North Wales Road Trip
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
As much as I love the Peak District it was time for a little road trip. I’d planned on three days, and two nights away, but life being life it got trimmed down to two days and a night away. I’d settled on North Wales as I have the bonus of my sister owning a caravan at Llandudno Junction. They were coming home mid-week which meant I wouldn’t be disturbing anyone if I went out for a sunrise, or came back in late after sunset.
With the location decided I checked the tide timetable and was a little disappointed to see that high tide was at midday and after dark. Undeterred I decided I’d stick with my initial plan as it just meant a midday shoot to start the trip.
My first world problems were having a lie in and tackling a full english on the way down to my first stop, which was the Point of Ayr Lighthouse at Talacre. If the internet is to believed this is the oldest lighthouse in Wales. Built in 1776 and in use until the late 1800’s. I’d been here previously on a bit of a scouting mission, but given the conditions then I never got my camera out of the bag as it wasn’t floating my boat.
I’d dropped on with the weather on the one hand, but not on the other. It was beautiful day to be at the seaside. I’d got blue skies, and very little wind. Great for a day at the beach, but not so great for landscape photography. It was what it was. I was here and this time I was determined to get the camera out and take a few shots.
To be honest I was uninspired and a bit disappointed. I’m not sure why. I’ve have a similar issue when photographing the Trwyn Du Lighthouse at Penmon Point. I don’t know if it’s the subject matter, the time of day, height of the tide, or people on the beach, who knows. Either way it just felt like grabbing a couple of snapshots and wasn’t the start I was hoping for.
Point of Ayr Lighthouse, Talacre.
After a brief stop for an ice cream and a pint I changed my plans. The next stop would have been Penmon. I thought if I shot the Point of Ayr Lighthouse at high tide, by the time I’d got to Penmon the tide would have been on the ebb and the steps in front of the Trwyn Du Lighthouse would have been on display with the waves around them. A couple of things changed my mind but first and foremost was probably my disappointment. Either way I settled on chilling for a few hours at my sisters caravan, and set off to Llandudno Junction.
After wallowing in self pity for a few hours I got myself ready and headed off to my evening stop, which was Llyn y Dywarchen. I’ve photographed Llyn y Dywarchen numerous times as per the link at the foot of the page. You can also check out a previous blog post for this location, but today I was mainly going to get some aerial footage from the drone.
Llyn y Dywarchen is one of the quieter spots in the Eryri National Park, which is no bad thing. As I turned the last bend I saw there was one car parked in the lay-by. With drone flying in mind I’d have preferred no people, but it was what it was. To be fair when you pop the DJI Mini 4 Pro in the air after a few metres of elevation it’s effectively silent.
Location wise Llyn y Dywarchen is what I’d class as a park and shoot. I pulled into the lay-by, grabbed my gear out of the boot and literally walked the couple of yards to the lake. The owner of the other car was sitting by the boathouse and looked as though she was cooling her feet in the lake. I thought I’d leave her in peace, so I left the drone in the bag and shot a few stills, and started a timelapse.
After a short while the young lady put her boots on and went to take a shot of Yr Wyddfa. I took the opportunity to get a shot of her as the red jacket she was wearing stood out and I thought she added a nice sense of scale to the scene.
Llyn y Dywarchen with Yr Wyddfa in the distance.
As she walked back down the hill towards her car lo and behold another car pulled in. I watched on as a couple got out and started to unpack their fishing gear and what looked like an outboard motor. Whilst this scuppered my drone flying plans for now I wasn’t too bothered. Instead I just started to photograph and video the couple in the fishing boat instead. A bit of editorial content for the stock agencies instead . . .
Fishing on Llyn y Dywarchen.
I’m not sure how much time passed but it flew by. I grabbed a few stills, shot lots of video, timelapses, and motion lapses before the anglers packed up and I had the location to myself. As an added bonus there was still plenty of time to pop the drone up and have a play.
I got through a couple of drone batteries before packing up and heading off. I didn’t drive many yards before I pulled in to take this image of the Hebog mountain range. I hung around until the sun had gone down as I thought if the clouds caught it would be quite special. Sadly as is often the case they didn’t catch and the light was gone, so I set off once more to my sisters caravan.
The Hebog mountain range. Left to right . . . Moel Hebog, Moel yr Ogof and Moel Lefn.
Munching on a McDonalds at the caravan and reflecting on the day I came to the conclusion that after what felt like a disappointing start had actually turned out to have been a good day.
You can view more images from Llyn y Dywarchen, and my gallery of other North Wales locations.
