A sun enthroned in heaven

"An image of the sun enthroned in heaven, radiating one thousand beams of light:
Were one to shower bright rays of light upon all beings, how exellent." - The Seventh Dalai Lama

Light plays a very important role in my work, its something I find tremendous beauty, divinity and inspiration in. I look at people like Turner and I find inspiration in the way artist like these captured the subtle interplay it creates in our world.

Spiritually I find it very uplifting as well, I see God in the way that the sun comes out from behind the clouds and the way that street light comes through trees.

Its something I'm always trying to capture and never quite reaching, this sun enthroned in heaven.

The emerald heart of the forest

Its no secret for me to say that I love nature, I never feel more alive then when I'm out surrounded by trees, streams, rocks and rivers. I love the way that light falls through leaves, the way that barns and buildings become reclaimed. Ivy and brambles slinking into the cracks and binding everything in green.

The sound of birds above me and the song of the brook running over stones. Rustling leaves and the sound of rabbits brushing the undergrowth. Th dappling of sunlight passing through clouds. The wind, the rain, the sun and the forest, nature has its own living beating emerald heart.

And step by step man is killing it, encroaching further and further upon it and pushing it further and further back to its boundries to a pint of no return and it breaks my heart. Nature is precious and beautiful and like anything precious and beautiful it should be preserved. We should spend more money on it, build gardens around it, use less harsh chemicals on it and protect more of it.

This is the only way we can protect that most precious jewel, the emerald heart of the forest.

A charcoal sky

For the first few months of spring I decided to go out and try and capture the mood of the season. Unfortunately that mood had been predominately one of cold, sleet and steely grey skys. And while this wasn't idea for exploring or taking holidays it was perfect for capturing moody dramatic pictures of the sky.

Under this chrome dome branches from the trees spread capillary like over clouds and man made monuments alike. In the background the building sat like black sentries. It was a beautiful and apocalyptic world to explore with my camera.

As I wandered I took my time to sketch shade and light, capture contours, branches and leaves. In other words I changed the world with my camera and with it drew a charcoal sky.

The swamp waters

Down by where I work are some swampy waters to which I sometimes go, filled as they are with rushes, reeds, trees and tangled beds of roots. Fish swim in their murky depth and sometimes I can imagine that stranger, larger creatures prowl just below the surface of the waters.

Sometimes I am joined by a single solitary heron who patiently stalks the water looking for any fish who are foolish enough to pass by beneath it.

Water drips down from a grey sky creating ripples in the waters below, the reflections on the waters surface momentarily disrupted.

Its somewhere I go when I want to think, to watch a world quietly going by without a man or woman to disturb it.

And in these strange swampy waters briefly I find peace.

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.

A beautiful blur

 Sometimes I forget why I do photography and need to be reminded. See its not for me about the pictures I take when I travel (although I enjoy that) or about experimenting. For me I'm most alive when taking pictures when the photo I'm taking speaks to my soul and most of the time it does that when its abstract, when the world is a beautiful blur of color and motion.

I went out tonight and I took photos for me, I twisted the camera trying to create the images I wanted. To capture the feeling that would refresh my soul and for me that's not found in static images or people protraits but in an abstract expression of how truely beautiful the world is.

When the world you capture with your camera is a beautiful, colourful blur its all you need to keep the art in your soul alive.

The drowned woodland

 My work with reflections led me this week to explore the idea of nature and woodland being merged with water and rivers. I've always loved places where two things meet, whether its where the sea meets the land, urban street clashes with plants and trees or in this case the place where wood meets water.

Reflections contain that possibility, to merge and project, to create surreal images that twist and distort. To marry these desperate elements. In this case it involved finding a patch of land that met an body of water still and shallow enough to blend these disparate elements.

By following the streams and rivers near my local parks I was able to find such places. To create images where these two worlds met, clashed and finally merged into each other. In these places I was able to create the illusion of the drowned woodland.

The witches fingers

Hampered by a series of delays when it came to my blog posts and inspired by the cold and stormy weather out my front door. I decided to head outside to explore the effects that could be captured when the trees had lost their leaves.

The effects were rather eerie, thin branches reached across the sky seeking to claw the moon from the horizon. Tangles of branches caught on fire under the glare of golden neon light.

Sometimes the tangle of branches almost seemed to become a series of veins and arteries that threaded their way through the body of the night.

It was a eerie time to be photographing these witches fingers reaching across the night.