Bird/land – Tales from Wild Wales

My fifteen minutes of fame.

I wonder if most landscape/outdoor photographers are as solitary as this one? I suspect not. But if I’m not out in the landscape with my camera or binoculars I can usually be found sitting at my desk watching cat videos on Youtube or scrolling though Facebook er….. sorry……. er ……..processing images and running my business. Rarely does the phone ring or an exciting proposal arrive by email. I’m not naturally gregarious and promoting my work comes pretty low down on my list of priorities these days. But an unexpected opportunity came my way last weekend.

I was attending “The Eye” photography festival at Aberystwyth Arts Centre.. It is devoted to documentary photography and photo-journalism and its organiser – Glenn Edwards – has been able to bring some of the biggest names in the genre to little old Aberystwyth over the years. While these are not my specialities I do appreciate good photography of all types and I have always found it a stimulating event.

During the first lecture I noticed that my friend Will Troughton was in the audience. He is the photography curator at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth and has always been a supporter of my work. So I went over to have a chat, during which he told me that one of the afternoon events was a visit to the Library. He had selected some prints from its huge Photography Collection (almost a million prints altogether) for attendees to browse through. As well as work from some of the greats of 19th Century photography, he had also chosen some more contemporary work including some of mine. So alongside Carleton Watkins prints of the nineteenth-century American West, and a set of prints of Native Americans from the same era by Edward Sherriff Curtis, was a selection from my exhibition Bird/land (click here to visit my website).

As it happened I had a one-off copy of the Bird/land book with me, so I offered to come down to the Library with him. While I hadn’t prepared a presentation I was introduced as the photographer and it gave me the opportunity to talk about Bird/land with some knowledgeable and interested photographers. I also had a copy of another one-off book with me – the result of a very long term project variously known as ‘my black-and-white project’, the ‘Fay Godwin project ‘, or, most definitively, ‘A Sideways Glance‘ (click here to visit my website.) The two books are so different in style and subject matter that it must seem difficult to believe that the same photographer could have produced both. But I am living evidence that he did! Both books provoked a great deal of interest and some good feedback.

This was a real boost to my confidence. Back at the Arts Centre I collared Glenn Edwards and showed them to him as well. The documentary style of A Sideways Glance was more to his liking, I suspect, and he looked through it very carefully, finally giving me very positive feedback. A few years ago I had hoped that he might give me a slot at “The Eye” but I think his intention has always been to bring photographic excellence to Aberystwyth, rather than showcase local photographers.

The following morning one of the other photographers asked me if it was possible to buy a copy of Bird/land, and I had to explain it was a one-off, and therefore quite expensive. But we agreed on a price and I’m just about to send it off to him down in Pembrokeshire.

As for me, until the weather improves, it’s back to the cat videos!

If you are interested in buying a copy of Bird/land, please let me know. It is in hardback, 28 x 28 cm in size with 20 double-page spreads, on very thick paper in “lay-flat” style. It contains a total of 117 images mostly in the form tryptichs. The price would be £95 including postage.

NB. Sadly it looks like this will have been the final “Eye” in Aberystwyth due to declining attendances. It was good while it lasted!

To receive more Tales from Wild Wales as they are published, please click the Follow button.

Compliments.

It is always nice to receive a compliment and this is one of the nicest I’ve ever had:

I am very grateful for the photograph, which arrived safely today. I think it’s really fantastic ……,. showing clearly the bungalow, Uwch y cwm, (of) which we as a family have fond memories. I am going to get it framed. Diolch yn fawr iawn, Tec .

The image concerned (above) dates back to the 2000’s and was used on the front cover of my book Blaenau Ffestiniog. The original was on a transparency, and although I do have a good quality scanner, it had developed a fault. The sale of a single print didn’t actually cover the cost of the repair but the knowledge that the buyer was happy more than makes up for it! And of course I’ve now got a scanner that works.

Satisfying in a different way was the recent sale of ten ‘works’ from my Bird/land exhibition (click to view) to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. The Library has been buying my work intermittently for nearly thirty years and now has well over 300 of my prints in its collection. It was interesting to look my name up in their catalogue and discover how many bits and bobs relating to my life as a photographer are stored away in their vaults. It is an honour and a compliment that the library chose to collect my work and continues to do so. It is also satisfying to know that some of it will outlive me.

To read more Tales from Wild Wales as they are published, please click the Follow button.

My website – www.wild-wales.com

Bird/land : reprise.

It’s quite a few years since my exhibition Bird/land was last shown – since summer 2017, in fact. But it has emerged from hibernation once again and a cut-down version can soon be seen in the exhibition space at the excellent Clettwr cafe and community shop in Tre’r ddol, half way between Aberystwyth and Machynlleth.

I will be hanging it on Tuesday evening (January 9th) and it will be showing until March 18th. So if you are driving down the A487 do drop in and have a look. Opening hours are 9.00 until 17.30 every day of the week, (cafe hours – 9.30 > 16.00) And in case you are wondering, the work is for sale!

