porthgain

Aurora Borealis in Pembrokeshire

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Friday May 10th felt like it had been a long time coming; I used to go out and take pictures a lot at night and on several occasions over the last decade or so I have ventured out especially because there was aurora forecast this far South. When I have been out on those nights I've had a nice time squinting at the sky but more often than not have come home with pictures showing a slight pink colouration and not much else. I went to Iceland a few years ago and came home with some amazing pictures of the Northern Lights in their natural habitat but never thought I'd see such a powerful display here in Pembs.

pembrokeshire aurora

I headed to the North coast because I've always wanted to get some shots of aurora at the harbour here. I had a go a few months ago when cloud ruined the chance but seeing it was clear and even a nice temperature outside I had high hopes given the reports that contained exciting phrases such as 'huge sun spots', 'solar flares', 'coronal mass ejections' and a 'huge geomagnetic storm under way'. I arrived at twilight and it wasn't long before it was possible to see a pale band of light across the sky which although not that impressive to the naked eye, I knew would show up on the camera and was a good indication that there was some activity. As I jogged over to the other side of the harbour, the night had become darker and arriving out of breath at the top of the steps I could see more impressive pillars of light in the sky. The next hour or so was spent dashing from place to place, trying to enjoy the awesome display, trying to make pictures and cursing the fact I'd forgotten my headtorch, only brought one lens and the fact that my tripod has gone lame in one leg. When things (and I) started to calm down a bit I stood a while and watched the moon dropping towards the horizon whilst gentle bands of light undulated silently in the heavens above a hushed sea.

My gosh it was lovely. Truly one of the wonders of nature. I'm not sure how many reminders Gaia has to send us that the greatest things we see on this planet are not created by us but by the forces around us. I'm not so sure these days that knowledge is power or even sets us free as it feels like there is a lot to be gained by a regular humbling served up by nature that lets us feel our insignificance in this universe as our distant ancestors would have felt before we could explain it all. Would we not be better off feeling a little more fear of our ultimate powerlessness and mortality? The same greens and pinks we saw in the sky on Friday are to be found on the carapace of the tiniest beetles or in the plumage of the birds in our gardens whose interests we are doing such an awful job of protecting. Anything of beauty that humans create is always poor in comparison when we really stop and look at it and it's way past the time we stated treating the planet with the reverence it deserves.

These shots are pretty much in chronological order from twilight and the first flushes to around 1am and the last remnants of the more powerful bursts.

Porthgain to Abereiddy

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I decided to go out on a proper photography mission last week with the intention of really trying to get some good shots in poor weather. It was something of a retro trip out to a favourite local walk I’ve done hundreds of times and I went with a fairly basic kit; just my 24-105 f4 which was the first lens I got when I got a serious camera. It’s a great lens and very versatile but sometimes it’s tempting to carry a heavy bag with a longer lens or to chuck in a fast prime ‘just in case’. The 105 gives enough length to get some compression in your shots and 24 is wide enough for most purposes so it’s a decent choice for a day out. The gallery below is in fairly chronological order starting with a shot through the wet windscreen out to the harbour at Porthgain while I waited for the rain to stop. I spent a lot of time on Traeth Llyfn trying to find a composition that worked. With the sun low in the southern sky and obscured by thick cloud it meant that the light was flat but also the far end of the beach was dull and in the shadow of what light there was. I tried a few long exposure shots but had difficulty finding a good angle on the rocky outcrops that stretch out like fingers from the cliffs at the back of the beach. Trying to find something for the foreground wasn’t really working for me until I got my feet wet and tried some long exposures with an ND filter smoothing out the textures in the water and sky. I’d gone out partly with the pictures of Michael Kenna in my head and was somewhat successful in getting what I wanted out of some of the shots.

I spent a good amount of time on the beach and was reminded why landscape photography (at least the way I do it) is best as a solitary activity. Walking back and forth along the beach and occasionally cursing myself and walking back to a spot I’d abandoned because I felt like there was definitely a shot to be had from a certain spot if I could just work harder to find it. Some textural shots from a closer study of the rocks and then I was ready to walk on before the tide started to threaten my safe departure. Walking around the corner towards Abereiddy provided a nice portrait of a sheep lit by the sun which was starting to find more gaps in the cloud before I arrived at quite a popular little lookout over the headland and beyond to the hills above St Davids. I got a nice sunset shot looking southwest along the coast with the elevation enough to get a good view. I’ve taken a few shots here over the years but not sure how many have been blessed with such nice light, the only one I processed in colour. After that it was time to head for home, slipping along those muddy winter paths.

Traeth Llyfn

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A selection of shots from Traeth Lyfyn, the beach between Abereiddy and Porthgain. These were taken around 9.30pm as the light was fading. They are all variations on a theme but I’ve included them all here just because I couldn’t decide on a favourite, or at least my favourite changed each time I looked through them. Please let me know which one you like.

