Wales was inspirational. The landscape around Aberystwyth is stunning, and drive across mid Wales to the Severn Bridge has to be one of the most beautiful routes in the country.
Our five day adventure with cameras took in the seascapes north of Borth, on the estuary and wilder western outpost of Wales above Aberystwyth. Holed up in the sand dunes we watched the light play over the mountains for an hour or so. I ran with a contrasty black and white but the colours were bluer than blue and the clouds just racing. Sitting in the dunes reminding ourselves of settings and camera/light relationships was a slow way to ease into the landscape and in the lee of the wind was sunny and warm. I spent time trying to gather movement from the grasses in the foreground, while the clouds bewitched us.
Ynyslas Nature Reserve
Aberystwyth. A Victorian waterline hole with sea bathing huts and classic Victorian architecture. Fish and chips overlooking the big seas and the iron pier. We scrambled down the steep steps after stuffing ourselves with possibly the best fish and chips ever (despite marauding pigeons) and tried to find good angles under the pier with black and white images in mind. I think retrospectively I wanted an even wider wide angle view. Annoyingly I can’t work out how to run the little vid here (it’s on Instagram) but here’s a wee snapshot of under the pier.
Ebbing tide, Aberystwyth pier. Next stop, Ireland
A screenshot of the video from under the pier.
In amongst the ancient hills are remnants of past cultures, standing stones and cairn circles. I’m always up for a standing stone so we did some epic map reading and asked a few sheep farmers. The sheep were using one of them for shelter, and in the distance, a windswept Mountain Ash stood on the lip of the steep field, crown turned away from the wind. The light was a little flat but the tree had a strong shape and really beautiful textural lichen. As we worked on a tree series the sun burnt off enough cloud to light the crown of the tree, and the sky behind lit up.
Mountain Ash in field with standing stones
For those of you following Lady Mary Tennant on Insta you’ll appreciate this little menhir in its bed of green vegetation..
It rains a bit in Wales and the verdant plant life supports this climatic construct. Fab ferns, mosses, clean air lichens on trees and rocks. My current obsession with mosses might have been sparked by the thicket beds of moss I’ve ever seen. Splendid for plant photography. I’m coming back with a macro lens for the bugs.
I have a total fixation with standing stones. Wales is heaving with them. There’s something unworldly and strange about looking at the remnants of ancient cultures we know very little about. The black and white image above is the original. (We had fun on a wetter morning making alternative versions with various bits of stone we found lying around). You really feel the landscape around the old mining areas, where old stone buildings organically tumble up out of the stone from the hillsides and seeing where structures start and end is blurred through the lens of time and decay. It may be a cliche but the old mines are atmospheric. Especially in the rain when the light glints off the wet stone. And there was plenty of rain that afternoon…
And then the huge skies. The mountains and valleys reach on and on. A combination of the high hills, somewhat wild October weather, and warm light in the late afternoon, allowed us big, dramatic images. Photographic magazine editors call it ‘painting with light’ and rarely mention you have to be very lucky with the weather. I was underneath a rain coat, a puffa and my rain poncho avoiding a squall of horizontal rain when I stuck my head up and bravely took this.
The third highest waterfall in the UK and 749 steps. The Devils Bridge was the subject on our last afternoon, we’d had a sausage sandwich and it was piddling with rain. . We nearly bailed. I’m so glad we didn’t. It was extraordinary, with only a couple of other folk there in the rain, and the leaves just turning. Waterfalls are hard to photograph as the distance compresses, and the water droplets in the immediate atmosphere meant cameras were inside plastic bags (and us) were rather wet. The experIence was amazing, the water roaring and the spray coming off in all directions.
A short week/long weekend in Wales photographying sea, skies and waterfalls could not have been possible without our host Nick Jones. Thanks Nick. Xx
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