Spellbound

Walking back home through the back streets of Cardiff I was struck one by how large and bright the moon was that night. Its strange, pale light lit the night and cast an unearthly glow upon the streets below. I was instantly spellbound.

Taking pictures that night I followed the moon. Capturing passing street lights and strangers, shadow filled roads and the buildings that had been caught in the glare of these strange and beautiful lights.

Buildings became haunted houses, passing strangers became romantic and other and trees became arcane and occult bewitched by the light of the moon.

For that night the streets of Cardiff weren't the same, for that one night the city wasn't the same. Under that unearthly night everything became spellbound.

The golden glow of autumn

Autumn has fully rolled in now and with it came mist and long golden nights. I took the opportunity to explore the streets of camera as it did so.

I hadn't tried my had at softening the focus of my pictures in a while but with the world outside covered in a layer of mist I decided it was the perfect chance to do so. I took the urban streets as my starting subject but slowly that changed as my route led me towards the rivers of Cardiff.

Railways, road, houses and power lines slowly gave way to trees, plants, reflections and water all shining in the gold of nearby street lamps. The world is heading towards autumn once again all shining in the gold glow of autumn.

The silhouettes of summer

Now and again I like to push myself to explore new styles and ways of taking pictures. I do like a more abstract style but there are times when it find myself getting bored of the same subject again and again. It was in this mood that I set out to the park.

I remember when I was younger playing a video game on the library computers, it was a simple click around the room game but one of the bits in it had me entranced. There was a painting in one of the rooms showing a barefooted lady outside silhouetted against the sky at dusk. When you clicked the image classical music played and she began to run as behind her the seasons changed from autumn to winter to spring. For something so simple it was utterly enchanting.

It was a sequence that stayed with me and actually inspired me to create this series of images. I wanted to recreate that feeling of wonder, of magic to the world. I wanted to paint vivid silhouettes against a vibrate sky. And is often is the case with my photography I wanted to create something utterly lovely and moving. A chance to create the silhouettes of summer forever running against a painted sky.

The woods of strange impressions

It has been a while since I had done any abstract photography. Most of the things I had done recently had been focused on charities, urban decay and brightly coloured skies or objects.

I therefore felt like I wanted to reconnect with a artist subject I am passionate about. The only problem I had was that I had been feeling the need to push myself in new directions. After all this was a subject that I had covered so thoroughly it was actually beginning to bore me.

It turned out that taking these photos at a different time a day was just what was needed to inspire me. It was dusk when I started and the street lights were just beginning to be turned on.

This changed the black and golds I normally worked with into vibrant greens, white and orange. Subtle hints of purples rose from the ground and flashes of yellow came as the evening light hit the trees.

I used a mixture of delicate moments, circles and zooms as well as violent jerks and hard crash pans on subjects to create a series of images designed to evoke the feel of a painted forest of strange and beautiful impressions.