shared invitation. Other people bring their own trees, their own places, and sometimes their own colours. The movement is gaining colour, not by losing its original meaning, but by becoming wider.

TREES I SAW continues that work in a slower format.

The Instagram account remains the place for visual discovery, quick stories, comparisons, and community interaction. This site becomes the archive, the notebook, the atlas, and the space for deeper exploration.

Look up.

Notice the leaves above the street.

Notice the bark, the fruit, the roots, the shade, the birds, the cracks in the pavement, the way a tree changes the corner around it.

Notice what happens when a city has trees.

Notice what happens when it does not.

Share the trees you see.

Use #treeisaw if you want to add your own tree to the growing archive.

In black and white, in colour, in your street, in your city, in your way.

The city is full of trees.

This is a place for the ones I saw.

And maybe, for the ones we saw together.