Wonderings with Chris……Llanberis

The summer has come and gone, blue skies are filling with clouds and autumn is bringing with it the hint of a chill and those colours photographers dream of. Autumn or Fall has to be one of the best times of year, golden, red, yellow colours in the trees as they prepare to drop their leaves, fog and mist, maybe a bit of frost, you cant beat it. This is the time when my blood stirs and I have an over powering need to be out in nature with my camera. Bearing in mind my husband and I are well into our fifty’s, so totally not fit and with several full on health conditions between us that doesn’t bode well for walking any kind of distance, so anywhere we do go has to be well researched and not too long a walk. We decided that our first trip out would be to Llanberis in north Wales with an approximate drive of two hours each way and the decision was to go for sunrise.

I usually shoot sunset photos because to put it bluntly I hate getting up early and wasting all that lovely time in my warm bed but I was so excited to be driving off the Wirral that this time I didn’t mind. Picnic lunch and flask of coffee packed, goodbyes said, we drove off into the night chasing the sunrise, our destination, Llyn Padarn, Llanberis which is a glacially formed lake in Snowdonia and is an example of a moraine dammed lake and one of the largest natural lakes in Wales. It is also home to the ‘Lonely Tree’.

As per usual we were late setting off and we literally chased the sunrise arriving at Llyn Padarn just as the best of the colour left the sky. I jumped out of the car and walked as quickly as possible to set up my camera and tripod on the shore, the sky still lingered with beautiful golden light and I managed to take several photographs of the tree backed by the lovely light, then it was gone. We hung around talking to the other photographers for a while, traded some landmarks then over coffee decided where to go next. This trip we visited the lake and found an easy way to the Dinorwic quarry and I have to say that the light streaming down the valley was magnificent! Golden, diffuse light that gave me some spectacular images.

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We stopped for some lunch and coffee and a teacake at the lovely Tu Hwnt i’r Bont tea house, we were welcomed very warmly and were soon sat in front of the fire with locally made tea cake and Bara Brith. We went outside to appreciate the red creeper covered house, we had missed the best of the colour by about two weeks i think and had a short walk along the river before heading home.

It was exhausting work driving and mentally exhausting with the emotions that run through me when I am in the situations where there is great light and amazing landscapes, which there were plenty of, it reminded me why I do what I do, the buzz stayed with me for days and editing my photos just kept that buzz going. Posting my work on to social media and seeing it along with the work from other photographers of the same area gave me a quiet glow, so much so that I quietly started researching our next adventure.

Wanderings with Chris …….. To LLanberis

Haven’t done one of these posts in a long while!

Wanderings with Chris to LLanberis which is a village in Gwynedd, northwest Wales, on the southern bank of the lake Llyn Padarn and at the foot of Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales. Google it and you will see lots and lots of posts featuring a tree, a lake and mountains. Some are fantastic others are samey samey but they are all unique as there is only one Lonely Tree on the sore of LLyn Padarn. I have seen this tree plastered all over instagram, sunrise, sunset, night, moody, you name it it’s been done and when we came out of lockdown it was the first place we headed to because I wanted to photograph it too. So armed with my new Nikon Z7 we headed out to Wales at stupid o’clock in the morning to get there for sunrise, only there wasn’t one.

‘Wikipedia says; Llyn Padarn is a glacially formed lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd, north Wales, and is an example of a moraine dammed lake. The lake is approximately 2 miles long and at its deepest point is 94 feet deep, and is one of the largest natural lakes in Wales. At its south-eastern end it is linked to the neighbouring Llyn Peris. The busy village of Llanberis lies on the southern banks of the lake. The outflow of Llyn Padarn is on the northern shore and is called Afon Rhythallt, which passes by the village of Brynrefail, Gwynedd and becomes Afon Seiont below Pont Rhythallt, near Llanrug. It reaches the sea at Caernarfon. Padarn Country Park is located on the northern flank of the lake, including Coed Allt Wen, a rare and ancient sessile oak woodland. Both the woodland and Llyn Padarn are designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest.’ Wikipedia

We drove for about two hours in the dark, up before any sane person, I was excited to get there as it was the first hint of freedom we’d had for so long. I was expecting hoards of photographers crowding around the lakeside as it is such a popular place, there was Chris, me and two other guys and a few wild swimmers. We politely shared the best views, I was even encouraged by one guy to lend one of his lenses, we had the same camera, we waited for the sky to show colour, it didn’t, they left and we hung around with me taking photos from as many view points as possible in the off chance I could get something different, you can’t really.

