City of Trees with Stephen McKenzie

Ancient red gums documented in photo essay

At a time of surging population growth in our municipality, local landscapes are changing. Believing that future generations should be able to see what places looked like centuries before, we commissioned Melbourne photojournalist Stephen McKenzie to create a photo essay for our Cultural Collection.

For three days Stephen drove around our suburbs ‘stopping to photograph stately, dramatic, gnarled, and stoic trees I formerly paid scant attention’. He marvelled at how they changed colours throughout the day, how some ‘danced in the wind’, while others ‘stood defiantly still’.

Stephen's City of Trees photo essay captures the beauty and uniqueness of these ancient trees across the City of Whittlesea and how, in pockets of suburbs such as Mernda and Doreen, the stunning red gums are integral to the streetscapes.

A letter to future generations

Stephen's photos were taken in May 2021, between Covid-19 lockdowns, at a time when Melbourne was expanding northward to the farmland areas of Mernda, Donnybrook and beyond.

In his letter to future generations, which accompanies the photo essay, Stephen notes the fields teaming with cranes, bulldozers and builders laying the infrastructure for massive new communities. He says that while many of these were exciting and sometimes visionary projects, the sad side effect was that many of the region’s iconic river red gums were felled.

Read Stephen's letter to future generations(PDF, 56KB)