Kite Boarding, Personal, Photography, Surfing |

December 11, 2015

Into the light – A windy day at Llangennith, Gower Peninsula

The recent?days of grey did have the odd interruption of sunlight and it was?during one of these that I was at the Llangennith?end of Rhossili Bay. The wind was really blowing in from the north keeping the surf down and a bit messy. Not the best waves, but good enough for a bit of practise. A few kite boarders were present going up and down the shoreline. Unfortunately two finished just as I arrived, but another arrived with his dog and set off, luckily just as the light started to get interesting.

The lighting changed from bright, light cloud to intense, bright backlighting to the final blues and yellows of sunset all in an hour or two. It would have been easy to leave at the start with the bland cloud, but it always pays to stay and see what happens.

Langland Bay, Personal, Photography, Surfing |

November 27, 2015

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A Dark Grey Day at Langland Bay, Gower Peninsula

It has been really dark and grey recently, so sharp, detailed images are really hard to come by in natural lighting. There is virtually no natural colour as well, so I was thinking black and white images when I headed down to Langland Bay on a stormy day to see what the surfers were up to. Although there were some decent waves, the lighting didn’t allow any photos of impact. I decided to change tack and moved over to the side of the bay where the long boarders were gathered.

This allowed me a side on view of them and also reduced the number of surfers around in the water. This gave less distracting elements in the background. As the long boarders were not trying any fancy tricks and holding their position on the board in a fairly still manner, they looked better when I used a slower shutter speed to show motion blur in the water. There were lots of misses with this technique, but when it works, I really liked the results.

Events, Mountain Walking, Personal, Photography |

November 9, 2015

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Lagging Behind, Snowdon Race 2015

I’m really lagging behind on my posts this year. Things are?so busy most of the time and other deadlines get priority, but I hope to catch up with my recent images soon. I’ve started to document the Snowdon Race, which occurs every July.

There are two races; an international invitational race to the summit and the larger Snowdon Race to the summit and back from Llanberis. This has a few hundred entrants and incorporates entrants of all ages. One of the groups is 65 and over! The summit is still open to regular hill walkers so the entrants have to work their way around them. Even with this extra hazard, the winners can complete the race in about one hour and ten minutes.

Seeing people of all ages and abilities making their way to the summit is a humbling experience. I don’t think I could run to the summit and back in a month of Sunday’s.

Personal, Photography, Surfing |

January 30, 2015

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Fall Bay, Gower Peninsula

After a recent walk with friends that took us through Fall Bay, I decided to return to try and get some surfing shots, using the coastline as a backdrop. It was hard getting the surfer, waves and backdrop in the ideal composition. Most of my attempts of a surfer on a wave just didn’t seem to work as well as the image above. Red is always a great colour for catching the viewers eye, so when a surfer arrived with a red coloured board on one side, I couldn’t believe my luck. Of the few frames I managed to get, the one above appealed to me the most.

With the sun backlighting the spray of the waves as they approached the shore, it gave me the opportunity to isolate one wave that was forming out to sea by itself over a shelf of rock. Although it doesn’t look that large the wave was a good six to eight feet tall. Some thing to provide?a sense of scale in the image would be nice, but it was too dangerous for the surfers?to surf with the rock shelf as close to the surface as it is.

As the light began to fade, I attempted a few landscape images with the sun hiding behind the clouds and headland. The position of the white foam of the incoming tide proved important to the composition, so I took quite a few images to get the correct sense of motion and volume of white in the image. I still think of the images as a work in progress, so look out for more to come.

Nature, Photography, Travel |

November 16, 2014

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5 Days in Yellowstone NP, USA

I’m playing catch up a bit at the moment. Back in September I had a trip to the USA, when I managed a few days in Yellowstone NP, Wyoming. I’m not sure what I expected, but the park was different from what I thought it would be. I think I was expecting a bit more of a wilderness experience; with the park being very popular for most of the year there are also a lot of other visitors. I think if I had more time, camping in the backcountry would have probably given me more of what I was expecting to feel. Even with that said it was a great experience to be there. With the park the size it is I decided early on that I couldn’t cover it all, so even though I visited all parts of the park, my main focus would be on Hayden valley as it was closest to my accommodation. Bison were the main interest in the valley, but the weather conditions brought mist, frost, fog, hail, rain, thunder and lightning, all producing an opportunity to produce a wide variation of images in the few days I had.

