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hidden season in the woods In South Buckinghamshire, professional photographer Barry Webb tracks a short lived cycle that follows rain. After an extremely dry summer season across the U.K., the ground stayed peaceful for months, with slime appearing only as soon as moisture returned in late September and October. These organisms surface briefly, often lasting simply days, then decline once again into the forest floor.
Operating at a scale determined in millimeters, Webb approaches fallen branches, moist leaves, and decomposing wood with a 90-millimeter macro lens. The electronic camera advances forms that pass undetected in real time to equate a thin film of life into something understandable. A cluster the size of a fingernail begins to read as a field condition, its textures and colors handling structure.
Pink Arcyria sp. image © Barry Webb transcendent slime molds that hover in between states Throughout Barry Webb’s series, slime shifts in between states of development and dispersal. The photographer portrays spherical bodies which increase on thin black stems and hold a clear stress that suggests motion even while still. Somewhere else, soft pink filaments collect into dense crowns, their surfaces capturing moisture that beads and slides.
The images hold a constant concentrate on structure. Webb frames each specimen against diffused backgrounds that separate the organism while keeping a local color. The shallow depth of field compresses the scene, allowing the slime to occupy the foreground with precision while the surrounding woodland dissolves into color.
Pink Stemonitis types. image © Barry Webb Barry Webb’s study of duration The photographic series by Barry Webb is, overall, a research study of period. Slime molds exist as part of a bigger eco-friendly procedure as they feed upon microorganisms within decomposing product. Their visible forms mark a short stage within a longer cycle, appearing and collapsing within days depending on humidity and temperature level.
The work also speaks to scale as an approach. By increasing the size of these organisms, Webb shifts attention toward systems that typically remain peripheral. Each image provides an exact record, yet likewise welcomes a slower method of looking. The photographs carry the sense of a field practice built on return, observation, and timing, where the existence of slime depends upon weather patterns as much as on the photographer’s persistence.
Lycogala conicum with slug slime. image © Barry Webb immature Comatricha nigra. image © Barry Webb
Lachnum apalum, Rush disco. image © Barry Webb Lamproderma scintillans. image © Barry Webb Hemitrichia sp. image © Barry Webb
Didymium clavus trio. image © Barry Webb 1/5 Stemonitis and fly. image ©
Barry Webb< img data-src ="https://www.designboom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/barry-webb-slime-molds-designboom-010.jpg"width="
818″height =”598″alt=” Stemonitis sp. image © Barry Webb
“src=”https://www.designboom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/barry-webb-slime-molds-designboom-010.jpg”/ > Stemonitis sp. image © Barry Webb
linked Didymium squamulosum. image © Barry Webb
Didymium squamulosum trio. image © Barry Webb
Green Cribraria aurantiaca. image © Barry Webb task info: photography: Barry Webb|@barrywebbimages