9:30am, Thursday, January 5, 2006.

With no commercial appointments this morning, and a relatively light schedule the balance of the day, I thought I might have a rare opportunity to shoot some 'creative' stuff for a change. It had been months since I shot anything that wasn't a commercial building or residential property. Anything different was most certainly welcome. And... I had a little time to kill.

I checked the National Weather Service forecast for Detroit: cloudy, a balmy 37degrees with a chance of snow showers as the day progresses.

Missing my chance to shoot a follow up to my 2004 photo-documentary “4 hours in Detroit” this past November (due to snow of all things!), I presumed my next opportune moment might not come until spring 2006. But despite the non-stop, sub-freezing conditions of December 2005, January had warmed enough, and for long enough, to melt nearly all the snow. And this morning, just an annoying drizzle fell from a cool slate sky.

Somehow I managed to locate the route notes I took from the previous 4hrs series a few days back, and with nothing but free time and the possibility of agreeable weather, I chose to drive some of the same areas I took in 2004. Provided the snow didn’t start falling early, I figured I’d have plenty of time to have another “good look around”... just to see what, if anything, had changed during the course of a year.

Note: most of the imagery contained on the following pages can be viewed in a larger format by simply clicking the image itself.