Tales from Wild Wales

Walking through history

Submerged forest with tree stump - Borth/Ynyslas — Submerged forest with tree stump – Borth/Ynyslas

The recent storms along the west coast of Wales have exposed a large expanse of peat between Borth and Ynyslas, dotted with numerous tree stumps. Depending on the distribution of the sand, this submerged forest is visible there to some extent in most winters, but this year it is something else. Judging by tide lines on groynes, sand to a depth of two feet has been shifted completely from a two-mile long section of beach. It is difficult to conceive of the sheer volume of material involved. Or where it has gone!

The trees have been dated to between 3500 to 5500 years before present and consist of pine, alder, oak and birch. Their root systems tend to extend horizontally – as can easily be seen in situ – and this is typical of fen woodlands with a high water table. It is known that in prehistoric times sea levels rose to inundate this coastal woodland. The submerged forest has been reasonably well documented, so I’ll leave interested parties to investigate further for themselves (for example here ). What seems to be lacking is any mention of human activities associated with it. While most stumps look broken and worn as if naturally created, it can clearly be seen in the top photograph that a tree has been felled at stump level using a saw. Probably not that long ago then…… Elsewhere there are quite clear signs of peat cutting, presumably for fuel (see lower picture). How long ago this was done I would love to know.

Peat cuttings in submerged forest - Borth / Ynyslas — Peat cuttings in submerged forest – Borth / Ynyslas

Photographically speaking I found the submerged forest rather a challenge. I’m getting used to a new L-bracket/tripod head combination at the moment, so what was until recently second nature no longer is. I knew what I wanted – water flowing amongst tree stumps at sunset – but my technique tends to get a bit rusty over the winter (see this post). I would need exposures of five or ten seconds and only the use of a heavy neutral density filter would achieve this. With just one exception all the exposures on my first visit suffered badly from camera shake. Time for a rethink! I’ve never bothered with a filter holder but using multiple filters really does call for one. I was, on occasion, stacking a polariser and a screw-in 10-stop ND, topped off with a 2-stop ND grad held against the rim of a telephoto zoom lens! Not ideal at all. But given that I don’t actually possess a filter holder, on my second and third visits I tried to eliminate all other sources of wobble. Short zoom only, two-second timer, then ten second timer. More wobble. Then I noticed that the lens IS was switched on. Could that be the source of the problem? Hopefully my next visit will be more fruitful.

Camera shake was not a problem on shorter exposures – up to two seconds, for example. My third visit – yesterday – was on a cracking sunny afternoon with little wind to ruffle the pools of water gathered in depressions in the peat, and a pleasant sunset. It took me some time to get to grips with some rather chaotic subject matter, and I don’t think I’m there yet. In some ways I found little arrangements of rounded rocks more photogenic than the tree stumps. One thing I could do nothing about was the fact that at low tide the waves were breaking beyond the forest, lower down the beach. I would need to be there on a falling or rising tide to get the pictures I have in my mind’s eye. Oh, and the sun would be setting. It should be easy!

So it is work in progress at the moment, but there seems to be little likelihood of the submerged forest disappearing in the near future. I’ll be down at the beach again tomorrow afternoon if the sun is shining, and while I’m there I’ll know that I’m walking through history.

Edit: The top photo here was Highly Commended in the British Wildlife Photography Awards in 2015.

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A snapshot from the weather war zone.

It has been an interesting few days down on the sea-front at Aberystwyth recently, as unusually high spring tides and gale force winds coincided to create some extreme conditions. Last Friday morning a huge swell rolling in from the Atlantic, coupled with a gale from the south-west, produced the first spectacular but damaging high tide.

Saturday morning was quite surreal – still a massive swell but the wind had dropped out to virtually nothing. During the afternoon people strolled along the prom amongst the debris as if it were a summer’s day. But by Monday, despite a slightly lower tide, the wind was back to gale or severe gale, and boy – did it rain. Aberystwyth has never looked so grim. The local police were out in force by then and access to the promenade was severely restricted. I was told I would be arrested if I walked one stretch of South Parade – on a falling tide – despite the fact that I had already walked it in the opposite direction, quite safely, about half an hour earlier! I eventually realised that the best overall view of the prom would be from an elevated position on Constitution Hill at the northern end, and I was lucky that a brief sunny interval coincided with a rain stoppage while I was there. It’s amazing what a little back-lighting can do!

