ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Wednesday 30 September 2009

REFLECTIONS (27/09/09)

image Seven or eight miles down the road and a different world, so different I can't pronounce it. The awkward thing is that everything for a mile around is called the same, the crag above, the stream, the farm and the valley. I have solved the problem temporarily by taking inspiration from Paddington (the bear not the station). Have a parcel tag round my neck saying 'Adrian staying at Cwmrhwyddfor'. That should do it.

On route I stopped at Tal-y-Llyn Lake as you shall see I had to. Promise these are as shot apart from RAW conversion. No chopping cutting and inverting, as regular visitors know I'm totally averse to such duplicity.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA          TAL-Y-LLYN LAKE OR AS THE WELSH SAY LLYN MWYNGIL......Pretty flat don't you think.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         Same place, for the doubters amongst you I have left it as shot a bit out of true...... Just thought, I could have skewed it afterwards, must remember that one.

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Then they spoiled it, started boating, however I'm one lucky chap to have had it to myself for half an hour.

Normally you get what I get on the day, today I got some more so I'm going to roll them over. Come on, I've struggled for over a week. hopefully a couple of good panoramas tomorrow though if I lug the gear two thousand feet for nothing but mist there will be hell to pay!

That's all.

THE VALLEY, CWMRHWYDDFOR. (28/09/09)

The nearest I can get to it is koomwithfor, any interpretations are welcome. It means valley straight to the sea.

Yesterday we went for a walk up the old road, not a walk a stroll, good for the soul is a stroll, good for waterfalls as well.

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         So that's about it, very quiet, very peaceful but not much wild life around, if you discount the midges. Not much internet, phone or radio either!

Back to midges, There are millions, I'm breathing the things but very few are biting. I seem to recollect that only the females bite and only when breeding, something to do with their needing blood for their eggs or some such. If you know, let me know, that's all.

IVOR IDRIS (29/09/09)

image  Left at seven o'clock to walk the horseshoe, Mynydd Moel, Penygadair (Welsh for Cadair Idris), Craig Cau, as you can see from our route, (in red), failed again. Woke at five and could see the stars that's a good sign, it means that the cloud ceiling is not just high, it's non existent. How fast the weather changes in mountains, by eight thirty we were just about where our route meets the yellow nature reserve boundary and in thick mist. Not to be deterred we carried on to Mynydd Moel in driving rain or it may have been driving mist and what felt like half a gale. No fun at all and no chance of any pictures, so retraced our steps to get you some stunning reflections of the head wall of Cwm Cau reflected in the Llyn of the same name.

The walk starts in Dolidris Park and climbs up thousands and thousands and thousands of steps till you reach the tree line. An interesting fact is that Dolidris Park was donated, for our enjoyment and edification by a Mr Ivor Idris. Not only has he a mountain named after him but several thousands of cans of fizzy ginger beer, not everybody can say that of themselves. Think I would invent such a thing? No way!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA                     There; confirmed in black and off white, unless of course Canolfan y Gader means this is a wind up. Like the bit about sheep grazing, that should do any rare plants a power of good. Still sheep are a pastime here, a pastime akin to football in Manchester and Liverpool.

Here are today's pictures, many have rain spots, both my lens cloths were soaked and beginning to do more harm than good.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA CADAIR IDRIS......up there somewhere.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA          LLYN CAU......unfortunately no head wall, I sat around, had a smoke, had a coffee, shouted at the dog, waiting for a change and a change we got.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         LLYN CAU......A bit more head wall, half a gale and penetrating rain, time to call it a day.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAt last decided it was time to remove the waterproofs.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA           The start of the interminable steps.

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A few of the steps and a view from them.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Back to civilisation, an interesting walk and well worth repeating. Am moving on tomorrow, can't even get the radio here so will probably stop in Dolgellau, get a paper, get a forecast and decide where to go for the weekend.

That's all.

Sunday 27 September 2009

SAVED (27/09/09)

 One of those days, nothing to post and I'm starting to panic. Panic is maybe a little strong but unease is also too weak. As I've already said this valley is fine, the drawback is a trunk road, all walks tend to involve walking upon it at some point to either get where one wants to go or to get back home. I don't, from choice, walk main roads.

I went back to the Torrent to try and improve upon yesterdays effort. This was not an overwhelming success, in fact failure would better describe the results. From this I deduce that I may have reached the limit of my technical competence. The real reason is I forgot the flash unit and was too idle to walk back for it. With flash I could have frozen the entire river or, at the least, selected bits of it.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     ROBIN........He delayed my breakfast but muesli doesn't spoil. Whilst capturing him decided to take a portrait of these sparrows.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     Common are both, odd that I've seen few finches round here, perhaps they dislike Laurel or maybe campers.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     A TOUCH OF AUTUMN.......Delaying pictures of water.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA    Better than yesterdays but far from ideal.

I was beginning to suspect that this would be it when out came the sun and in came a car rally. So I am saved Austin Sevens of all shapes but not all the shapes they manufactured.

 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA    AN EARLY ONE.......First manufactured in 1922, will have to try and find when this one was built.

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You can see me in the second photograph. Molly too.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA        AUSTIN SEVEN RUBY........I hope.

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AUSTIN SEVEN OPAL

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Nice to see, I hope so. We are moving on down the road today. Doubt there will be any access to the internet but time will tell.

All the best.

