landscape – Page 6 – Tales from Wild Wales

In the footsteps of Richard Wilson (and Bill Condry)

Yesterday I planned an early start to climb Cadair Idris. I woke drowsily. Did I have the energy to “do Cader”? The long drag up Mynydd Moel was almost vertical, I seemed to remember. The forecast was for sunshine but that is no guarantee of good light. After procrastinating for an hour or so I left the cocoon of my van and felt the cool morning air on my face. I would go for it.

My viewpoint was to be high on the slopes of Mynydd Moel, overlooking the corrie lake of Llyn Cau and the cliffs of Craig Cau which tower vertically over it. The foreground would be gorgeous with heather at this time of year. By the time I arrived the sun would be at right-angles to my angle of vision, allowing my polarising filter to be most effective. I was travelling as light as I possibly could, carrying only enough food, water and spare clothing for the day and my miniscule Panasonic GX7 kit. I left the tripod in the van. Only two hours of climbing lay between me and my destination.

The first half hour took me steeply up rustic stone steps through oak woodland. A mountain torrent tumbled downwards alongside the path. A few years ago I would have done this in one go, pausing only at the gate at the top of the woodland. Yesterday I needed a break every few minutes. At the gate I emerged on to moorland but it was steeper than I remembered. I forked right and crossed the stream. The mountain gradually became more prominent. I had prepared myself mentally for the agony of the final relentless three hundred meters of height gain, so it perhaps wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared. By 10 am I was at my location. Visibility was good but there was no cloud at all to diffuse the sunlight and add texture to the sky.

Over the next two hours I took over thirty images. I’m still new to the GX7 and I sometimes struggled with its controls but it is definitely an improvement on the GX1. The battery lasted just three hours, as it had on its first outing. Pathetic! I found the focal length range of the kit lens (14 – 42 mm or 28 – 84 equivalent) slightly limiting. I’m not a fan of ultra-wide angles but I do like a 24mm lens. Tiny wispy clouds materialised and disappeared over a couple of minutes, but somehow never quite the right shape or in quite the right place. Oh, the joys and frustrations of being a landscape photographer! By mid-day, though, I felt confident that I would have something to show for my efforts, and it was with a sense of achievement that I reached the summit of Cadair Idris in time for my picnic lunch. The descent was laborious but uneventful.

Llyn-y-Cau by Richard Wilson, painted in 1774.

That evening I was attending a writing workshop at a bookshop in Machynlleth, where I casually picked up a book – The Mountains of Snowdonia in Art by Peter Bishop. It almost fell open at the page showing the painting Llyn-y-Cau, Cadair Idris, by Richard Wilson (1774), reproduced above. To the contemporary viewer it looks astonishingly primitive, but it must have been painted close to the spot I had been earlier in the day.

I recalled that in the book Heart of the Country I had included one of William Condry’s “Guardian Country Diaries” alongside an earlier, and quite different, image I had taken of Craig Cau and Llyn Cau. Bill’s text is extraordinarily perceptive. He had searched for the spot where the artist must have stood to make the painting, but failed to find it. He explains –

“Wilson aimed to represent the scene in only the broadest outlines. For that was the way things were in his day: artists quite happily moved cliffs, woods, waterfalls, even whole mountains a bit to the left or right in order to make the picture more picturesque.”

He goes on –

“If the public has learned to appreciate the wild lonely uplands of the world, it is largely due to painters like Wilson and the travel writers who were his contemporaries. Poor Wilson. His paintings may be worth a fortune now but he died long before his work was widely acclaimed. As someone wrote later: ‘Scarcely half a century has elapsed since death relieved Wilson from the apathy of the critics, the envy of rivals, and the neglect of the tasteless public'”

To my eyes the painting has been cobbled together from three elements. Firstly, the vista from close to my viewpoint; secondly, the grassy dome called Moelfryn, which the artist has placed in front of the lake, although it is actually about half a mile to the south; and thirdly, a large dose of artistic licence. In those days so few people ever visited the Welsh mountains that no-one would have been any the wiser.

More from Cwm Idwal.

Last week I posted about my eventually successful visit to Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia. But alongside the story of the photographs there was a quite different narrative running in parallel.

