Signs of life on an alien planet? Aerial photography of a vast wild landscape? Rivers, lakes, forests and volcanic craters? Looking down from high on to another world these landscapes are not at first what they seem. I am constantly looking for more abstract worlds to photograph and different ways of representing the beauty of nature in the environment where I live. In the same way that we may look down on to the surface of another planet and marvel at the vast scale of the geographical features, the same sense of wonder can also be directed at natural patterns on a much smaller scale.

 

All of these images have been captured on the limestone, sandstone and gritstone outcrops around my home village of Ystradfellte, and are testament to the variety of patterns created by lichens living on these rocks. Lichens are ubiquitous in the clean air of the Brecon Beacons but seldom do we stop to explore their beauty in close detail. While I have taken some artistic licence in softening the sharp details of these macro shots in places and muting the sometimes fluorescent colours, they are basically all natural patterns created by the colonisation and growth of competing species of lichen on different rock substrates.