The cemetery on the road from Fishguard towards the Gwaun valley and the Preseli hills has always fascinated me. It has views over the town, the sea and the hills and although it feels somewhat bleak, it feels to me that those at rest there would appreciate the location.
Practice at Caerfai
in Landscape
If ever someone asks me how they can improve their photography I usually stress the importance of practice. Like any skill it helps to practice it and with photography, like in sport, practice helps you increase your range of skills and hone those that you already possess. It’s also useful to go and use those skills when conditions aren’t that great. It’s an exercise to try and make the most of rubbish conditions by finding a shot and experimenting when processing back at home, just as playing sport in the rain is better than sitting at home on the sofa bemoaning the conditions. This evening, after a promising afternoon, the cloud slowly rolled in, there were no waves and it began to rain. It was still, there was no wind, no swell and nobody about at Caerfai. Uninspiring to say the least but the stillness of the evening and the last fading sliver of colour in the sky made me decide to walk down to the beach and see what shots were there. From a technical perspective there was no need for an ND filter as being in the low light means longer shutter speeds are possible with a low ISO and an aperture of 8 or 9ish. I find fiddling with filters with cold hands can be annoying so I like it when low light means you just need a tripod. Here’s a few; nothing special but an enjoyable half hour stood on the beach in the rain in early January.
Winter walk at Penycwm
At the North end of Newgale is Penycwm beach. It’s a favourite spot of mine and also quite local to me so I regularly walk there or on the cliffs above. The drone allows a different view of the familiar and is a reminder of what a fantastic stretch of coastline it is that runs from here around towards St Davids. At low tide when the rocks on the beach are exposed it feels like a prehistoric landscape.
Porthgain - Stormy late December 2020
in Landscape
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.
Merry Christmas!
Well, we made it to Christmas! It’s been a pretty shitty year all in all and it’s been one that will go down in history but there’s been positives nonetheless. It can feel pretty dark at the moment as Christmas this year is a different story for lots of people and in the UK and internationally we are still in uncertain times both pandemically and politically. Hopefully 2021 will be better and we’ll move forward having learnt a few lessons. At the start of the pandemic I wrote about the importance of addressing the reasons that Covid became a problem for us; the origins of the virus is a clear reminder that our relationship with the natural world is critical to our survival. I’ve not got a huge amount of confidence that humankind will do enough to address the problems we face but I am confident that many of us are willing and able to make changes in the right direction that will be of some benefit. I’ll be eating a traditional crimbo din tomorrow but it’s become much rarer for me to eat meat over the last few months and with thanks to Meera Sodha, it’s been a change in habit that has been fairly easy to establish and at least makes me feel that I’m doing a bit to help. Hopefully we are all looking at the changes we could make in the face of the future we are creating.
Here’s a shot from Newgale taken back in May. This year we’ve enjoyed musing over the colour palette visible in the sky as the sun sets. Naming the colours as we spot a sliver or a swathe of it in the sky; sometimes blueberry, navy grey, ultramarine, indigo, Prussian or Oxford blue. On this day; coral, apricot, melon, persimmon and ochre, each reflected in the wet sand.
With warm thanks for your support, words of encouragement and good vibes this year, I wish you all a peachy Christmas and a rosy 2021 whatever it holds in store for you xx
A trip to Mwnt
Winter, just before the latest lockdown and a trip to Mwnt in the rain. Waves were bouncing back off the cliffs and crashing into the waves that were rolling in to the beach. The iconic church is currently locked while we wait for covid to disappear. I learnt that the church was built as a chapel of ease making it more convenient for medieval seafarers to reach a place of worship from the coast.
