A neon twilight

Street photography at night is something I have a real passion for, the glow of neon lamps, the way car lights reflecting on metal and the glitter created off metal and sheet plastic all create wonderful and unearthly subjects which I love to capture.

Street signs, windows, bits of plastic and sheet metal. All of these can be used to capture and distort the way light falls and is reflected at night and these were very much the things I love to capture once night has fallen.

For when night falls the world becomes for me a neon twilight, a mysterious world rip for photographic capture.

Urban exploration: The house of metal and flame

On the February of this year the area of Splott was host to one of the worst blazes the area has seen in years. The building in question was a disused bingo hall based on Pearl Street  That day the whole street was shut down as firefighters fought to tackle the inferno.

Residents were told to stay indoors for the whole day and even by the time I got home late that night the firemen where still containing the fire that remained and my clothes became saturated with the heavy smell of smoke.

The result was that the fire was contained and thankfully no one was hurt. What was left behind however was a tangled mass of metal, debris and wood that was as a photographer truly irresistible to me.

The way to the building has been blocked but by finding a chink in the fencing I was able to slip inside and (carefully) snap away. What was revealed to me was fiery colours, alien shapes and partially hollowed out walls which created a strange impression. A house built of metal and flame.

Industrial revolution

After having moved to a less then salubrious area of Cardiff, I discovered to my delight that I was right round the corner from an industrial estate. I had made a mental note to explore it and so as the sun was setting I made my way to the grounds and began to explore.

I discovered damaged gates, rusting metal, barbed wires and electrical cables and all around it the surge of nature, an unruly tide threatening to swallow everything in its path in its quest to reclaim the land that man had taken from it.

It is these places that I love the most. Forgotten, decaying and being slowly retaken by the greenery that begins its eventable creep inwards.

It also offers fantastic opportunities for photographers, filled as it is with details, wonderful colours and dramatic shadows against the sky and it shows that for a photographer anything, even something that can be as ugly as an industry estate can be remade into something that is colourful and beautiful.