Caroline A.'s red berry tree

The wind is up, the sun shines, the leaves fall and the light changes minute by minute. My first portrait was of Martin L., a local publisher, who was and was very involved in helping to structure and enable community organisations, especially Community Land Trusts. We hadn't met before and had a lot we could have talked about, but nboth of us had busy schedules. He allowed me to take him out to the small lane behind his business premises and I took a few pictures which will do for the book project, but on reflection I wish I'd could have found a better location where the light was more suitable.

But I had to rather rush off to my next portrait appointment with Caroline A. who lives outside of town in the adjacent parish of Rodborough. She has been very involved for many years in the Stroud Valleys Project, which has been one of the key community organisations in Stroud concerned about environmental issues and working with young people and other member of the wider community. Many of the people I have been photographing for the book have been involved in several of the different organisations that we are featuring, and their presence has been very influential in many ways. I hope the stories in the book about their various activities will capture their spirit and the determination that they have all shown to bring about positive changes for the community.

We went into Caroline's back garden which was a wonderful jungle of leaves, flowers and dangling fruits, particularly pears and apples. Caroline had to dash inside just before we started taking her picture, so I had a minute to spare. My eye was immediately taken by these wonderful red hanging berries which were dancing in the strong wind. I only took a couple of pictures and only a couple of them are reasonably sharp in this picture. But I was delighted to see the colours and the strange optical shapes that have been recorded here. I fear that autumn's strong gales that are beginning are going to rapidly denude these scenes, so I will blip it for posterity.

If you go Large, you might just see the intricate shape of the red berry at the centre left of the picture, one of the few that are reasonably sharp. I think they are the fruits of the Japanese Dogwood 'Satomi' (Cornus kousa), which robins like eating!