A new blog location!

After a short break from photo-blogging, I have started a new photography blog and website here. Pop along for a look!

Snowdon Summit Station

A cafe? You can no longer call this a cafe. The new summit station on Snowdon is wonderful. It’s not open yet mind you, but with squinted eyes you can just about steal a view of the interior – it’s all Welsh slate, oak and stainless steel. Here’s to great architecture! More infomation here

A year pass to the local zoo is a rather fine Christmas present indeed - thank you!

Y Lliwedd from Llyn Llydaw

A quickly grabbed shot while jogging off Snowdon, this time from the Miners track at Llyn Llydaw, looking up toward a third of the Snowdon horseshoe range - Y Lliwedd.

Snowdon Horseshoe

These detail shot taken on the Snowdon horseshoe route. A day of big bold colours. Oh, how we love high pressure weather systems in winter.

Glyder Fawr, Glyder Fach, Trefan (paradise fell run #2)

More hastily grabbed shots taken with shakey hands on what really was a bit of special day to be running in the hills. Why can't all winters in the UK be like this one.

Wild Ponies on Conway Mountain (paradise fell run #1)

Wild Ponies on Conwy Mountain. These hastily grabbed photographs were taken with a point-and-shoot camera on a perfect fell run. The typcially boggy ground was frozen to a fast-paced concrete, a golden sunset lit mountains and best of all; a few hours freedom from the central-heated excesses of the festive season.

Llanberis Slate Quarry - Storm over Snowdon

This simple looking image is the result of lots of hard work – it’s crafted from a bunch of images joined up together – the original picture is now massive would fill a wall without looking at all nasty. I really like it a lot. This might be because of the effort involved in building it and the knowledge this has so much potential to print really big. I am hoping I just like it because its full of drama and reminds me of classical biblical paintings – only time and some expensive printing will tell...

Llanberis Slate Quarry

I had only walked through the slate quarry at Llanberis once a few years back. That was a purposeful group march to access the peaks above the quarry. I remember feeling then that the ghosts of the past seemed to linger in the abandoned workers buildings and made a point to get back there with more time. Years later, on the edge of a storm and alone, this visit felt like wandering through a wonderful and abandoned gothic film set.

Limefield Park - First Light

Golden light, clear air, frosty ground, pretty dogs, pure cheese.

Frosty Snowdonia

These shots of Trefan and Snowdon were taken in the cold spell over Christmas/New Year.

I seem to be getting a bit hooked on taking pictures with nothing in them. hum.

Puffin Island from Penmaenmawr

This shot of Anglesey’s Puffin Island was inspired by the cover of a rather good Iain Banks novel 'Complicity'.

Snowdon from Moel Famau

A quickly grabbed shot of the post-sunset glow over Snowdon from the summit of our local peak Moel Famau this evening. Mt Snowdon is made up of the three peaks on the left of the horizon.

Moel Famau country park

We are lucky enough to have this country park on our doorstep. It's nothing spectacular when held up against nearby Snowdonia national park, but serves as a great local bolt-hole for a fix of fresh air. Once in a while it all falls into place - with the sun, snow and the last of the autumn colour it starts to feel like somewhere far more remote.

The bottom image is a panorama, moulded from seven portrait shots. The quality of the original image is astounding, but you will have to take my word for it looking at this postage stamp version!

Click images to view larger...

Zen pebbles

Some very frosty pebbles in the back yard.

The reclusive squirrel...

Supermodel

More 'playing' with new zoomy lens. I must justify its not insubstantial price tag by using it for something a little more involved than doggy photos at some point (sorry Hamish).

For anyone local reading this, if you haven’t been to Thurstaston Common nature reserve on the Wirral, it’s well worth a visit.

Man Ceiriog

This ruggedly handsome chap kindly let me take his portrait as part of a seasonal series I am work on. He was pulling a large cart of wood up a steep lane when he kindly stopped for me. He looked great – straight out of Lord of the Rings I thought. I just need to get three other local folk to agree to seasonal environmental portraits for Winter, Spring and Summer and that’s my Four Seasons of the Ceiriog Valley exhibition entry sorted. It all sounds so straightforward in words. Oh, and I really need to find this chap again and ask him to sign a model release form. Easy.

Doggy style?

I did a few snaps of a friends dog, with the intention of printing one of them onto a stylish wall canvas for her Christmas present. Now I have seen them, I can’t decide which one of these will look least 'greeting-card cheesy' when it comes back from the printers on a rather large canvas...

Chester Zoo

Chester Zoo. It’s 10 minutes away from my house on a push bike, yet I hadn’t been there since I was a wee bairn, on a school trip from St. Wilfrid's High School in Blackburn. I remember holding hands with a girl I had a crush on during the coach trip back from the zoo. Twelve years old I was and I didn't dare utter a word to her again after that. School trip fond memories. The smells of the souvenir Zoo pencil's and leather bookmarks, eating our packed lunches on the sun-baked lawns, the punch of humidity as we entered in the steamy crocodile's lair.

Although I am blown away by the wildlife photography of Martin Bailey and Nick Brandt, it’s not something I really feel drawn towards in any way, but an enforced stint indoors, a poorly landscape lens, oh yer, and the timely arrival of a bling new zoom lens I have been saving my pocket money up for months to buy, made a visit to the animals seem a very appealing lunch break. I should have gone back a lot sooner – it’s a fantastic resource to have on the doorstep and seeing the levels the zoo are going to in conserving endangered species is remarkable. Sod it, in fact I am going to buy a season pass.

Sigur Rós, Empress Ballroom, Blackpool

Sigur Rós, Empress Ballroom, Blackpool