What surprised me the most was that most of the park is densely forested. Without having sign posts to some of the attractions and others being close to the road, you would never see them or know that they existed. The classical view of Yellowstone on TV is of the more open areas near Old Faithful, Hayden and Lamar Valleys. They give a much wider view and tend to be the focus for most of the wildlife activity. It is happening in the rest of the park, but you just can’t see it through the trees!

I was out before dawn to record the sound of bugling male Elk, when the scene above revealed itself. Although I could hear the Elk regularly, I only managed a brief glimpse of three females while driving to Lamar Valley. It seems in the rutting season, the Elk tend to travel to higher ground, so I never managed to see a male actually bugling.

Photography, SUP |

August 22, 2014

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SUP Gower event, Port Eynon, Gower

I have started to notice more people doing stand up paddle boarding (SUP) in my local area and after a chance encounter with my local SUP club run by Matt at SUPGower at a local bay, I volunteered to document their hosting of the UK SUB Clubs racing event at Port Eynon, Gower. The event consisted of racing events for club members and sponsored athletes, plus fun races for adults and children, with a fishing competition thrown in as well.

I was a newcomer to SUP racing events, so getting a handle on the format and style was a new experience for me. The weather was kind, not the best of light for evocative images, but the event provided a useful insight to SUP events. A new experience of a new sport will always help expand my skill set. The experience was similar to a surfing event I covered a few years ago for the fledgling welsh surf magazine Tonnau, which unfortunately didn’t last.

The event was supported by all ages, with all the competitors giving it all; the pain was clear to see on some of the faces at the finish line. The final sprint back to the finish line seemed to be the killer stage according to the entrants. A stiff breeze was making it harder to keep to the course distance, with some entrants paddling the equivalent of 5 miles due to the wind taking them off course slightly over the three laps of the circuit.

A good time was had by all and I would like to thank everybody for making me feel so welcome and putting up with me photographing away – only 2000 or so images to edit now!

Nature, Personal, Photography, Travel |

July 30, 2014

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Skokholm Island, Pembrokeshire – my annual retreat

Skokholm Island is my ultimate playground; I get to indulge my love of the natural world – expressing myself through photography, video and sound. Being away on an island, isolated from the real world with limited communication links to the daily life and basic but comfortable accommodation, allows me to rest and recuperate with no particular focus or plan in mind.

I have been visiting the island since 2001, every year, except for when the island accommodation was shut, and I find that it still feeds my soul, even though it has become so familiar to me. Every year the same birds breed in roughly the same place, the rabbits are ever present, plus the carcasses of predated Manx Shearwaters litter the ground as usual but even with all this familiarity, it still draws me back.

This familiarity helps me with come up with ideas to try out at each visit and with the feeling that I can always visit again next year, there doesn’t seem any pressure to create a large body of work at each visit. I can adapt with the conditions, so with this year the winds being non existent, sound recording became my main focus. Late nights were spent trying to record the calls of the Manx Shearwater in surround sound, mornings were for a lie in and evenings were for photography. Not a bad life for a week.

Roll on next year.

Langland Bay, Photography, Surfing |

May 10, 2014

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Surfing at Langland – the start of a year of practise

With strong winds from the south west forecast for the whole weekend and wave height predicted to be between 7 to 10 foot, it was a great opportunity to get some surf photography in. Later on in the year I will be meeting up with Chris Burkhard, category winner in the Red Bull Illumine photography contest and senior staff photographer for Surfer Magazine, so I’ll need some images to put in front of him for critique.

Surfing photography is always a numbers game, with the cameras motor drive set to a high frame rate so with a few high volume SD cards fitted in the camera, it was just an attempt to get the surfer positioned well in the frame. With the surfers a fair distance out in the bay I decided to use the Nikon D800. Admittedly it has a slow frame rate of 4fps, but when put into the DX crop mode the frame rate improves to 6 fps. The crop file is a good 24MB in size, so plenty of resolution is still available and gives the advantage of increasing the focal length by 1.5x. My focal length of 500mm now became 750mm. A higher frame rate would help, but since most of my day to day needs don’t need such a high rate, I don’t own a camera with one; I just hire it as and when it is needed.

So not a bad start to the exercise, but a few images in less flat lighting conditions would be nice. Overall, still a work in progress.

Events, Kayaking, Photography |

April 28, 2014

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National White Water Centre, Bala

I thought I was getting a bit rusty with?my kayaking photography, so I went up to the National White Water Centre near Bala over the Easter weekend?to have a few days practice. There was also due to be some Wild Water racing as well as the usual?smaller freestyle sized craft. The centre runs rafting runs as well, so nine rafts were active on the river and?a water release was scheduled, so the water level was going to be nice and high.

