GLOW IN THE
Photographers track amazing natural light show
AFTER we’ve all come back from a sunny day on the beach and are thinking about going to bed, Thomas Winstone might just be heading out there and if you want to spot him, he’s probably the one glowing blue.
Thomas, 42, is an astrophotographer and you’ll sometimes find him out at the seaside long after the sun has disappeared for the day to catch a very special, almost magical sight.
“I wanted to take a selfie in front of some waves at Caswell Bay. The waves were probably about three feet tall, so quite big waves to be fair, and the whole wave from top to bottom just glowed blue,” he said.
He decided to stand in front of the wave to try to capture his silhouette against the light.
“I was doing that photo and it worked quite well, so I thought, ‘Well, I’m in waist-deep now, big waves crashing, I’ll go for a swim in it.’ I swam through it and I was just absolutely amazed. Seeing my hands doing front crawl, seeing my hands going into the water, lighting up blue as they go along my side before coming back out and going back in again.
“I noticed on the surface of the water tiny little fish, and as I’m swimming they’re trying to swim away from me. As they do so, they light up as well. It was just absolutely crazy. I stood up and it was dripping off my skin, just glowing blue as it was dripping off. It was insane.”
The blue glow is called bioluminescence – caused by plankton – and is usually only found in the tropics. However, if you head to your local beach when it’s dark enough, you might be lucky enough to see it for yourself.
Bioluminescence describes the light that some living creatures, such as fireflies and jellyfish, emit from their cells. The sight is so special that there are now social media groups for those wanting to find the plankton for themselves, and Thomas is part of one of them.
The plankton glow due to a selfdefence mechanism, when they are agitated by the movement of the water, and Thomas said one of the best places in Wales for astro-photography was the South Wales coast due to the lack of light pollution.
“That then leads on to spending many hours at beaches and things like that. That’s when we picked up on the plankton really. You see a blue glow and you think, ‘Is it a head torch, is it a boat?’ and you ask a few people what it might be and that’s when we discovered the plankton.”
Heading out onto the beaches of South Wales in the pitch black has allowed Thomas, from Brynmawr, to discover all sorts of incredible sights.
“Recently, at Aberavon, there was a dolphin swimming around and it was glowing blue,” he said.
“It was lighting up blue, just swimming through the plankton. It is absolutely amazing and that’s what drives me to see it because, you know, it’s a relatively small opportunity to see it. It’s just a passion because you never know what you’re going to see. You could have the best display ever, wildlife attracting it – all sorts. It’s just amazing.”
Thomas said his best trip to see the plankton was about three years ago when he found himself glowing blue after his swim: “To get this in Wales is so special. You could go to Jamaica, India, Thailand, South Australia to go and see it, where it’s more guaranteed. But to have this on our doorstep, in the middle of a pandemic when you can’t really travel, or travelling has got more expensive, it’s a cracking way to promote Wales for tourism and things like that as well.
“At the moment, the best area seems to be the south coast around the Gower,” Thomas said. However, he recommended that people explore their local coastal areas to see the plankton and avoid disappointment after travelling for long journeys.
Thomas also said the summer months were usually the best time to see the plankton: “It has been documented as late as October, maybe even November, but that’s extremely rare.”
Thomas said that, despite theories about the plankton appearing depending on tide times and phases of the moon, he had seen the plankton at both low and high tide.
“The same can be said about the moon – I’ve photographed it on a full moon, when it’s a half moon, or no moon. It’s a bit vague, it’s hard to pinpoint in that respect,” he said.
He said the advice he’d offer to those who wanted to go out in search of plankton was to be considerate to other people, and to avoid shining torches, once safe to do so, as they would hide the effect of the plankton glowing. “Try to get somewhere dark and keep it dark,” he said.
Thomas also said he tended to walk backwards on the beach as this allowed him to see his footprints sparkle and glow – an indication the plankton in the sea, as well as on the sand, was at the point where it was ready to glow.
Lee McGrath, 46, works as a theatres commodities coordinator at Neath Port Talbot Hospital, but also ventures out to capture the bioluminescence along the Welsh coast.
“A few years back a story popped
up that the bioluminescence had been seen on the Welsh coast. Me and a fellow photographer started actively looking for it as we would be at the beach anyway doing astrophotography,” he said.
Lee, based in Bridgend, said he and his friend, from Swansea, would constantly check their local beaches for the plankton.
“I normally shoot places that are out of the ordinary so the plankton fits perfectly with my type of photography,” he said.
“In 2018, me and a friend were alone at Aberavon where there was a display at the pier that was otherworldly. The only thing I can compare it to are the Northern Lights when I was in Iceland. It is very addictive once you see it.”
Lee first saw the plankton at Three Cliffs Bay on the Gower, and said it was an “amazing” experience.
“It is like something otherworldly, once you get your eye in to spot it, you know what to look for,” he said.
He said the best time to see the plankton was when it got dark during the summer months, as the temperature warmed up. In terms of where to find the plankton, Lee said that was “the big question”.
“We are lucky to have seen it the last few years on the Welsh coast here, you just have to put yourself in these locations and hope for the best.”
Lee encouraged those wanting to see the plankton to be patient due to its unpredictability. He said people could increase their chances of seeing it by putting in time and being at the locations where the plankton had been spotted after dark. He also recommended turning off torches and to be wary of tide times and your position on the beach at night to avoid being caught by the water coming in.
“I have been out 10 plus times this year and not seen a single thing. It is all about commitment and a bit of luck – right place, right time,” he said.
Diti Kumar, 26, is an international student at Bangor University studying an MSc in accounting and banking. She recently saw and captured photographs of the plankton for the first time.
She is a member of two Facebook groups dedicated to tracking and photographing the plankton. Diti saw that, in mid-June, the plankton had been spotted near Penmon Lighthouse. “I was very excited as this location is very close to Bangor and there was the possibility that I could see this happen one day in person,” she said.
“I started keeping an eye on the app with the tides forecast. I researched about the plankton, and it said that if there’s a warmer temperature, there are more chances that you will get to see the plankton.”
After going out to see the plankton twice, Diti said there was no sign of them, but on a third visit in July the weather was “perfect”.
“We got lucky and we saw it happening. It was very prominent to see it all happening on the shore and in the waves. It was completely magical – I would say the photos do not do it justice. If you see it in person, it’s completely radiant,” she said. “It looked like there were stars in the sea that you could touch.”
Diti advised those who were keen to see the plankton for themselves to keep an eye on Facebook groups to see where they had been spotted, as well as keeping an eye on the temperature of the water. She also recommended setting phone cameras to a specific setting to best capture the plankton.
“We used two phones – one was the Samsung Galaxy L21, and the other one was the iPhone 12 Pro. We put the settings to non-exposure settings, for 10 seconds in night mode. That was the most important setting to capture that light,” she said.