Of course what is spectacular in a visual sense can mean misery for those directly affected. As far as I’m aware no-one suffered serious damage at Aberystwyth but the prom itself looked like a war zone. Railings, benches, paving slabs and the like uprooted and flung around, and the “beach” moved about ten yards inland as far as the front of the hotels…..! The most obvious casualty was a seaside shelter which slowly subsided after the brick and concrete structure supporting it was washed away over a period of four days and nights.

A Saturday afternoon stroll at Aberystwyth

On a broader scale the gravel pits and RSPB visitor facilities at Snettisham (Norfolk) which I enthused about in earlier posts were very seriously “re-arranged” in the North Sea storm surge earlier in December, and other coastal reserves have, unfortunately, also been badly damaged. Inevitably there’s now much talk about “rebuilding coastal defences” and/or “managed retreat” in this era of global warming. We know that sea levels have fluctuated naturally and widely over the past few thousand years but even this hard-won knowledge is just a snapshot in geological terms. Looked at with this perspective our civilisation really is built on shifting sands.

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Portrait of Santa Claus as a young man …….. and some reflections on “being a photographer”

During my coastal explorations of 2011 I visited some phenomenal abandoned quarries above Penmaenmawr in north Wales. The workings were so extensive and the buildings so well preserved that the description “Blaenau Ffestiniog – by – the – Sea” seemed quite appropriate. I came across this human likeness on a quarry face and during the sorting and processing stages the extensive beard and bushy eyebrows reminded me of our friendly seasonal visitor.

I’m very aware that this is my first post for almost exactly two months. The truth is I’ve done very little photography since my trip to Norfolk in early October. I’ve pottered down to Aberystwyth to watch the starling roost on several occasions when conditions looked promising, but barely pressed the shutter in anger. A trip down to the Somerset Levels in November to photograph the same birds also proved disappointing. While they were present in huge numbers there was nothing that could possibly described as a display to photograph. On the several lovely days during a much-extended autumn I was otherwise engaged in painting the outside of the house before the scaffolding was taken away. So it has been a bit of a fallow period, photographically speaking.

Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. It can feel frustrating to have to channel one’s creative energies in other directions, or to subsume them altogether. But it feels good to have a social life again even if I’m not really a party person. And when the muse strikes again, one feels that one’s outlook may have shifted a little in the meantime and thus one’s creative life will have evolved.

In the early months of 1994, I think it was, it would be fair to say that my life was in a bit of a crisis. My house was undergoing major renovation work – well, more or less demolished and then rebuilt – and I was lodging with a friend. Shortly before that a relationship had ended and I put it partly down to the fact that I identified myself firstly as a photographer and secondly as a more rounded human being. Photographers (and others) often describe themselves as “passionate” about their activities and this is usually accepted as being ‘a good thing’. But replace that adjective with “obsessive” and see how perceptions change. I made the conscious decision to stop being a photographer for a few months and see what it felt like. I did nothing photography related that winter other than what was absolutely necessary to keep my business afloat. There was no doubt then that much of my identity revolved around being successful as a photographer. I suppose I was at an early stage in a career, and it probably really mattered. Over the years I have mellowed a little, but I still feel the same way in many respects. The buzz I get from a good session out in the landscape is still unbeatable. At the same time it can be difficult to accept that the kind of recognition that I feel I deserve has eluded me; and that having recently picked up my bus pass, nothing is likely to change in that respect.

But back to the present. Winter in Wales tends to be wet, windy and often rather dismal. Most of my location work is done with the aid of a camper van; I’m on my third now and it’s absolutely essential to my way of working. As autumn progresses it becomes more and more of an ordeal to spend the night in it. I can bear the odd night with sub-zero temperatures (well, just sub-zero anyway) especially if I can start out in a warm van. But returning to a cold van after a day in the field with the knowledge that there may then be up to sixteen hours before sunrise does not fill me with joy. Nor does driving to the nearest town and paying through the nose for a hotel room which in all likelihood will come with an inflexible breakfast time.

