Craig Cerrig-Gleisiad
For the first time in quite a while I went on a hike with my friends into the Brecion Beacons. Ince we had ventured up Pen-y-Fan and Corn Du a couple of time already we decided to go up the other side of the valley, this would gives us views of said mountains that we had not experinced before. In an attempt to both focus my thought proess and lighten my backpack I decided to only take the Mamiya out on this one; it would be my first chance to try out my 50mm prime on some proper landscapes. In another attempt to streamline things I only took b&w film, 3 roll of Ilford FP4+.
We arrived in the layby (our starting point) at about 2pm and set off up into the valley, the first section of the hike was a pretty steep hill that only lasted about 500m, showing our physical prowess off we had to stop for a breather at the top of this section! At this point we were faced with the massive cliffs that we were about to walk around, the walk itself took us right to the top of the ridge itself and back down it. After a short while up the path to the right of where we came from I saw the tree pictured above. I immediately saw this as an opportunity to use this as a nice focal point for a shot including both Pen-y-Fan and Corn Du, I was also able to use the wall as a nice line to lead the eye through the shot.
It was quite a while before my camera found its way out of my bag again and I was beginning to think that the photo opportunities had dried up. However, when we got to the trig point on top of Fan Frynych I saw another opportunity to shoot off a few frames. This time I had to use the 90mm prime since I couldn't get the peaks to have the precesnce I wanted with the shorter focal length; as you can see above the longer focal length enabled me to get the mountains in a much more dominant position compared to the earlier shot with the 50mm.
At the highest point of the hike we had some breathtaking views off the edge of the cliffs, you could see right down the cliffs all the way back up on the other side of the valley; it really put things into perspective. The photo above was takne at this point, the ridge on the righ hand side is where we eventually walked down back to the valley floor. At this moment one of the few breaks in the clouds happened, this time rimming the ridge with sunlight. I had hoped to convey this in the frames I took at this point and think that I almost got there.
The rest of the scans taken from the rolls of film I exposed on the hike can be found here.
We arrived in the layby (our starting point) at about 2pm and set off up into the valley, the first section of the hike was a pretty steep hill that only lasted about 500m, showing our physical prowess off we had to stop for a breather at the top of this section! At this point we were faced with the massive cliffs that we were about to walk around, the walk itself took us right to the top of the ridge itself and back down it. After a short while up the path to the right of where we came from I saw the tree pictured above. I immediately saw this as an opportunity to use this as a nice focal point for a shot including both Pen-y-Fan and Corn Du, I was also able to use the wall as a nice line to lead the eye through the shot.
It was quite a while before my camera found its way out of my bag again and I was beginning to think that the photo opportunities had dried up. However, when we got to the trig point on top of Fan Frynych I saw another opportunity to shoot off a few frames. This time I had to use the 90mm prime since I couldn't get the peaks to have the precesnce I wanted with the shorter focal length; as you can see above the longer focal length enabled me to get the mountains in a much more dominant position compared to the earlier shot with the 50mm.
At the highest point of the hike we had some breathtaking views off the edge of the cliffs, you could see right down the cliffs all the way back up on the other side of the valley; it really put things into perspective. The photo above was takne at this point, the ridge on the righ hand side is where we eventually walked down back to the valley floor. At this moment one of the few breaks in the clouds happened, this time rimming the ridge with sunlight. I had hoped to convey this in the frames I took at this point and think that I almost got there.
The rest of the scans taken from the rolls of film I exposed on the hike can be found here.
posted by Rhys at 10:58 AM
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