It was fairly obvious from the time I left the house that the light wasn't going to be anything special but it was one of those still evenings when it was nice to be stood on the sand with a gentle swell only occasionally pushing a wave of any size onto the beach. The tide was dropping from high meaning I couldn't initially get any further onto the beach so I took a few from the bottom of the steps until the tide dropped a little. It's a creative time for me when the light is flat and dusk is closing in. On an empty beach (somewhat rare this summer), when the night is warm and still and there's no rush to get a shot before the light changes (it just gets dark) you can slip into a zone and find a good shot in the gloom. Eventually there is no light to work with and it's time to go home. On the way back I met a badger who hadn't heard me coming or got a sniff of me in the still air. It scarpered when I had to hasten past and I listened as it galloped up the path and trundled off through the barley.

Oh, the first shot is the barley field you pass on the way to the beach from Porthgain. This is virtually the same as the shot I entered into the Landscape Photographer of the Year a few years back but with flat light the colours were rather dull so I felt it worked better in B&W.

North from Porthgain

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After what seems like a few weeks of wall to wall sunshine, the weather broke with typically British contrast to bring high winds and rain over the bank holiday and into this week. In all the sunshine I’ve barely touched the camera and was beginning to feel a bit lacking in motivation to go out and take a photograph. Sunny weather is for riding bikes. Dramatic weather is not for riding bikes but is for taking photos. Today, I thought it worth the effort to head off to Porthgain. I was intending to shoot a landscape that included the usual coastal spring flowers which are in bloom but I found none on my short walk which became a race to find a nice view before the sun set. In the end I’d virtually given up on a shot as I couldn’t find any flowers and the cloud wasn’t behaving for a shot of the harbour markers which looked good against an incoming storm. A large and annoyingly square patch of bare sky ruined any composition I tried so I decided to look North instead. I managed to take a few frames here before the storm made landfall. Soon after this shot it enveloped the Strumble peninsula and a minute or so after that it arrived with me, hail battering my legs as I trotted back to the car. British weather reminding me that just because it’s May I shouldn’t rule out a good old hailstorm!

Technicals: This is a two shot panorama. I’d decided to take my 24-70 lens but the 24mm composition was a little too tight so I stitched two shots together in Lightroom to get a little extra width on the left of the frame to better show the approaching weather. I was shooting in aperture priority so one of the shots is eight seconds and one is five seconds (f8 ISO100). I should have shot in manual mode to make sure the exposure was even but in the end it didn’t matter and the three second difference in exposure isn’t really noticeable in the textures of the water.

The other version of this story is about inspiration and where it comes from. I was faffing around in the early stages of the evening wondering if I should go out at all. The weather wasn't inviting and I didn't feel like I wanted to drive anywhere if it was going to be a waste of time. In the end, as often happens, music helped get me out of the door. I'd been watching an episode of Classic Albums the night before about the Tears for Fears album Songs From the Big Chair and had already played Head Over Heels a good few times before a Youtube rabbit hole featuring Ian Brown's F.E.A.R and Stardust, Prince absolutely shredding the guitar solo on a live version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Massive Attack's Better Things and Home Again by Michael Kiwanuka. The combo was enough to spur me into action and off I went. I got to Porthgain playing the album So by Peter Gabriel at which point I lost phone signal meaning I could only play Don't Give Up on repeat. There's so much to enjoy in that song which has some loose relevance to Porthgain being about the decline of industry (although we can't blame Porthgain's industrial demise on Thatcher). I think it's got to be one of the best duets out there and when that gospel style piano kicks in before Peter Gabriel's penultimate verse, I'm lifted. The bass solo on the tracks outro is beautiful too so with no signal still, it goes on again... and again and again.

Being lost in musical reverie is a great mindset to take photos with. It inspires me to be reckless or meditative, to try and capture the epic or the mundane or sometimes to put the camera back in the bag and shoot nothing at all but enjoy a moment for the soul. When I got home editing was done to Neil Young live at the BBC in 1971 followed by Bill Withers live in '73 by which point it was late and time for bed. So it's thanks to Peter Gabriel, and other music makers and creatives that help me and many others produce our own work by providing inspiration through theirs. I feel that pictures, words, music and art of all kinds are all connected in some intangible way and combining them can be a special alchemy.

Wolseley 1500 at Llanrhian

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I was on my way to Porthgain the other day to go and try and get some shots of the dramatic clouds I could see out over the sea but as I drove though Llanrhian I couldn’t help stopping and having a quick chat to Rob in his garage there. A Wolseley 1500 was peeking out from between his blue doors and the scene was too good to drive past.

Porthgain - Stormy late December 2020

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I took a walk around Porthgain during one of those lost betwixtmas days. I drove there during a gap in the clouds on a rainy day and when I arrived the gap had closed and rain battered my car as I waited it out. Eventually another hole in the sky appeared and gave me time to jump out and take some pictures. The wind was ferocious and there were curses as every time I checked the front of my lens it was speckled with rain spots and required a clean with my rapidly wettening cloth. That big old dog from the Alun Davies gallery up the road ambled down, stood at the edge of the harbour wall and yawned into the wind looking majestic as it is possible to be in a howling wind. As the sun set the sky took on a whole new palette of peach and pink.