And my final excuse? I do not believe we have progressed too far as a species from the stage where hibernation came naturally to us. We may not now be huddled round a camp fire at the back of a cave, venturing out only when it was light and sleeping the rest of the time. But I feel that winter still comes with the opportunity, like it or not, to settle down in front of the wood-burner and ponder the deeper and possibly darker aspects of one’s life, the universe and our relationship with it. Maybe, at the turning of the year, long before the Christian era, our ancestors left their caves for a big party. They knew that, in one sense at least, things could only get better. There is little doubt that our own Christmas and New Year festivities relate back to earlier times when the winter solstice was a time for major clebration. Which brings me right back to Santa Claus….

With Seasons Greetings to all (both) my readers.

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Knots landing (Part 2) -or why we need a 7D mark 2 as soon as possible!

Oystercatchers, Snettisham (Canon 7D, 100-400L zoom

In the first part of this post I described in a general sense my recent visit to Snettisham to photograph its big wader flocks. This time, without getting into too much detail, I’m going to discuss some of the technique and equipment issues I experienced.

The big difference was that I had changed camera bodies between visits. About eighteen months ago I had purchased a Canon 7D to use as my bird photography body, and I thought it would be the answer to all my prayers. How wrong I was. At first I was surprised at how difficult the 7D’s autofocus system found it to distinguish between subject and background – a bird on a branch, for example. It often seemed specifically to focus on something outside the AF point that was placed so carefully on the bird. I’m still not sure if it was a malfunction, user error, or if I was just expecting too much of it.

Probably more seriously, I was taken aback at how poor the ISO performance was. Even at ISO 400, the results I was getting were markedly inferior to those I was accustomed to from my 5D2. That is perhaps to be expected from a camera with a crop sensor, and I have managed some absolute belters. But more often than not the resulting images have been what a fellow photographer described as “mush”. Underwhelming to say the least! Again it could be down to user error: at 400mm on a 1.6x crop camera any minor inadequacy will be magnified by almost thirteen times. Most wildlife photographers will be pushing a 7D to the limits of its abilities – long, heavy lenses, high ISO’s, narrow depth of field. What could possibly go wrong?

Just about everything. Image not quite sharp for some reason? Easy – turn to your software. Underexposed? Ditto. But in both cases the noise levels quickly become almost intolerable. It may be – and probably is – a good camera in the fairly undemanding situations where a DSLR is typically used. Many people swear by them. But as far as I can see, for its intended purpose – fast-moving action at long distances – the 7D just can’t quite cut the mustard. In my opinion it boils down to this: for good results the 7D demands absolutely immaculate technique.

So following the advice of other bird photographers, it looked like it might be possible to replace both my camera bodies (a 7D and a rather elderly 5D mark2) with a 5D mark3. This became viable once the camera’s firmware was upgraded to allow the use of autofocus on an f5.6 lens with a 1.4x extender. The 5d3 could do the job of both.

My second trip to Snettisham was its first outing as a bird photography lens. There are disadvantages. To reach the same level of magnification (roughly) as the 7D (with its crop sensor) I would also need the 1.4x extender, and this adds bulk and weight to my outfit. I cannot leave the 5D3 attached to my long zoom as I did with the 7D – I also need it for other things. The burst rate is slightly slower on the 5D3 – 6fps compared to 8fps – and this may be to be a slight disadvantage. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, and I’ve been very pleased with the quality of the images so far. It is early days yet, and I’ve only just begun to dip in to the 402 page manual. But the latest images sharpen well, noise is negligible, really, compared to the 7D, and cropping down into the images gives very acceptable results.

On the first visit, dawn was bright and clear but thick fog very soon arrived. Very few of the waders on the pools were actually visible. It really was that thick! But over time the fog lifted to low cloud, leaving lighting conditions that were subdued but very even. Ideal, in fact, for photographing birds with high levels of contrast in their plumage, like oystercatchers (see above). It is difficult to expose correctly for any black and white bird in bright sunlight, so that was an unexpected bonus. Second time around, a gorgeous pink dawn was quickly replaced by powerful low sunlight, which cause some contrast problems for a while.

Photographing birds is a very different discpline to landscape. In some ways it takes me back to my early days when I tended to point, click and hope! But one refines one’s techniques over the years and I expect my hit rate will improve. As it is I’m spending a lot of time deleting images. But I’m sure even the most experienced pro’s will be looking for that one image from a motor-driven burst that catches the action perfectly. A far cry from parsimonious picture-taking of the landscape specialist.

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Knots landing (Part One).

