Cover art - Mike Howe

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My friend Mike has used one of my images from Iceland as the cover art for his latest single: Returning. It was really nice to be asked and I always think there’s a strong link between music and imagery so was glad that Mike felt this picture fitted the theme of the track. Mike plays beautiful classical guitar; chilled music that is great for finding a bit of time and space in your day. Go check it out on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music.

Picton Point

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Absolutely perfect autumn evening down on the Cleddau a couple of days ago. The air was cold and still and the river was a mirror under a lovely sunset. The moon was silently rising to the East as I made my way along the beach. Anyone familiar with the banks of the river near Picton will know about the huge branches that hang over the water there; at one point the silence was ripped apart by the sound of a limb tearing from its trunk and crashing to the ground. Curious how it dropped on such a still day. In the past, before the river was spanned by road bridges, there were a number of crossings across the river and the remains of a jetty can be seen here. The boat would have gone across to Landshipping and back. Other routes went from Lawrenny to Roose Ferry, Burton Ferry to Pembroke Ferry and Hazelbeach to Pembroke Dock. In 1926 the dockyard closed at Pembroke Dock and brought to an end an era when many people would have used the river to travel to work or to the weekly markets there. At one point a steamer used to come every Monday, picking people up from villages along the river to be dropped off at Pembroke Dock before picking them back up to go home later in the day. Presumably some of the stops were dependent on the tide being right. At one time, 5000 people were employed at the dockyard and lots of local people would have travelled down to Burton Ferry to get a boat across the river to go to work. Along with the mining, fishing and mussel picking that went on, the estuary was an industrious and busy place. Not so now, but a peaceful place to enjoy the silence.

Woodland aerials

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I got myself a drone recently and have been experimenting with the new angles it offers. There’s a lot to learn about what subjects work best from a birds eye view and how best to use the drone to offer something more than just a new and unexpected viewpoint. Autumn down on the Cleddau estuary and I’d hoped to get some images of the snaking streams that form patterns in the mud there but the light was poor and the colours were unappealing. Once I flew over the woodland I loved the contrast between the coniferous and deciduous trees and explored where the two met.

Whitesands surf

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A busy November day at Whitesands yesterday. The sun was suggesting that it might come out, there were waves aplenty and no further excuse was needed for people fed up of recent lockdowns to get themselves down to the beach. Skateboards in the car park, dogs everywhere and people and boards of every shape and size in the sea.

The black church at Buðir - Iceland

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After digging them out from the archives, I couldn’t decide which of these three pictures of the black church at Buðir to include in the previous post, so I thought I’d give them a stage of their own. The church is black as it’s painted with pitch (as used on the hulls of boats) against the weather and has become a very popular spot for photographers visiting Iceland where it stands in contrast against the mountains beyond. Luckily, as we were there out of the busy season, we had the area to ourselves. On a freezing and windy afternoon we lingered for a while taking pictures and it was nice to be in such a place as the only visitors, to truly feel the sense of isolation and peace despite the biting wind. No doubt there have been some hardy members of the congregation over the years as the first church on the site was built in 1703 when Iceland must have been an inhospitable place to find yourself.