My walk of the river section near the centre started off well with an unexpected sighting of a young otter. probably one of last years offspring. This was then followed by the discovery of a Dippers nest a few minutes later. Not bad when actually I wasn’t trying to spot any wildlife, but just looking for viewpoints for the kayaking.

I found a few suitable locations and settled in for the day, photographing everybody and anybody that passed in front of my lens. I was hoping to try out a few different?techniques, but in the end only managed about three options.

After making about 1500 images. all of which were backed up and copied on site, the editing session was delayed until I got back home. This gave me some time to look at the images in a more disconnected state and ruling out any emotions generated at the time. The tighter images made with the 500mm lens appealed to me more and I felt had a bit more impact than the wider view. Perhaps time will change my view on this, we will see.

Mountain Walking, Photography, Travel |

April 15, 2014

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Getting a new perspective – Snowdon, Snowdonia National Park

Almost at the summit of Snowdon

I realised the other day that I hadn’t walked up Snowdon for a while. I don’t know why, it is only four hours from south Wales with quite a pleasant drive up the coast as long as you don’t get stuck behind farm machinery or an HGV. Two weeks ago, while I had a few spare days, I set off to Snowdonia National Park to walk?up Snowdon?and explore a few places that I hadn’t been to for a while. I also realised that I hadn’t taken that may images on previous walks, so that was something I wanted to rectify as well. The weather forecast was okay for my first day in Snowdonia, with the weather getting worse from then on. There was still enough cloud and low enough temperatures for snow to fall at higher altitudes, so being prepared was essential.

Llyn Llydaw and looking towards Bwich y Moch

My chosen route was to walk the Miners Track from Pen y Pass car park to the summit and return by the Pyg Track. Snow was visible above where the two tracks meet just below the main summit ridge. First thing in the bag was an ice axe and crampons, followed by all my safety gear. I tend to be the type of person that travels with two kitchen sinks, just in case one isn’t enough, so at times I felt a bit over prepared compared to some of the other walkers. Was I taking it too seriously or over complicating the situation? When the tube on my water bladder froze at the summit with a temperature of -2 degrees Celcius, I decided I was probably correct with my packing of sleeping bag, emergency storm shelter, spare clothing, extra food, first aid kit and bivi bag, plus the camera gear. I did leave behind my trekking poles, but used my tripod to help out instead.

It never ceases to amaze me what people wear for their waking attempts. Here were people trying to walk up Snowdon, the highest peak in England & Wales, in trainers, canvas shoes, track suit trousers and hoodies, with no thought to what would happen if something went wrong. They were slipping on the compacted snow and ice and shivering from the cold wind that was blowing. I’m surprised that I didn’t see somebody wearing flip flops and shorts; that seems to happen every where I go at the moment. You can see why the Mountain Rescue Team gets called out so much!

Snowdon20140327snowdon panoramic 2 Panorama

panoramic view from the Miners Track towards Bwlch y Moch

Mountain Rescue Helicopter Training

The summit of Snowdon is there some where

The wind at the summit was very strong, so standing at the stone cairn at the top was pretty dicey. The most sensible way of getting off the platform was to crawl done on your bum. Not elegant, but safer! It was impossible to make any photographs, but I found a sheltered spot just down from the summit to grab a bite to eat and make an image or two of the snow covered rocks along the ridge to the summit.

Just down from the summit of Snowdon

Below the summit, the wind had dropped and after getting below the snow line, the clouds cleared exposing the summit and giving wonderful panoramic views for those who were up there. For a moment I thought I would head back up again, but I changed my mind and carried on the Pyg Track back to Pen y Pass?car park. The weather had really cleared and warmed up, so although tiredness was kicking in, I managed?a few more images as the sun came through highlighting the texture of the rocks in the mountain pass. I had started walking at 7:40am and arrived back in the car park at 5:00pm to enjoy a nice flapjack from the caf? to celebrate. Not my quickest attempt of Snowdon, but certainly my most productive photographically.

Panoramic view from the Pyg Track, Snowdon

Looking down Llanberis Pass from the Pyg Track

Typically the heavy rain and lightning that was forecast for the rest of the week didn’t materialise and we were blessed with clear blue skies most of the days and some warm temperatures as well.?I?was tempted to walk back up Snowdon again to get a summit panoramic, but blue skies are a bit boring, aren’t they?

Llynnau Mymbyr and looking towards Snowdon

Snowdon Silhouette