For many years I hardly took a single photograph outside the borders of Wales. It is an infinitely varied country with enough landscape interest to last a lifetime, and it was how I defined myself as a photographer. ‘Wild Wales’ was my brand and in one way or another I earned an income from Welsh landscapes. Despite a passion for wildlife that pre-dated one for photography, my two interests ran largely in parallel for almost thirty years. But gradually my priorities began to shift and the purchase of the requisite equipment (a secondhand Canon 100-400 L zoom) in summer 2011 allowed me to extend my range of subject matter significantly. While I’m still earning a living from landscape – just – it is bird photography that gives me more of a buzz these days. In a rather unstructured way I’m working on a wildlife project which I hope will see the light of day at some stage.

With this new interest in mind I’ve given myself permission to travel outside Wales to seek out new subject matter – hence two visits to north Norfolk this autumn. Lying between Norfolk and Lincolnshire, the Wash is an extensive area of mudflats at low tide but totally inundated by the sea during the highest spring tides. It is a rich source of food for tens of thousands of wading birds – notably knot – during the autumn and winter. At peak spring tides all these birds are forced onshore by the sea and a large percentage of them congregate on some old gravel pits at Snettisham, near Kings Lynn, now an RSPB reserve.

Tidal rhythms dictate that the highest springs at Snettisham are at roughly of seven o’clock, morning and evening. During the short days of winter the roost thus usually takes place in the dark, and even in autumn it may be necessary to begin one’s walk to the gravel pits in total darkness. So one morning about a fortnight ago I began the journey from my camper van towards the wader roost about 6 a.m. The first few other vehicles had also already arrived: shadowy figures emerged from them, torches in hand, rummaging for equipment in car boots, and quiet voices could be heard. There was a sense of anticipation apparent in the air. Conditions overhead were clear; it all augured well for an exciting morning’s photography.

It was still more or less dark when, half an hour later, I reached the vicinity of the gravel pits. A quiet stream of other visitors were also arriving, many of them laden with photographic gear. Dark figures engaged in quiet conversation as they waited. Small groups of oystercatcher and knot were already moving (and other species) but many more could be heard offshore. Gradually dawn blossomed and a wonderful pink light flooded the area. I couldn’t help noticing as light levels increased that the woman I was chatting with was a lot older than I had imagined! I then had a difficult decision to make: enjoy the tranquillity of the dawn or move quickly to the hide where there would still be room in the ringside seats? As more and more flocks moved into the roost I decided to make a break for it.

I first discovered Snettisham on a bird photography workshop with Chris Gomersall and I am a great admirer of his work – not flashy at all and often paying more attention to the birds’ surroundings than that of other photographers. I’d like to think his work is an inspiration for me rather than something I am consciously trying to copy. I had made some reasonable images of roosting birds two weeks earlier and this time I also wanted to try something more experimental – slow exposures of birds in flight, for example, to try and capture attractive movement blur. From the hide I was hoping for close-ups of wader flocks landing and taking off. In practice the results one can expect using these techniques seem to be unpredictable and it would be difficult to emulate exactly what another photographer has already achieved, so my conscience is clear.

Over a period of an hour and a half I sat in the packed hide and watched the wader flocks arrive and then depart. The rapid-fire clicking of motor-driven shutters was interrupted by short periods of calm. A rather lovely old man squeezed in next to me – a newcomer to the world of birding, I guessed. His comments and questions showed how he was over-awed by the sheer number of birds and their closeness to him. It was far more a reflection on my own attitudes that I found this rather childlike innocence at the spectacle slightly irritating. It was a very intense, goal-oriented experience for me. The sense of wonder that one might hope to feel at such a marvellous natural phenomenon was over-ridden for this photographer by the desire for results.

But such is our lot. It is the same, I feel, for the landscape photographer. A stunning landscape may be unfolding in front of your eyes; a moment when light and land come together completely. It is almost essential to subdue any feelings or emotions that might naturally be felt in that situation – only the calm, collected and efficient operation of one’s equipment will allow the image to be successfully made.

At the very moment the biggest knot flock in front of the hide exploded into flight Sod’s Law dictated that I would be fiddling with my camera bag on the floor! Nevertheless I did get some interesting results like the one above, which, incidentally, looks far better viewed large. I’m still on a fairly steep learning curve, but one thing is for sure: there is so much potential at Snettisham for creative bird photography that I just can’t wait to go back.

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Circumstance and good fortune: some experiences in the world of publishing.

