porthmadog – Tales from Wild Wales

A picture around every corner.

The view of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) from the Cob, near Porthmadog, is one of the iconic landscapes in Wales. For many years I have been trying to capture it to perfection. I had another attempt last week but I’m still not sure I’ve achieved it. I was in position at the south-eastern end of the Cob long before sunrise and had a long wait before I managed to get a few results I was reasonably happy with.

From here one is very close to the Boston Lodge HQ of the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways. Steam engines are prepared here every morning for service on the lines to Blaenau Ffestiniog and Caernarfon. By now the sun was strong and the activities around the engine sheds were either in deep shadow or strongly backlit. This made some powerful images possible as the trains were put together and then headed off to Porthmadog Harbour station ready to pick up passengers. I love the black-and-white look for steam railways: it reminds me of the last years of steam on British Rail in the 1960’s, when the railway magazines I read were still mostly in b&w.

By this time I was in need of a coffee so I headed off to Porthmadog. Take-away in hand I rushed back to the station just in time to catch one of the morning trains heading off towards Tan-y-bwlch. A strong wind blew a plume of steam across the saltmarshes.

On the nameplate of one of the engines was engraved “Built in 1879”. I told the driver how amazing it was that a machine built almost 150 years ago could still be in operation. He rather burst my bubble by saying that the name plate was probably the only part remaining from the original locomotive. The whole thing has – in effect – been rebuilt around it. The motto of the Ffestiniog could be “re-use, rebuild and recycle”.

I have already written (here) that Llyn Dinas is one of my favourite photo locations in the whole of Wales. On this by now wonderful day for the landscape photographer how could I resist the temptation to drive the ten miles to the lake and see what conditions were like there? I couldn’t and I wasn’t disappointed.

The lake was perfectly still with mirror-like reflections. Birch trees on the far side of the lake had lost some of their leaves, revealing purple twigs and silver trunks and branches. The remaining leaves were in a range of yellows and greens. Between the trees lay dark shadows. It was such a simple photograph to take, but it works so well. The tiny gate on the right-hand side (and its reflection) seem critical to the composition, and the whole thing has a hypnotic, mandala-like effect on me. I could disappear into it.

On such a day it seemed like there was a picture around every corner. But a bank of high cloud was relentlessly moving in from the west and by mid-afternoon it had more or less clouded over completely. Anticipating this I had moved on to the well-wooded Capel Curig area where there are also a number of waterfalls. This kind of subject matter is at its best under light cloud and I found what I was looking for in the village alongside the main A5. These falls are not publicly accessible but a quick hop over a wall gives access to them. Unlike the previous picture this needed very precise attention to detail.

It would be nice to be able to recount how I then retraced my steps back to Llyn Mymbyr where a stunning sunset over Yr Wyddfa awaited me. That would indeed have been the end of a perfect day but it was just too much to ask.

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Two nights in a quiet place.

If I am in the Porthmadog area I have a favourite place to park the van overnight. It is a delightful spot on the banks of the estuary, overhung by oak trees, and no ………. I’m not going to tell you where it is! From there it is a short drive to the Cob, the causeway that runs across the Glaslyn estuary just south of Porthmadog, from which one can look inland to the Snowdon massif. This is surely one of the most iconic landscapes in the whole of Wales but strangely enough not a big seller as far as postcards are concerned. I’ve always wondered why: perhaps people just don’t notice it as they hurry along the main road across the causeway.

I’ve spent two nights at this quiet spot in recent weeks. One morning at the end of August I woke early, had a very quick breakfast, and drove straight to the Cob. I’m sure that one of these mornings I will catch the view from there to Yr Wyddfa in perfect conditions, probably with a low fog across the marshes in the foreground, but this was not going to be it. A bank of high cloud obscured the rising sun. After a short wait I drove on to Borth-y-gest, a village set around a small harbour just west of Porthmadog.

Arriving at the main car park about 8 a.m., and the only vehicle there, I put my head back against the headrest and promptly fell asleep. About ten minutes later I woke up and was aghast to find a parking ticket attached to my windscreen! The parking warden could easily have tapped on my window and asked me to leave; instead he must have crept silently up to the van, stuck down the ticket and made a quick getaway. Talk about a hit and run incident……..

Well, Borth-y-gest is an idyllic little place so after the initial shock had worn off I decided to make the most of a now sunny morning. I need to do a new postcard of the area so set off downstream along the banks of the estuary to see what I could find. The tide was high but receding and the best photograph of the morning came on my return to the harbour (above). It’s a classic “picture-postcard” image, perfectly lit, with good colour saturation; it won’t win any prizes but it will suit my purposes perfectly.

I spent another night at my secret place last week. Not so secret, I now realise: I’ve never had to share it but this time found a rather large motor-home already in occupation. Acorns falling onto the van roof and rolling groundwards woke me several times during the night and I was surprised to also hear light rain falling. I hoped that did not bode ill for the following day.