On my first visit to the Cwm, amongst the huge boulders below Twll Du, I came across some small brown birds. I quickly twigged that they were twite, which, strangely enough, I had been reading about the previous evening. As far as British birds go they are probably the supreme example of the “little brown job”. Visually there are no distinguishing features at all unless you can see the pale pink rump patch, but they do have a distinctive twanging call, which confirms their identity. At first it was just a couple of birds, then a juvenile begging food from a parent, then a bird leaving a possible nest site and finally a flock of 15 – 20 birds.

On my return to Idwal Cottage I looked around for someone to report my sightings to. There was no-one but a girl from the National Trust, who “thought she had heard of twite” but that was it. While I drank my coffee I noticed the nearby organic burger van, whose owner, Gwyn Thomas, the local farmer, was conversing with customers. My partner has worked with him so I went over for a chat. Eventually I brought up the subject of my sightings. To my surprise and delight he is quite an authority on twite! Along with several other farmers in Nant Ffrancon he grows a seed crop for them to feed on during the autumn before they move down to the coast for the winter. I’m sometimes not a great admirer of farmers but this man is a star!

During our conversation a car drew up alongside and the driver came over. I recognised him but couldn’t put a name to the face. Gwyn left me with him and a tentative conversation began. I wondered aloud if I had seen him on TV. “No, I work on radio…” he replied. Not really a great help! “I did a book with you!” he added. It came to me in a flash. It was Dei Tomos, the author with whom I had worked on the Welsh version of “Wales at Waters Edge”. I buried my head in my hands in embarrassment! To be fair though, it was hardly a collaboration and we had only met once, and he couldn’t place me at first either.

The social aspect of my weekend continued the following morning. Back at Ogwen Cottage after a third unsuccessful visit to the Cwm, I was drinking coffee by my van. A familiar figure appeared. It was Martin Ashby, owner of Ystwyth Books in Aberystwyth, and one oldest and most valued friends. He was with his mate Nigel Dudley and just about to set off on a long walk up in to the Carneddau. I reluctantly turned down their invitation to join them.

On my return home I reported my twite records to the BTO Officer for Wales, Kelvin Jones. He told me that twite are declining steeply in Wales, and there is a project going to try to reverse this. Apart from the feeding project mentioned above birds are being ringed on the coast in winter in the hope that sightings in summer of ringed birds can reveal more about their movements. Although I had not seen any rings it seems my sightings had been the first this summer! The rarest breeding bird in Wales may actually now be twite, he said. (Does that make them rarer than osprey, I wonder……)

Just a note on the photograph above. While dull, cloudy conditions are usually the kiss of death for most “big” landscapes, they can be ideal for details within the landscape. This lovely rowan tree was just below Ogwen Cottage.

To read more about Gwyn Thomas and his work in Cwm Idwal, click here.

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A weekend at Cwm Idwal

I’ve been in the photographic doldrums for a few weeks now. It seems to happen most years during mid-summer when I’m pretty busy getting stuff out into shops and creative activities tend to take a back seat. But last weekend the forecast seemed promising – sunny intervals rather than wall-to-wall sunshine – and I decided to head up to Snowdonia. I had it in mind to try out my new Panasonic gx7 and maybe do a mountain walk into the Glyderau or on to Snowdon. Early on Saturday morning I headed up into Cwm Idwal with the option of going on to the tops but conditions were really not pleasant. It was windy and cold with plenty of cloud cover. I can’t say that me and the gx7 got on like a house on fire. I hated the menu system on the gx1 and the gx7 does seem better in this respect. But it’s still not an SLR! I got a few decent images when the sun briefly shone. But after using it intermittently for about 3 hours, and taking about fourty shots, I noticed the battery power was practically down to zero. This wasn’t right at all! I spent a while looking for locations to re-visit later on, and then it was back down to the van to wait out the middle hours of the day.

