Taff Travels 2014
A selection of wild and urban scenes in South Wales.
My personal preference is for landscape, nature and wildlife photography, or documentary photography of cities. If I use artificial lighting, I prefer it to be underground, using flashguns to completely control all aspects of the lighting. Several of the pictures in this gallery are a complete departure from my usual photography; accompanying a photography student on a night time photographic tour of Cardiff. Lots of long exposures to play with the city lighting, and combining subtle fill-in flashguns to alter the ambient lighting. Still not sure if I like my results, or whether I feel that the style even suits me, but here they are anyway.
Small magpie moth. Despite the name, they are actually quite large, about 2.5 cm across.
Mottled umber. These large moths (4.5 cm across) can have very different patterns, and can look like completely different species from each other.
Peacock butterfly. (Picture taken a year later, but hey, it works best in this gallery.)
Private fishing spot (at least, that's what the sign says). Quakers Yard, Cwm Taf.
Toadstool, possibly a Mycena.
Probably a shaggy inkcap.
Fruiting body of a yellow slime mould. This is likely to be Fuligo septica, which has names like "dog's vomit" and "scrambled egg". Despite the name, this is not mould or a fungus of any kind, nor is it a plant or an animal. They can live as a single cell, or collect together in large groups like this to reproduce, and to migrate towards food sources like this rotting log. Slime moulds are just weird.
Elephant hawk-moth caterpillar. The head is on the right, and can be retracted into the body to hide. When that happens, the body bulges, and those patterns look like giant cartoon eyes - odd defence since it makes the head's location even more obvious.
Cefn Coed Viaduct at Merthyr Tydfil, with Cefn Cil-sanws (461 metres). The viaduct curves to avoid the land owned by the ironmaster Crawshay.
The viaduct now serves as a major cycleway.
Start of the city long exposures; Lady Mary Road in Roath, Cardiff, with car lights on the Eastern Avenue. 2 seconds.
Prepared for the early bin collection. 1.6 seconds.
Obelisk in Cardiff Bay, with a fill-in flashes to highlight the rippling water. 5 seconds.
Blurred faces of nightlife. Stuart Street. 5 seconds. (People are so much happier to be photographed when they cannot be recognised.)
The waitress waits. Adelaide Street. 4 seconds - enough for passers by to fade into the background.
Adelaide Street. 1 second.
Brickwork street. Adelaide Street. 0.8 seconds.
Reflections. 0.25 seconds.
Coloured water. Bosphorus. 0.25 seconds.
Hoops with an embracing couple. 0.17 seconds.
Jetty gulls. 6 seconds - the water ripples smoothed to a blur, but the birds remained motionless.
Spin. Abandoned bowling alley. City Road. 2 seconds.
City Road. Composite of two photographs - one each side. 5 seconds each.
Sine wave. 5 seconds.
Whirlwind. 14 seconds.
Corkscrew. 3 seconds.
Small magpie moth. Despite the name, they are actually quite large, about 2.5 cm across.
Mottled umber. These large moths (4.5 cm across) can have very different patterns, and can look like completely different species from each other.
Peacock butterfly. (Picture taken a year later, but hey, it works best in this gallery.)
Private fishing spot (at least, that's what the sign says). Quakers Yard, Cwm Taf.
Toadstool, possibly a Mycena.
Probably a shaggy inkcap.
Fruiting body of a yellow slime mould. This is likely to be Fuligo septica, which has names like "dog's vomit" and "scrambled egg". Despite the name, this is not mould or a fungus of any kind, nor is it a plant or an animal. They can live as a single cell, or collect together in large groups like this to reproduce, and to migrate towards food sources like this rotting log. Slime moulds are just weird.
Elephant hawk-moth caterpillar. The head is on the right, and can be retracted into the body to hide. When that happens, the body bulges, and those patterns look like giant cartoon eyes - odd defence since it makes the head's location even more obvious.
Cefn Coed Viaduct at Merthyr Tydfil, with Cefn Cil-sanws (461 metres). The viaduct curves to avoid the land owned by the ironmaster Crawshay.
The viaduct now serves as a major cycleway.
Start of the city long exposures; Lady Mary Road in Roath, Cardiff, with car lights on the Eastern Avenue. 2 seconds.
Prepared for the early bin collection. 1.6 seconds.
Obelisk in Cardiff Bay, with a fill-in flashes to highlight the rippling water. 5 seconds.
Blurred faces of nightlife. Stuart Street. 5 seconds. (People are so much happier to be photographed when they cannot be recognised.)
The waitress waits. Adelaide Street. 4 seconds - enough for passers by to fade into the background.
Adelaide Street. 1 second.
Brickwork street. Adelaide Street. 0.8 seconds.
Reflections. 0.25 seconds.
Coloured water. Bosphorus. 0.25 seconds.
Hoops with an embracing couple. 0.17 seconds.
Jetty gulls. 6 seconds - the water ripples smoothed to a blur, but the birds remained motionless.
Spin. Abandoned bowling alley. City Road. 2 seconds.
City Road. Composite of two photographs - one each side. 5 seconds each.
Sine wave. 5 seconds.
Whirlwind. 14 seconds.
Corkscrew. 3 seconds.