Orchid, rain

Lying prostrate in a soaking marsh may not seem like everyone's idea of fun, but it was only by getting low to the ground that the close up images needed for this commission really came alive. It was still raining gently when this picture was taken, so the raindrops could not have been fresher. Since they refract an image of the white sky above into their characteristic globular shape, raindrops have the effect of bringing a myriad of tiny points of light into what would otherwise be quite a muted, tightly-cropped composition.

Welsh black cow and calf

This image brings back enjoyable memories of an afternoon spent with Arwyn (farm manager), Sabine (field ecologist) and Paul (fellow photographer) in a little valley hidden away from the main south facing slopes of Snowdon. These cows are part of a small herd, and will eventually become organic beef. For me, this picture worked largely thanks to the fantastic quality of the Nikon D3 sensor, which has captured superb detail in the dark hides of the cows, while retaining tone in the much brighter sky.

Waterfall

Hafod y Llan has numerous waterfalls, not surprisingly since it drains the entire south-facing Snowdon watershed. The fall here is only a few hundred metres from the farm buildings, hidden away in dense woodland. This is quite a playful composition, which uses the streams of water (blurred by a longish exposure) to act as 'backlight' for the tree (a fairly young oak). I was using a digital SLR (the Nikon D3) on a major assignment here for the first time, and I found the control and encouragement to experiment offered by the instant playback was a revelation.

Hafod y Llan landscape

I include this landscape view also as it tells a really interesting story from the Victorian era of Hafod's history. The coniferous trees that occupy many of the lower slopes (mostly Scot's pine or a variation thereof I think) are not commercial timber, but were planted there to provide a picturesque, artistic addition to the landscape. Presumably the original post Ice Age tree cover which once must have covered this land had presumably long since disappeared, but it is fascinating to discover that 19th-century land owners would 'manipulate' such a wild looking landscape in such a deliberately aesthetic way.

Slate hedges, tree, sky

The Watkin Path, an old miner's trackroad, leads up the valley through Hafod y Llan past the remnants of some remarkable mining/quarrying debris and ruins. It also runs past this curious set of enclosures, created from slate mined on the mountain. Although presumably entirely functional in purpose originally, these slate hedges, or fences, now seem to occupy this territory simply to define space and capture light, like some early example of landscape art.

Birds Eye view of shearing

When I was 17 I left school and had a gap year before going to university. This included six months in New Zealand, three of which were spent working as a shearing hand, or 'rousabout'. So it was a trip down memory lane for me to see sheep shearing at Hafod Y Llan. The three guys who turned up to do the Hafod sheep were not much older than I had been in NZ. Their approach to the job and quality of their shearing was excellent, and I couldn't help feeling that they made a nonsense of all the negative publicity that seems to attach to young people in the media.

Rocks and bilberry

Although not quite on the summit ridge, this view was made from not far below in fairly grim conditions. The shattered rock in the foreground is characteristic of high mountain slopes in Britain where they are subjected to the action of freeze thaw, and high volumes of rain, and winter snows. Combined with the steep slopes this keeps the surface rocks quite mobile. Vegetation can provide stability, but will also destabilise, as roots reach into faults in the rock, and grow, causing it to crack.

Dogs and shepherds, gathering

I wanted to capture the sight of the gathering, the sheep streaming across the hillside, the dogs in action, and the shepherds guiding proceedings. Of course this is virtually impossible, as every figure (shepherd, dog, sheep) becomes so small when set in the wider context of this vast mountain landscape. Of all the pictures I made of the gathering, perhaps only this one approaches describing the 'action' in the way that I had hoped. And that was because the two dogs in the foreground so obligingly posed for me!