Broken glass and falling stars

 After a warm month of May I decided to go out and about taking pictures of what I could find outdoors. But despite the beauty of the natural world around me what I ended up being drawn to were the puddles upon the ground around me.

They reflected the sun and clouds beautifully and tinged with oil and blown by the wind the reflections they produced unraveled and became abstract shapes and patterns upon the ground.

Broken glass and fallen stars exploded in their depths or morphed to become some strange moon filled sky. I was enraptured by the abstract beauties they produced.

And so even though I set out to capture the beauty of May I caught in puddles broken glass and falling stars.

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 world at the bottom of every pool

“Why, if we can get back to our own world by jumping into this pool, mightn’t we get somewhere else by jumping into one of the others? Supposing there was a world at the bottom of every pool.”

C.S Lewis - The Magician's Nephew

 

I've sometimes had a secret fantasy that one day when passing by a particularly clear watery reflection that I would jump in and instead of emerging soaked I would continue to fall directly into another world, one of fantasy and magic.

Of course its just a fantasy but when I set out recently to take photos its something I bore in mind as I scoured the streets looking for puddles that reflected the world around me.

Its been raining non stop for the last week and the UK is groaning under the weight of all the water that has poured down upon the streets.

Out of all this bad weather however came the most amazing opportunities for photography as black and gold patches of water stretched across its lanes.

And though it was challenging, through patient effort I was able to create a number of images that reflected this fantasy. A series of photos which hinted that the depth of these reflections held something more. At a world at the bottom of every pool.

Night by the riverside

On the weekend I took the bus up to my local park, I had felt a desire to take pictures on the riverside there for a while but hadn't got the chance until this weekend. But I stopped procrastinating and actually took the trip there.

The night had transformed what was a tranquil area in day time into something quite otherworldly by the cover of darkness. I met with a friend and wandered this suddenly wild world. The street lamps along the way made each path leading into the darkness into a living fairy tale. One where a fey and strange creature could lay in wait to pounce at any moment.

The tree branches stretched over the river over a grey and purple sky. And in that moment I could imagine that in that night I was on a silent road by the river that would lead to grandmothers house where the big bad wolf would devour me whole and where the fey folk would ride out across a bruised sky.

On a night by the riverside the world was suddenly filled with dark and mysterious magic.

The sky in the lakeside

I decided to focus on my abstract reflection work again this week, as the last few posts I had done had mostly focused on travel or realistic subject matters. I had noticed on my way into work that I passed a particularly beautiful lake with some lovely reflections.

Setting out with my camera I decided to focus on creating a series of dreamy images of the sky. I've felt in the past that looking up into the sky gives the impression of gazing into some great ocean through which a vessel could glide across a great blue silent sea.

This was what I wanted to create by that lakeside, the dream that instead of standing looking at a lake you might be gazing at another world, one where the horizon and the water's edge blur and becomes instead a never ending sky of water and wind.

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.

Ripples in the water

A few years ago this blog would most likely have been covered in photos of watery reflections. I've moved on a bit since then but every now and then I like to revisit that particular obsession of mine.

I found myself chilling out in a park in Cardiff recently and after finding a particularly lovely river I decided to take some pictures of the reflections on it

What I like about going back to old subjects and seeing how my style has evolved and changed. Where once I would have obsessed over creating a perfectly clear reflection I now found myself drawn to how the ripples on water distorted and added to the reflections found on the river.

By doing this I felt like I was able to take an older more familiar subject like reflection work and put new wrinkles on it. Like ripples on the water time has changed the way I work with this subject and that can only be a good thing.

Aquarelle

Painting using photography has started to become a minor obsession of mine recently. The idea that you can use a medium famed for its realism and create surreal painted images appeals immensely for me.

Maybe it comes from the idea of rebelling against an expected norm. Thou must use a tripod at night, thou must produce images with mainstream appeal, thou must be able to sell on stock photography websites or follow certain rules. Well why? Art hasn't followed the same processes and procedures, they haven't kept the same static rules and regulations. As much as modern art can be detestably pretentious sometimes, at least it dares to push the boat out and ask what is art? Isn't it time we did the same thing with our photographs?

Maybe its my love of night time as a magical time to be out doing photography. The colours, the sights and the sounds. Everything is transformed.

Or maybe its something as simple as this, its what I love. Water painting with light.

A neon sea

I got the chance to experiment with different types of lighting recently after going down to the bay at night.

As much as I love street lamps as sources of lighting, sometimes I long for an alternative colour to the neon orange glow that is most street lighting. And down the bay proved the perfect place to do that.

Car parks to local apartments were filled with greens, blues, purples and whites that created much more variety and colour then I would otherwise have found on the streets.

Futhermore the sea created wonderful patterns to the light on the water that when distorted through long exposure became a fantastical canvas through which to create abstract paintings.

Radyr and Castle Coch

Located on the outskirts of Cardiff, Radyr is a rather idyllic place to take a stroll, before taking in the beauty that is the fairy tale like Castle Coch.

Designed in the 19th century by William Burges as a gothic revival castle, its filled with the type of mythological detail and intricate design that it  makes you feel like you've fallen down in Alice's wonderland.

The beauty of the castle is only enhanced by the wonderful natural surroundings. Whether its a walk through the maze like woodlands of Tongwynlais, a bit of cycling or the peace that comes from a quiet stroll along the riverside it really is a lovely place to take the family for a day out.

After all this activity you can then take in a pint at the local town or enjoy some of the lovingly prepared food in the castle itself.