“Given the depressed state of the publishing industry at present (appropriately summarised by the headline in last week’s Observer – ‘Publishing in crisis as book sales plunge’) we do not, I regret to say, share your optimism regarding the sales potential of such a venture”

Rejection letters like this – from the Welsh publisher Gomer Press – will probably be familiar to many ambitious photographers today, but this was dated 2^nd July 1992! I had proposed a book of Welsh landscapes in the style of those already being produced elsewhere in the British Isles, notably in Scotland by Colin Baxter. Coffee-table? Yes, I suppose so.

Yet a very short time later I was beginning discussions with Cornerhouse Publications about a similar book project. In those days, Cornerhouse published work by some of the most respected photographers in the world. A catalogue from that era features names like Richard Misrach, Paul Graham, John Davies and Robert Frank. They described themselves as “Britain’s leading photography publisher with an international reputation for the quality of (our) books.” In 1993, Cornerhouse produced a dummy and a publication date for my book of summer 1994 was mooted. And then things went quiet. I have letters from Dewi Lewis at Cornerhouse and carbon copies (remember them?) of my letters to him but the sequence comes to an end in November 1993. I have no memory at all of why the project came to a halt. It must have been a shattering blow – for me anyway…..

The next letter in my collection, dated November 1994, once more comes from Gomer Press. There had been a change of staff and a change in attitude. Mairwen Prys Jones had become the English-language editor and was enthusiastic about working with me on a book. ‘Wales – the Lie of the Land’, published in May 1996, was the result; roughly what I had envisaged the Cornerhouse book would be. It was the first in a series of books I have done for Gomer Press, each time working with a different author. ‘Wales at Waters Edge’, which appeared in May 2012, was the most recent, and, I think it is fair to say, probably the most successful. I have never shied away from including some more challenging images amongst the sumptuous landscapes in these books so I have been enormously grateful to Gomer Press, and Mairwen in particular, for their faith in my work.

Collaborating with an author can be rather hit-and-miss affair. Each of the half-dozen I have worked with has been a different experience, but nothing can compare with the most recent. Late in 2012 I was approached by an author to see if I would be interested in working with him on a new book for a different publisher. He came from a journalistic background, and his name is not particularly well-known. Nevertheless he showed me an excellent, well thought-out proposal and it was subject matter that I was very keen on moving into myself. At a very productive meeting we agreed how fruitful and enjoyable a true collaboration between the two of us could be. A small amount of funding was obtained for me from the Welsh Books Council by the publisher. It would realistically only cover my travelling expenses but I was still keen to go ahead. I began work on the photographs.

Then, completely out of the blue, it all came shuddering to a halt. It really was a car-crash. In the spirit of collaboration I had made a list of constructive suggestions and ideas on how to progress the book from the photographers point of view. We discussed it over the phone. The conversation ended like this:

Him: “Well if we’re going to have an argument, we might as well do it now”. The criticism begins…..

Me: “I’m finding this conversation very difficult.”

Him: ……..criticism continues…..

Me: “I’m finding this conversation very difficult.”

Him: ……..it’s a rant, really……..

Me: “I’m going to have to ring off now.”

Him: …….the rant continues.…..

Me: “Please……”

Him: …….there’s no end to the rant……

Me: “Please…….”

Him: …….he carries on……

At this point I put down the phone.

This was, in effect, the end of the project for me. I was in a state of shock for a while, but it would have been impossible to work with such a domineering individual who had so little understanding of how photographers produce great pictures. I have not heard from him again, and the publisher pulled the plug on my involvement. Despite massive disappointment on my behalf, it was probably a good thing that I had not yet signed the contract for the book.

So what might I conclude from all this? Having one’s work published in book form would probably be the fulfilment of a dream for most photographers. Progress towards that goal is, however, often dependent on circumstance and good fortune. The change of heart by Gomer Press between July 1992 and November 1994 was partly the result of a new member of staff being appointed and partly to a recommendation by a writer friend. It worked in my favour that time but these things can equally well work to one’s disadvantage. I have been lucky enough to see my work in print a number of times – some would say very lucky. But even so the state of the economy, the development of new technology and other unpredictable factors mean that good fortune can never be guaranteed, no matter how good one’s work is. It is a bit of a lottery.

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A eureka moment.

This summer has offered few moments for the landscape photographer to rejoice at the quality of the light. Too much cloud….not enough cloud……. It’s not as if I’m choosy or anything.