To see online versions of the full exhibition, please click here to go to my website.

To see more Tales from Wild Wales as they are published, please click the Follow button.

A tale of three images.

Ramsey Island (on left) and the Bishops and Clerks, from Whitesands.

It has been a while since I last posted but things have been moving apace. Most of February and March was spent getting postcards out into shops in various parts of Wales. It is always difficult to drag oneself out of the semi-hibernation of mid-winter and this year was particularly fraught because Easter was so early.

It has to be admitted that sales of postcards are steadily declining. This is partly because people are using phones and Facebook to contact their friends while they are away but also because the number of potential outlets is declining rapidly. The perils of running a bookshop in the Amazon era are well recognised, but independent retailers of all kinds have been closing and are not being replaced in similar numbers. What is particularly sad is the number of Tourist Information Centres that have closed, will soon close or are under threat of closure. It is happening all over Wales as a result of cuts to local authority funding. It may be our local councils (and National Park authorities) that are having to make the difficult decision to close them but the root cause is central Government.

A selling trip that would until recently have taken two and a half days now takes two or less. But that does mean I have a little more time available for photography on these trips and I was lucky with the weather on some of them. After one particularly busy day in Pembrokeshire I was able to nip down to Whitesands, arriving just after sunset. I started a short high-tide walk along the beach but quickly ran back for the camera. The conditions were just stunning! I only had a few minutes to run off a few exposures and I wasn’t entirely happy with the composition in any of them. But I’ll settle for the above…….

On a trip up to north Wales I spent one night at Pen-y-pass YHA. I normally avoid youth hostels these days but Pen-y-pass is so well situated for an early morning walk in the foothills of Snowdon that in winter I occasionally make an exception. Unfortunately my dorm also contained a snorer so I had a disturbed night’s sleep and was not able to get up at the crack of dawn as I had hoped. But a little later on this was the view of the Snowdon horseshoe from “The Horns”, situated between the PyG and Miners’ paths.

Snowdon summit and Y Lliwedd — Y Lliwedd, Yr Wyddfa and Crib Goch from “The Horns”

I was able to devote the whole of this superb day to photography so then headed off eastwards to photograph the packed masses of waders at their high-tide roost at the Point of Air, near Prestatyn. The only trouble was – there weren’t any. Just a handful of the commonest species. I then spent a couple of hours searching for, and failing to find, my current birding obsession – hawfinches. I won’t broadcast the location because villagers get pretty cheesed off with the behaviour of some birders, but there is a well-known site for this rare and elusive bird in the Conwy valley. So for the second time in one day I assumed I must be driving around in a van with a huge sign, facing upwards, on its roof saying “Bird photographer approaching destination – make a run for it”.

But I had more joy at my final location, the RSPB Conwy reserve at Llandudno Junction. There has been a starling roost there all winter and on my arrival I was pleased to discover they were still around. There was no wind and it looked like there would be a good sunset, so I found a location where I hoped the birds would be silhouetted against a stunning sky. There was even the possibility of a reflection for good measure! Towards sunset small groups of starlings began to arrive, some time later than they do at Aberystwyth. And they just kept on coming! Several sparrowhawks made appearances and made hunting dashes into the flock. The starlings created tightly-packed balls and ribbons of birds to try to evade them. It was fabulous to watch but set against part of the sky which was too dark to allow successfully photography.

It really was a very large flock by the time they eventually disappeared together into the reedbed. It was almost dark by that time and they had been displaying for some forty minutes since the first birds arrived. It was interesting to compare this with their behaviour at Aberystwyth, where they were going to roost some forty-five minutes earlier. I managed this image as the flock swirled over one the reserve’s shallow lagoons.

Starlings in pre-roost display, RSPB Conwy reserve.

I don’t know if it be useable anywhere else but on the web. It was taken at 6.31 pm on March 10th, using pretty extreme settings for this type of subject – 4000 ASA, 1/160th second and f4.

Finally, just before Easter, I installed part of my Bird/land exhibition in the Visitor Centre at RSPB Ynyshir. It will be showing there until May 30th; but for the full Bird/land experience wait until June 25th, when an updated and expanded version will be opening in the Photography Gallery at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Watch this space for more information.

To follow Tales from Wild Wales, scroll down to the bottom and click Follow.

Final thoughts on Bird/land…..for now……..

Well, Bird/land closed just over a month ago and I have to say in many respects it was a success. Feedback was excellent; visitors were particularly complimentary about how different the work was to anything that I had previously done. Print sales were also very good and much better than I was expecting. As a result I have just sent a cheque for £140 to the RSPB towards reconstruction of their hides at Snettisham in Norfolk. I had hoped to make multiple visits to Snettisham during the course of the project to photograph the countless thousands of waders which congregate there but a storm surge of December 2013 destroyed the hides. So my small contribution will benefit conservation generally and bird photographers in particular.