Cwm Idwal is a National Nature Reserve and location of many of Snowdonia’s rare arctic-alpine plant species. Sheep have been largely excluded for some years now to allow the flora to recover from the accumulated effects of countless nibbling teeth. I was very pleasantly surprised by how extensively the heather has regenerated and it was in full colourful bloom. In some ways mid-August is my favourite time of year for exactly this reason. Swathes of purple calluna are such a sensuous experience; a feast for both the eyes and the lens, and somehow more than that as well. So later on, under full cloud cover, I took my full DSLR kit up into the cwm and spent some time taking close-ups of a boggy pool and its surroundings, just heaving with wild flowers. Then it was over to the spot I had located earlier which gave a view over to Pen Yr Ole Wen. In still conditions this mountainous backdrop would be reflected in the lake. What made my location particularly special was that I could also include a gnarly old mountain ash tree, apparently growing out of bare rock, in the foreground. Unfortunately the weather was not playing ball. I made a few images, but could see that much more exciting things would be possible in better light. The next morning I was up there again and the following evening as well! Conditions were still and vast hordes of midges appeared, more than I’ve ever known anywhere in Wales.

Monday morning dawned more clear and after a quick whizz round to Llynnau Mymbyr (Capel Curig) I decided to return to Cwm Idwal for one more try at the image I had envisaged two days earlier. I set off full of confidence and with a light step. It’s funny how a 5kg pack feels like 2kg in such a situation but more like 15 at the end of an unsuccessful day. I had reached my spot by 9 a.m. but the sun had not yet come over the ridge of Glyder Fach. Surely it couldn’t be long? The edge of the mountain’s shadow slowly crept down the heathery rock-face on the left-hand side until all was illuminated. My moment came at 9.50 a.m. A few minutes later I had a selection of shots and the sun had become obstructed by spreading and developing cumulus cloud. It had all gone so well! And only on my fifth visit………

So why does this image work?

Firstly I am so thrilled by the location; the rowan was a real bonus. It is probably one of only two in the Cwm – the result of many years of sheep grazing.

Secondly my angle of vision is exactly at right angles to the sun’s rays and my polariser is at its most effective. Any uneven polarisation is partly masked by what cloud there is. (I also used a 1-stop ND grad to balance the exposure)

Thirdly, the heather is in bloom. Only for a couple of weeks in the year would that be the case.

Fourth, there is no wind to disturb the surface of the lake and a full reflection is visible.

On the other hand, it gives such a benign impression of Llyn Idwal and its surroundings. Conditions would rarely be so amiable. So there’s definitely the place for an alternative interpretation of the location. I’ll be back.

If anyone is in the mid-Wales area next week I’ll be giving the annual Halstatt Lecture at MOMA Wales, Machynlleth on Wednesday 26th at 1 pm. I’ll be talking about how I became a birder and a photographer, and finally both!

Tickets are £6.00. Phone 01654 703355 for more details.

My exhibition Bird/land is showing there until September 19th. Entry free of charge.

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What a difference an hour makes…..

After doing deliveries around north Wales on Friday I had the day free on Saturday for photography. Friday had been damp and drizzly with plenty of low cloud but no wind. A continuation of the calm conditions overnight coupled with the passage of a cold front suggested that better times would soon come. I guessed that there would be plenty of “interesting clouds” to photograph the next morning. I sat out Friday evening and then drove down to the Mawddach estuary to arrive just before dark. I could see that the low cloud had aligned itself in distinct layers along the steep sides of the estuary although it was too dark to photograph it. I set my alarm for 5 a.m. I didn’t want to miss a thing!

I had parked up by the side of a minor road near Barmouth with a view right down the estuary and across to Cadair Idris. Groggily I crept out of the van to find that the cloud had coalesced into a huge amorphous blob with no photographic potential whatsoever. Although it was cloud-free to the west it would take the sun quite some time to rise above the blob. Time to enjoy the birdsong and make a leisurely cup of tea. I decided to head for the Panorama Walk above the head of the estuary. At least I’d get some exercise!

The cloud was very slowly drifting downstream above the estuary and lifting. Would the sun ever break through to light up the landscape? I felt sure that all over Snowdonia photographers were making amazing images but that here it was no-go time. At last, at 7 a.m., a few gaps appeared and a dramatic scene was revealed (see top picture). Although the clearance lasted only a couple of minutes it had been worth getting up so early.