Last Wednesday was a case in point. The promised morning clearance came a little too late, and left a residue of extensive sheets of high-level white cirrus, rather than the blue sky that one expects. But late in the afternoon things really did take a turn for the better: the cirrus became more wispy and a big patch of blue sky was revealed. And I was in the perfect position to take advantage of it.

This viewpoint over the Dyfi valley has become rather a favourite of mine recently. It has great views to the Snowdonia National Park to the north. With such a commanding position it is also a great spot to spend the night or sit and wait for an improvement in conditions. And when that happens one is right on the spot.

It took me a while to find some foreground interest for this “big”, almost panoramic, landscape. A small rocky outcrop did the trick though, and the colourful autumnal tones of the bracken fronds and mountain ash tree were also helpful. To fit it all in, though, I needed to use the wide end of my wide-angle zoom, which added its own problems.

Using a polarising filter on a lens as wide as 17mm nearly always leads to visible uneven polarisation. This results in a dark blue, over-saturated patch of sky at the top of the image – in the centre if you are at right angles to the sun. If – as I do – you add a graduated neutral density filter the patch will tend to be greyish-blue, which is most unattractive. And yet a polariser is so critical for this type of image. Until this morning I really didn’t know how to solve this problem.

Back at base I had tried cloning the dark patch out and replacing it with another area of sky, but this was hopelessly crude with a complex sky like this. Then I came across the radial filter – a new feature of Lightroom v5, but not one for which I had expected to find a use. I decided to have a quick play, and suddenly it all came together. I selected the dark patch with the radial filter, altered its dimensions so it fitted reasonably well, and feathered it to 100%. Finally I inverted the mask so that I could work only on the area within the selection. It was then a matter of using trial and error with the exposure, highlights, shadows and saturation sliders to get the natural result I was looking for.

Very definitely a eureka moment!

Postscript: after further experimentation I’ve come to the conclusion that adjusting the contrast is probably the most useful in this situation. Lowering the saturation results in the blue becoming greyer.

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The gift.

Quite a number of years ago I was at a get-together of outdoor photographers and the question was floated -” what is your favourite month for landscape photography”? I suggested August because, after the “green deserts” that are June and July, the landscape seems to come alive mid-month with the first signs of autumn. And the nights are long enough again to get a decent nights sleep…….. My choice was greeted with – well, not exactly snorts of derision – but less than an enthusiastic response. I couldn’t help suspecting that some of the others present had not actually noticed the changes that take place.

This year has been a little different. The heat and drought of July led to a very parched looking landscape, even in Wales – some might say looking more like summer! Since then there has been plenty of rain and greens have come back to the fore. Come mid-August and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

What is difficult not to notice, for the third August in a row (at least), is the lack of bright sunshine. Here in west Wales the passing of a cold front usually leads to crisp, clear atmospheric conditions which are excellent for the photographer. For the last few weeks all that has followed seems to be a different layer of cloud. A ridge of high pressure? More cloud. Perhaps my photographic colleagues were thinking of typical August weather rather than the way the landscape actually looks; and perhaps in that sense they were actually correct. Maybe August normally is a pretty hopeless month for photographing the landscape.

All has not been lost, however. Cloudy conditions can be excellent for certain subject matter, where bright sun introduces high levels of contrast. In woodland, for example, deep shadows and bright highlights make photography very difficult. For very different reasons other subject matter demands what I call “honest light”. Industrial landscapes, for example, where you do not wish to introduce any of the glamour or warmth that sunshine might bring.

Both of these situations came together for me one day last week. As part of the “Darganfod Dyfi” (Discovering the Dyfi) commission that I am working on, I followed one of the projected circular walks above Corris as far as a deserted slate quarrying village, now being engulfed by trees. The whole place would repay further exploration, but right by the path was a tiny chapel, without door, roof or windows.

Working for other people on their projects can be rather soul-destroying. It often involves subjects and locations that one would not normally bother with . But occasionally you come across something exciting that you would never have otherwise found, and this was one example. It was tricky to position the camera correctly to give a perfectly symmetrical image, and I don’t think I quite succeeded, despite also using the lens correction tools in Lightroom.. But after a period of time when photography had become rather uninspiring for me, the chapel felt like a gift.