Back home and to my horror I discovered my computers graphics card couldn’t handle the images from my new camera, queue new computer, it opened them in Adobe lightroom but took far too long to do anything with them. I have some great shots, the raw files are around 70MB each and are sitting on my hard drive until I get my new computer, those I have managed to process to some extent are below. I’m going back to try again for a sunrise.

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Dyserth Waterfall

I mentioned to Chris that i  had the urge to photograph a waterfall,  i think it was because i wanted to experiment with moving water and how it would be affected when i used different techniques like filters and long exposures. I asked Chris to find me one within a short drive and he came up with Dyserth in Wales. Never heard of it i hear you shout, well me neither. I think it has something to do with the A55 and by passing places to get to who knows where. Anyway, we went. Surprisingly the waterfall is on waterfall road, you cant miss it, you drive down the hill, around the bend and bam there it is. Its only little, a trickle compared to some, about 70 feet high so it does rumble a bit. We went on a lovely sunny day, it had snowed the previous day but there was not very much on the ground though it was wet under foot, read muddy. To get to the top of the falls you have to walk up steps between two walls, i had thought it had recently been built that way but it looks like it was built for a water wheel and there had been a mill there at some point. Anyway after walking to the top we wandered around a bit, found the river, more stream really, i took a whole bunch of photos as it was really lovely and these are some of the photos. I have included an url if you want more information, i hope its of interest to you.

http://www.dyserth.com/html/dyserth_waterfall1.html

Duke of Lancaster graffiti art ship

Chris and I went for a wander a couple of weeks ago, we try to get one day a week where we just take off in the car and head wherever the pointer lands on the map. This time it landed on Wales, Talacre to be exact! Now this has become a bit of an in joke between us as Chris did ask me if i wanted to go to Talacre for our honeymoon 18 years ago. Silly me thought it was in Spain! When it is 5.5 miles as the crow flies from our home. 🙂 Well we didnt go then but have been since. This day was beautiful, one of those rare winter days of deep blue sky, warm sun and no need for a coat, perfect. We drove over the Shotton bridge,  i am going back to photograph it, and meandered down to Mostyn. We had lunch at a little cafe and wandered over to see the old ship that is docked there. The Duke of Lancaster (http://www.dukeoflancaster.net/ ) was a night club at one point but now it is an art gallery for some truly amazing graffiti art. There are several artists using her as a canvas at the moment Kiwi a Latvian (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzlRCGzGNu8) and a group calling themselves Dudug (http://www.dudug.co.uk) have also added their work. It all makes for some great photography, the ship is beautiful in all of her rust and art and really deserves a visit. If you want to take photos though it has to be from the path as Dudug have a ‘thing’ and if they find you have photographed their art and put it up on any websites for sale they do prosecute.

A walk in the mist with Chris

Opening the curtains to a lovely misty day i decided that i would drag my poor husband out for a walk and a photographic expedition but where to go? I don’t know why but i usually head down to the nearest body of water, must be my fishing family roots, though this day i didn’t want water, i wanted landscape, trees, anything as long as it was land based. So i decided to drag Chris and his sore leg to Thurstaston Hill. It is  a dog walkers heaven so you have to be careful where you walk and there are always people there and we were not disappointed. We only realised later that the children we encountered legitimately had the day off for the voting and not because they were skipping school. Chris is a great writer, very talented and he also likes to take the odd photo, so he wandered around snapping away with the camera on his phone and spouting soppy nonsense as usual. I wandered around looking and i must admit, moaning about the lack of inspiration.  It took a while but eventually i started to ‘see’ and i think i managed to get some nice images. The mist hung around nearly all morning and being so high up when we looked out over the Wirral it was wreathed in mist.

Thurstaston has its own ‘Rock’ in Thors Rock. We had a wander around there, through the trees and heather and wondered at the beautiful vista of ‘The Wirral’. I think i am pleased with my photographs, i like the views over the trees. Its actually looking over to Wales but you cant see past the mist. I hope you like looking at where i live, it really is a beautiful place.