Jill has started volunteering at Soul Studio in West Bloomfield. Just one day a week, but the journey can be horrific, involving multiple freeways; so bad in fact, she was having to contemplate abandoning the whole idea. I offered to chauffeur her, and today was the first day. I’d been vaguely thinking there must be somewhere local to make photographs while awaiting the return trip, and it was almost literally as we were leaving the house that I found the West Bloomfield Nature Reserve. The looping trails only add up to 2.1 miles, but it is crossed by the West Bloomfield Trail, which is 7 miles long. The loops seem well maintained and there are lots of ponds and trees and even the start of a tributary of the River Rouge. After considering the excellent maps on site, I decided to go round the reserve’s trails.

There is a large pond, just completely green with algae. I thought the old tree trunks emerging from the water had a nice sense of mystery, one even looked like an otter, but it definitely does not succeed.

I should have said, the whole reserve is very wooded, in what looks like a relatively natural way. I liked the light coming through the trees.

I was attracted to the bare fallen limb. I was up on bank and I tried using some tilt on the lens to get the foreground in focus as well as the stream and trees.

I hope to come again, and if it can be a regular thing, I might capture something of the passing seasons.