   

Saturday 26 September 2009

THE TORRENT (25/09/09)

image     Sorry about the map, falling off both the road atlas and the OS map. It's been the story of the last couple of days. Saw a nature reserve on the chart a couple of days ago and thought it would make a change. It would have, the camp site was a holiday park. I'm not usually fussy but I have to draw the line somewhere. The next site I stopped at was ideal, within walking distance of the salt marsh and beach, had Wi Fi but took exception to dogs. So a lay by last night and then down here, mainly for internet access. Great scenery, not grand but a lovely wooded valley and three bars on the 3G. So all is Dippity Doo, also managed a supermarket on the way, I was beginning to tire of sardines and couscous.
Settled in, sorted some e-mails, then the internet crashed. After several Oh Bless My Souls decided to cut my losses and walk. The Torrent walk is the thing to do around here and apart from it being dark amongst the trees and vegetation making it nightmare to photograph we had an interesting couple of hours.
 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   THE TORRENT......Camera set to ISO1600, f18, aperture priority and a polarising filter, plenty of post processing involving selection and levels, contrast, saturation. Must own up to having gone off HDR a little, the images appear to lose sharpness. I'll include one in this set. P9258673_72_71_70_69_edited-1   Here it is! Five exposures tone blended +2ev/-2ev. Three would do but the Olympus will only burst bracket over this range with five exposures. Better results can be had manually by taking a spot reading off the brightest part of the image, repeat for the darkest. Set camera to manual, don't alter the aperture but adjust speed in two stop increments from  one end till you get to the other. Then let Photomatix work it's magic.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA    The self same image, processed using the usual discrimatory selection and levels etc. adjustments. Can't make my mind up. The latter is more natural but these are images not reality.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   back to normal.
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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   I loved these colours under the water, 1600 ISO 8 sec., no wonder it's a touch noisy, should have opened up the aperture and focused on the rocks under the water. If I go back that way I'll try it. In an ideal world more light would have helped. Been far from ideal for a while, never mind, beats work and certainly beats sitting at home.
That's all for today.

Friday 25 September 2009

CAVE! WHAT CAVE? (23/09/09)

image  TODAYS RAMBLE.........In racing parlance the 'Going was Soft'. It's not as far as it looks, the scale is 2.5" to the mile. What with the heavy going, fighting old tree roots and searching for the cave it took the best part of four and a half hours.
Woke at five and listened to the weather forecast at five thirty, overcast with the odd light shower clearing shortly. That'll do us! So back to bed for an hour, breakfasted, packed a sandwich, coffee and water. Off we went in shorts and a T-Shirt, I did, Molly has to make do with her fur coat. Nothing wrong with a touch of optimism even if it did turn out to be misplaced.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   BRAMBLE, HEATHER AND PINE.....Taken from the same spot as the image I messed with the other day.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   GORSE.....Was not aware it flowered this time of the year...... Probably isn't Gorse.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   SNOWDEN....Hidden in the cloud, starting to look a little ominous but fortunately it's down wind of me
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   CRAIG WEN FOREGROUND AND YR ARAN.....or all but a bit of it.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA    FOEL GOCH AND MOEL EILIO........The latter with it's head well in the clouds. A splash of sun in the foreground.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     LLEYN PENINSULAR.......those with keen eyes can just about see Bardsey Island on the horizon.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA      BELOW THE SUMMIT OF MOEL yr ORGOF.......Never found his cave but at least he had water.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     SAME TARN, WHOOPS! LLYN.....The summit is out of picture to the right, we tramped around in the mist to no avail and no cave. Then the rain came, away with the camera and out with a fleece and full waterproofs.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA      ABOVE BWICH MEILLIONEN..... was hoping for not only a cave but some panoramas. Lugged a tripod, filters, the full works up here only to have rain stop play. A pleasant walk never the less.
Most of these images have been double processed. The sky was selected first and given a seeing to then the foreground was selected and sorted. Not really a picture taking day. You get what I get!
Moving down to Porthmadog tomorrow, there are a couple of nature reserves so you can look forward to some blurry pictures of birds.
 

Thursday 24 September 2009

RED RUSTY (22/09/09)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAEat your hearts out in New England. Look at this for colour.

A slow news day. We didn't get much sleep last night a steady drizzle caught by the trees overhead became akin to bombardment when the wind dislodged several gallons onto the truck roof. This, courtesy of our acquaintance Murphy, occurred totally randomly.

Crawled out of bed to the same so decided to do some laundry, this completed there was still no change in the weather. Beddgelert is a mile down the road so off we set for a paper. Returned bearing a paper, a pound of bacon and a fifty five litre rucksack. Just the job for winter and just over half that in sterling. I didn't escape that easily, the same shop had some maps, T shirts, trousers, all reduced. The latter two bearing the brand name Gelert, never associated the two before, though the factory is just down the road. So, broke again, I headed home dressed like a dog. A brave and fatally maligned dog.

Observant being that I am, noticed that the gates round here are, if not unique certainly unusual also being aware that it now takes 2.36 minutes to read my posts I'll get to the pictures.

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The last is just a little water, the rest are rusty fences and gates. Tomorrow looks good so with luck will get to Owain's cave.

PS. Read the paper, Baroness Scotland fined £5000.00. Why not fifty thousand? We'll no doubt be paying! Crossword, a failure.....so far!  However two shirts and a pair of trousers for under thirty pounds can't be bad.

All the best.