I turned my attention south- and west- wards. The tide was out, revealing beautifully patterned sandbanks; river channels reflected the blue sky as they coiled through the sand. I floundered through deep heather and young gorse to a lower viewpoint closer to the river. The brilliant young greens of oak woodland appeared. Even a gorse bush in full flower. This landscape had everything other than sunlight to illuminate it. I was close to prayer. And then, exactly an hour after the first short clearance, the cloud receded inland to allow the sun to appear. I took a series of images and stepped back to admire the view for its own sake.

I used a polarising filter to saturate the colours and a one-stop graduated ND filter to hold back the sky a little. It is sometimes said that a one-stop grad is virtually useless but I find that in conjunction with a polariser it gives perfect, natural-looking skies. This may be a conventional image in many ways but for me it sums up the beauty of the Welsh landscape at the most stunning time of year. And I need new images of the Mawddach estuary for postcards. Job done!

Not quite a dartford warbler…….

Easter week found Jane and I down in the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. It was a part of the world I’d never seen and it also seemed to be a good chance to see, and possibly even photograph, a dartford warbler. We treated ourselves to the luxury (cough……) of a holiday flatlet in Swanage. Our first full day we decided to do a cycle ride, and, not being the hardcore types, it was soon time for a coffee stop.

We arrived at the village of Corfe Castle. Talk about picture postcard pretty! The restored Swanage railway passes through the village too, and the steam engines gave it a real flavour of the past. Purbeck has a very strong Enid Blyton connection and one could imagine the Famous Five still fitting in quite easily. However the women dressed up as wenches were, I felt, taking Heritage Britain a little too far. The Castle itself is owned by the National Trust, with an entry fee of £9.00. We decided to give that a miss. It is a spectacular ruin, however, and the National Trust tea shop nearby provided a fabulous view of it from its back garden.

Relaxing with coffee and cake, I noticed that house sparrows were popping in and out of a severely pruned privet hedge. They were using conveniently positioned twigs as lookout posts in their search for crumbs. Although I wasn’t in photography mode that day I could see an opportunity to add some “birds in the landscape” images to my collection. I filed the idea away in my memory banks.

Jane may not have my perhaps obsessive interest in birds and/or photography but she can be very tolerant. So a couple of days later I spent the night alone in the camper van close to the Arne RSPB reserve not far from Corfe Castle. It was a fabulous still and misty morning, with the sun rising like a crimson ball though a layer of fog. I confidently set out in search of a dartford warbler. Maybe a pair. Or two. It would be easy to find them. Two hours later I still hadn’t seen or heard one and I walked back towards the van. I began to think that dartford warblers were a figment of other people’s imaginations. Then I heard an unfamiliar sound and located one of these elusive birds on the topmost twig of a gorse bush not far away. But it flew very quickly and proved impossible to track down. The same thing happened with a second bird I found a few minutes later. So I gave up.

House sparrow, Corfe Castle (click to enlarge)

After such an early start coffee was now calling and the memory of those house sparrows was getting stronger and stronger. It was time visit the Corfe Castle tea shop again. I introduced myself, told them about the project I was working on, and asked if it was OK to take some photographs in the garden. No problem. I spent an hour there taking as many different compositions as the birds would allow. Being at such close quarters to them I was only using the standard zoom on my Canon 5d3, so I didn’t look too conspicuous. Ideally I would have had more time but the images have an interesting graphic quality to them, and who bothers taking photographs of house sparrows! I think there’s enough variety overall to create one triptych for the exhibition.

Not quite a dartford warbler…….but hey!

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Some thoughts on the Cwm Dyli pipeline.

Snowdon and Cwm Dyli, showing the pipeline

The weather has been almost unremittingly cloudy for the past few weeks but there was one exceptional day recently. A cold front had slowly moved southwards overnight and then stalled, leaving the north Wales peaks beneath blue skies in sparkling sunshine, while further south Aberystwyth remained amid the gloom. In the expectation of a good day I travelled up the previous evening and spent the night in my camper van by the shores of Llyn Dinas, near Beddgelert.