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A couple of months ago I was asked to tender for a job photographing views of and from the routes of a number of public footpaths in the Machynlleth area. As part of the Dyfi Biosphere project the paths are being cleared, waymarked, and promoted as circular routes – with a series of leaflets being produced to assist walkers. The photographs are for the leaflets.

My first problem was that the client required “joint copyright” with me. I had an idea this was meaningless, and on investigation it turned out that joint copyright can only exist if there are joint creators. Both creators would be required to give permission for the use of an “artwork” outside any original agreement. So this was clearly not the case. After a series of phone calls and emails it became clear that the client required use of the images on a long-term basis within the organisation, and no more. So they didn’t need copyright at all! Just a licence to use the images as and when required.

Then pricing. I had a fairly good idea who the other photographers might be so I knew that I would have to price myself low to counter their bids. I imagined I could walk each path once and take photographs on the walk. Add on travel expenses, a nominal amount for subsistence and Bob’s your uncle!

I got the job. I started work on the first day of the hot spell which lasted for three weeks in July. It immediately became apparent that cloudless skies were quite unsuited to landscape photography, but I knew that anyway. More to the point, there was no way that I could produce decent work on one walk around the route. The first visit would only serve as a recce for a later visit (or visits) once I knew where the views were and what time of day would give best results. It was a silly and foolish mistake to make, and I’m surely regretting it now. My best estimate is that the job will probably take twice as long as I had allowed for, and the travelling expenses will probably be double too.

Day rates had, I believed, plummeted in recent years along with all other sources of income for photographers. The price I quoted was less than that I charged about fifteen years ago when I did a lot of work for the Wales Tourist Board. It did not take into account the half a lifetime of experience I now have in landscape photography, and the quality of the images that I produce. But I believed that I would need to price myself low to get the work. The particularly frustrating thing is that no-one else had actually tendered. I was competing only against myself.

Well, such is life. There have been a few decent half-days since the end of July so I’m making some slow progress. Several of the routes are in the Corris area which, given its long history of slate mining, is a fascinating place to take photographs. Undoubtedly the most extraordinary place I have found is a private garden clinging to hillside which is crammed with scale models of Italian palaces, cathedrals and monuments. Not at all what one expects to find in a damp and claustrophobic Welsh mountain village!

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Wales At Waters Edge – exhibition, talk and landscape photography workshop

Llandudno off-season - from Wales At Waters Edge — Llandudno off-season – from Wales At Waters Edge

Well, the exhibition is now showing in Gallery 2 (upstairs) at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, and very good it looks too! The Arts Centre, on the main University campus, is probably the most comprehensive in Wales,with two dedicated gallery spaces, theatre, cinema, concert hall, ceramics spaces, and numerous other facilities – including a grand total of three coffee shops! I had my first exhibition there about twenty-five years ago, although I cringe now at the thought of the photographs I proudly presented. You may have heard about the Arts Centre for all the wrong reasons recently – senior staff suspended by the University on apparently spurious grounds, followed by the “retirement” of the former Director of 28 years, Alan Hewson. It was Alan who offered me that first exhibition opportunity all those years ago so I have a lot to be grateful to him for. How the remaining staff manage to cope with the increased workload just doesn’t bear thinking about. The exhibition programme is still taking place as planned, however, and Wales at Waters Edge is showing until September 7th.

The exhibition is based on the photographs in the book of the same name, which was published last year. It examines all aspects of the coastline, so conventionally unpromising, man-made subject matter has been sought as well as the stunning landscapes that Wales is rightly renowned for. It would be impossible to do justice to the subject without tackling both. As a consequence both the book and exhibition have also become an exploration of our relationship with nature. Recognising that the audience for an exhibition may be different to that for a book, I have selected and arranged the images using different criteria. I had to reduce the number of images by more than half, and decided to bias the selection towards the built coastal environment. That may seem strange, but there are some very interesting developments around these shores – some welcome, some not. If the audience recoils at the sight of some of them, I feel I will have succeeded. Having said that, though, there is still one group of large (30″ x 20″) wild landscapes and another section devoted to coastal birds.

So please do visit! Let me know and I will meet up with you if I can.

There are two linked events at the Arts Centre. On Thursday August 8th at 6p.m. I will be giving an illustrated talk – entry free of charge.And from Thursday 29th August until Sunday 1st September I will be leading a landscape photography workshop based at the Arts Centre. For further details, please click here

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