Photo Insight
Eagle-eyed Barry Webb notices the ethereal beauty of tiny subjects. Tracy Calder hears the story behind one of his award-winning pictures
Slime moulds are curious things – neither plant nor fungi, they share similar characteristics and yet exist in a class of their own, known as Myxomycetes. These primitive organisms thrive on decaying plant material, which might explain why Barry Webb can often be found prostrate on the forest floor, rooting around in brambles and bracken looking for leaves and logs that may bear fruit. Barry has been photographing slime moulds since 2019 when he and his wife, Gill, attended a walk with the Bucks Fungus Group and somebody spotted a stemonitis. Barry was tasked with photographing it and dutifully set to work.
‘I didn’t have a loupe with me so I couldn’t see it that closely, but when I focus stacked it, I was amazed by what I discovered,’ he recalls. The next day Barry and Gill were out walking when they came across a group of slime moulds on a big log. ‘They were like little white sausages on sticks,’ laughs Barry. These encounters piqued his interest, and he was soon researching and photographing slime moulds whenever he could.
A keen gardener, Barry learnt that slime moulds go through a fascinating life cycle. ‘At one stage they are single cell amoebae,’ he explains, ‘but most of my photographs show them as fruiting bodies, which is the spore-bearing stage.’ Incredibly, Myxomycetes average 1-4mm in height, which might explain why Barry had never really noticed them before, despite spending years photographing fungi, which often grows in similar habitat.
‘Certain slime moulds like certain trees and some are winter species,’ he says, illustrating the importance of getting to know your subject. This photogenic group of comatricha was discovered on an outing with Barry’s friend, fellow photographer Andy Sands, in September 2022. ‘There was a beech tree on the ground and its branches were everywhere,’ says Barry. ‘I was shooting fungi when Andy came across this group of comatricha.’ Andy spent about an hour taking pictures before heading home. As he left, he pointed the branch out to Barry in case he wanted to have a look. Later, the friends were astonished at how similar their compositions were (even if the backgrounds were noticeably different). ‘I guess we can both see the best shot to be had on a piece of wood,’ laughs Barry.
Photographing slime moulds comes with various challenges, not all of them technical. ‘The first thing is actually finding them,’ says Barry. But once you get your eye in and begin to learn more about their habitat, things get a lot easier. Next, there is the danger of