It wasn’t a terribly promising start to the day. There was still a veil of cirrus covering large areas of the sky and enough breeze to prevent a reflection in the waters of the lake. But gradually the clearance came and by mid-morning I had clambered high up on a crag above the layby overlooking Llyn Gwynant. Most visitors to north Wales will know it …… everybody stops there and takes a snap. The light was fabulous by that time and one image taken there will be suitable for a postcard at some stage.

A little higher up the valley there is a roadside viewpoint to the summit of Snowdon constructed at some expense by the National Park Authority. It would be a spectacular natural landscape if the Cwm Dyli pipeline had never been built, but it was, and I have always passed it by. But on this occasion wisps of cloud were extending westwards from the summit of Crib Goch and passing above and below Yr Wyddfa itself. Despite the pipeline I couldn’t miss this opportunity.

Thomas Pennant describes “a very fine cataract” at “the upper end of this romantic valley, Nanthwynant” in the account of his visit in 1770. Now there is also a pipeline. It was built in 1905/6 to carry water from Llyn Llydaw, beneath Yr Wyddfa, to the then new hydro-electric power station at the head of Nant Gwynant. This was the first of its type in the UK, built primarily to supply power to the slate quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog, five miles away over the hills. Despite the demise of the slate industry, the power station – by now a listed building – was re-equipped in 1990 and the pipeline renewed. There was a campaign to have it buried but in spite of the spectacular location at the very heart of the National Park, it was unsuccessful. One cannot help but believe that if the pipeline had been proposed more recently, it would never have got planning permission.

So what does the landscape photographer do? As I had done for many years, drive on by. But not on such a day as this……. A continual stream of cars was arriving and departing the car park so I climbed up the hillside on the opposite side of the road. As I gained height, the landscape opened up, revealing, unfortunately, another length of pipeline. Most of the landscape action was in the top half of the frame, and I knew that I would be cropping the image at the bottom to remove the main section of pipeline. The big dilemma would come later, at the processing stage, when I had to decide whether or not to remove the upper section digitally. I spent a while on the hillside, taking a selection of images with different cloud formations. Then the wind direction changed and the wisps of cloud began to move eastwards from Crib Goch, away from Yr Wyddfa, and the magic was gone. It was time to leave.

Actually, I’m pretty hardline about cloning landscape images. In my opinion landscape images have documentary as well as artistic value. Unless an extraneous item is present only temporarily, it stays. So a crisp packet, a post van or a walker in a red cagoule can go, but a telegraph pole or an electricity pylon stays…….. or a pipeline. There are always going to be grey areas, but it really is stretching the distinction to breaking point to claim, as some people do, that any of the three latter features are also “only temporary.” . When it comes down to removing whole landscape features such as these (or adding them….) in order to make an image more superficially “attractive” it creates a false picture of our surroundings. And as far as I’m concerned, that matters. For more on image manipulation, see this post.

So I thought I would post the above image online and seek out comments, particularly with reference to the pipeline. It started a discussion about the pipeline, why it was there and what it was for. The photograph’s documentary element tells us all sorts of things about the landscape and how much we respect it. I was also expecting a barrage of “clone it out” suggestions, but in fact there was only one, and a big majority for “leave it in”, despite the fact that in some ways it spoils the picture. There was quite a consensus and I must admit that I was relieved. The rise and rise of the cloning tool has not gone as far as I thought it had done.

Just out of interest I thought I’d add an uncropped version of the image which shows the course of the pipeline. I find it disruptive even though it is largely hidden in deep shadow.

Cwm Dyli - uncropped — Cwm Dyli – uncropped

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Wild Wales / Cymru Wyllt 2013 calendar

Just a little plug for my Wild Wales / Cymru Wyllt calendar, now (2012) in its eighth year of publication. At 330mm x 245mm in size (opening to double), thick card cover and quality paper inside, and twelve seasonal image by me, it really is fantastic value at £6.50 (inc p&p in UK). An ideal Christmas gift, especially if you love Wales, or good nature photography wherever it might be found!

To order direct visit www.wildwalespostcards.co.uk , or phone me on 01970 828164 to arrange the purchase.

STOP PRESS – BUY NOW AT ONLY £5.00 PER COPY (INCLUDING POSTAGE)

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