In fact it was still raining on and off at dawn but it looked like the sun was about to rise into a clear blue sky. These looked fantastic conditions for the photographer and I didn’t even bother with breakfast. There was nothing doing at the Cob (again) so headed straight for Borth-y-gest. Parking more carefully this time, I walked along the coastal footpath overlooking some tiny beaches and the still (but rising) waters of the estuary to the mountains beyond. A rainbow appeared out to the west, but it wasn’t until I began my walk back to the village that the most spectacular conditions were revealed. Brilliant “Godbeams” could be seen across the estuary as intermittent rain and cloud drifted seawards. They were even reflected in the waters of the estuary (See main pic).

It has been suggested that these were “crepuscular rays”; but strictly speaking this term refers to a similar phenomenon that occurs close to sunrise and sunset. Not wishing to split hairs, though, they are formed in the same way. I have always believed that if you follow the path of these rays upwards they will converge at the actual position of the sun, and this shows quite clearly in the photograph. And yet the sun is actually so far away (93,000,000 miles) that its rays on reaching us are virtually parallel. This appears to be an anomaly, to say the least. One website suggests –

“Next time you see sunrays, imagine them for what they really are, miles long columns of sparkling sunlit air highlighted by the darkness of adjacent unlit voids. Let the mind fly around and through them to give them solid form that replaces the flattish way we normally see the sky”

I still can’t get my head around it so if anyone can explain it in plain English, please feel free!

Later in the day I made for the hills above Harlech on the south side of the estuary. By mid-afternoon the atmosphere had completely cleared and the light was crisp and transparent. I took a series of images back towards Porthmadog and Moel Hebog (above). My quiet place is there, somewhere…….

Postscript : I successfully challenged my parking ticket.

The quote is from : https://atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/rayform.htm

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Tea and brasso.

I first picked up a camera as a schoolboy. My father gave me his old rangefinder after he bought himself his first Praktica. He had introduced me to trainspotting a few years earlier and 1968 saw the dying days of steam power on main-line railways in Britain. I spent as much time as I could that summer travelling around northern England to see and photograph the last steam engines still in operation. On the last day of steam – 15th August if I remember correctly – I officially gave up trainspotting and put my Locoshed book away for the last time. With the photographic vision and skills I now have how I wish that I could travel back in time to those days when grimy and unloved steam engines could still be found.

I have since then retained a broad interest in railways, and Wales has an abundance of preserved narrow-gauge lines. In fact, Porthmadog is the hub of quite a narrow-guage steam network with the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland lines terminating there. Last week I decided I was man enough to do some railway photography again: man enough because I needed to overcome my concerns about being seen as a train nerd. So one evening recently I wandered in to the Boston Lodge works/engine shed of the Ffestiniog Railway as one of the last engines of the day was being “put to bed”. I gingerly approached the railwaymen to enquire about getting access the following morning, and was told that I would need to speak to the Works Supervisor who would be on duty from 7 a.m. I was there at half-past seven, only to find no-one in the office but railwaymen (and women) preparing several engines for the day’s duties. I couldn’t help noticing several people polishing the engines furiously – something that you would never have seen on British Rail in the 1960’s.

Once I did find someone to report in to I was surprised at how relaxed the regime was for visitors – “Oh just sign in, and mind where you’re putting your feet” I was told. Very refreshingly there was no “elf’n safety” paranoia here. I cautiously began exploring the sheds and sidings. If you’re interested in steam engines you will know this already but the first job in the morning is to light the fire. Once this is done the engine is driven gently out into the open for the fire to take hold and steam pressure to build up, and for more polishing to be done. Everyone had a tin of Brasso to hand, and there was a cupboard full of the stuff inside the shed. Mugs of tea were also well in evidence. In the midst of a downpour, a swallow chased a butterfly in the grime and smoke of the engine shed.

I was casually looking into the cab of one of the engines when the fireman leapt in through the opposite door. Although dressed in grimy dark blue overalls, like most of the men, this was clearly a woman. I asked what the attraction was for her in firing a steam engine – “it’s just something completely different to what I normally do” she said. And what was that? “Oh, I’m a teaching assistant in a school for autistic children”. She paused for a few seconds. ” Although, come to think of it, compared to some of the volunteers we get here, there isn’t actually that much difference.” Train nerds, you see. I saw her later, at lunchtime, having worked all morning, on her second round trip of the day. Her teeth gleamed white from a face caked in sweat and coal dust. “One of the best fireman on the railway”, said the driver.

Here’s one I prepared earlier – Taking on water at Tan-y-bwlch station

The main attraction at Boston Lodge was, of course, the presence of the engines. The railway staff must have been accustomed to railway photographers, though, because they seemed quite unselfconscious subjects themselves. It probably helped to have a chat: one driver – in real life an English teacher at a school in Switzerland – was back at the Ffestiniog for his thirty-second year, while another man told me proudly that it was his fourty-ninth year as a fireman. One pointed out an osprey hovering over the Glaslyn river as it hunted for fish to take back to its family a few miles away. I found I was often able to include them and in fact, some human interest really seemed to lift the images. The results were far from traditional “steam engine at 45 degrees”and one could say were more social documentary in nature. I have a feeling there is more to be done on the Ffestiniog.

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