What has been disappointing is the almost complete lack of coverage I have received in the press and the photographic media in particular. I suppose the exhibition did fall between two stools – not really bird photography, and not landscape either – so it was difficult to categorise. And, of course, it was in a small town in mid-Wales and who could even pronounce its name? But not for the first time have I believed that there is a prejudice amongst the English media about all things Welsh.

All is not yet lost, however. I have agreed to display some of the work at RSPB Ynyshir, my local reserve, next spring. And on a much larger scale the whole exhibition will be shown at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for two months next summer. I am hoping to be able to expand it to fill the larger photographic gallery there but that will be subject to receiving further funding from the Arts Council of Wales. So watch this space for further information about dates, etc.

The image above is one of only two singles in the exhibition. It has sold really well and only one remains at the time of writing. How I wish I’d offered an edition of ten or more instead of just six! It is so difficult to know how to sell photographs. Over the summer I noticed an exhibition of really rather average black-and-white landscapes in a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, in an edition of 295. Only in the photographer’s wildest dreams would anywhere near that number be sold. A short edition would, I hoped, create a feeling of exclusivity around the work, and thus increase sales. But I think I may have misjudged it. Just one of the lessons I have learned over the last few months!

To follow Tales from Wild Wales please scroll right to the bottom and click Follow

A light bulb moment

Bird / land no. 15 - crows — Bird / land no. 15 – crows

Earlier on this year I may have mentioned that I had been awarded an Arts Council of Wales grant to create new work for an exhibition in summer 2015. Receiving the grant was exciting but the hard part was yet to come – yes, actually doing the work – but bit by bit, piece by piece, it is coming together.

For many years I photographed landscapes while at same time only watching birds. It partly went back to an earlier stage in my life when I spent a period of time working on and off for bird conservation bodies. During these years I spent months at a time in exotic parts of the UK, either surveying upland birds or protecting rare species at the nest site. In neither situation was I able to photograph the object of my interest. It just wasn’t possible, and I kept the camera to one side for the landscapes. But a few years ago I began to put my two interests together. There are many fabulous bird photographers around and I knew that it would take me many years to build up my skills to their leveI, if I were ever able to do it at all. But what I did have, I felt, was an awareness of the landscapes the birds inhabit which some of the photographers seemed to miss. That was the direction I decided to take.

The arts establishment is not known for its interest in wildlife. Many individual painters, photographers and sculptors (for example) are passionate about nature but there seems to be an unspoken agreement that it is not a subject worthy of the serious artist. So in theory it was probably an uphill battle for me to convince the Arts Council that my project was worthy of support. One needs to dress one’s ideas up a little to convince them of their value, so an exhibition of single images would probably not be sufficient. I came up with an idea which was not cutting edge but seemed genuinely innovative. This was to present the images in groups of three or more – triptychs if you like – linked by species, location or aesthetic qualities. Each individual image would be panoramic format. It also might have helped that I already had a good exhibiting track record achieved with minimal Arts Council support. Whatever, they went for it.

So an exhibition of 35 “pieces” would need something like 100 separate images; each one, ideally, worthy in its own right of being exhibited, and able to be linked to two others in some way or another. Ambitious or what! To be honest the amount of funding I received was in no way adequate for the time and expenses I have already spent on the project, not to mention the next six months, but it keeps the wolf from the door. By now I’m well on the way towards completing the work, and I have hundreds of images potentially suitable for use. Sometimes it’s possible to visit one location and come away with a set of images that are subtly different but similar enough to be shown together, and this can work very well. But in most cases the biggest problem is grouping individual images which may have been taken in widely different locations.

Not being specifically relevant to Wales, this project has allowed me to travel to some fabulous locations elsewhere in the UK and on the continent. But – rather appropriate for the time of year, I think – my most recent attempts have been very close to home. I’m only about five miles as the red kite flies from the Bwlch Nant-yr-arian feeding station. Here, at two o’clock every day, 10 kilograms of waste meat chunks are deposited by the side of a lake for the accumulated gathering of kites and crows. It is rather an overwhelming spectacle for the photographer, with well over a hundred kites present every day. Most people would eventually come up with some stunning close-ups of individual birds sweeping down to grab some food, or carrying a piece away to eat elsewhere. But that didn’t fit my brief, so I walked some distance away from the lake and gained some altitude. I’m still not quite sure how I’m going to tackle the kites but on one visit I noticed a dead conifer trunk nearby which served as a regular perching place for crows to observe the proceedings. It was just one of those light bulb moments! It was not what I originally had in mind but by visiting the same spot several times I came away with several suitable images and earlier this afternoon I put five of them together. While this may not be the finished article it was a real buzz to see how well they worked as a set!

What do you think?

To follow Tales from Wild Wales scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Follow