Near Glyn Pits

On the weekend me and a friend went on a short hike up to Glyn Pits, an old mine, with the intention of taking some photos of it. Unfortunately when we got there the Mining Authority had decided that the site was unsafe and felt the need to establish that point by building a ruddy great steel fence around it. A little disheartened by this we walked around the fence in the vain hope that we could get inside the fence somehow. On our wanderings we came across a very interesting tree, as you might know, I seemed to have developed a liking for trees recently so I couldn't resist taking a shot or two.



After the let-down of the Glyn Pits site we decided to follow the path past the pits, which looked like it followed an old railway line, to see if there was anything of interest up there. After following the path for sometime, which took a turn heading up the mountain, something caught my eye, I'm not sure why but there was some kind of shape that made me look twice. After a little more exploration it turns out that it was an old pit entrance that had long ago been gated up. The area around this entrance was now very over grown and, as my wife mentioned when she saw the photo, it looked a bit like a hobbit hole.

Chepstow Castle, Cliffs & Currents

Chepstow castle, situated right on the cliffs next to the river Wye, which is the border between England and Wales. The conditions were poor (bad skies) and this was the only shot that worked here. It seemed that people didn't mind the blown sky because the photo had a really old feel to it. I think I'm going to print this one on some warmtone FB paper that I've ordered and at the same time tried to make the highlights a little lighter.

Tree Hugger

I've managed to get a few hours in the darkroom under my belt now and I'm feeling a lot more confident about assessing prints and figuring out what needs doing to improve the look/mood. I can't wait to try out some fiber based paper rather than the resin coated stuff that I've been using so far as it's supposed to have a much nicer look and feel to it. It does have the down side of needing to be washed for up to one hour and it doesn't dry flat like the RC paper so I'm having to hold back until I get a sink plumbed into the room.

For the time being I have been honing my skills on a few of my negatives of trees (I have quite a collection at the moment), it's becoming a bit of a theme that I've unknowingly developed over the past six months or so. Here are a few scans of some of those prints: