Cheating On My Beloved Snowdonia

I recently did something relatively unusual for me. I travelled to a different location, away from North Wales, for a few days of landscape photography. This is something which I don’t undertake very often, as it involves driving past great locations to visit places which rarely offer better landscape options. I am prepared to admit I may be biased!

On this occasion there were two deciding factors, firstly that it was a trip to the Scottish highlands, which do offer substantially more options than Snowdonia. Secondly, that it was a long weekend away with my good friends from the Photography Pubcast. And there was no way I was going to miss out on the entertainment that would offer.

Despite once again finding myself on a formal campsite, it was selected so that we wouldn’t have to de-camp every morning and we would have power on hand for recharging camera batteries etc. I’ll admit I was concerned that it would be similar to the one we stayed out last September in the Coniston, where it was like pitching up at a summer music festival, surrounded by partying youngsters with zero consideration that other people might be planning to get up early for sunrise! But this time it was a much more genteel affair, with warm and clean wash rooms, and even somewhere to dry the sodden clothes of a gaggle of landscape photographers prepared to spend an afternoon in lashing rain so as not to waste a single minute of the time we had available to us on the trip.

On the first evening I briefly considered, having lugged my gear along with me, recording the weekend on video. But I very quickly abandoned that idea and elected to concentrate on my photography. Having quickly resolved this mental turmoil; should I or shouldn’t I make videos, I was free to enjoy the company, the jaw-dropping scenery, and take my time in making a small series of images, most of which I am happy enough with to share here.

Certain aspects of the conditions we experienced were perfect, certain aspects were challenging. At no point did we experience “spectacular” light, and yet we all agreed that we had been very fortunate overall to enjoy reasonable conditions in a few fabulous locations around Glencoe, which merely scratch the surface of what the Scottish highlands has to offer.

I resolved to drive past the Snowdonia mountains more often than I have in the past, and spend more time in Scotland with my camera. I might even make one or two videos in future, but it won’t be the same being there by myself without the Pubcast crew! Although, as you might have guessed, on the way home we already were pencilling in plans for our next trip to Scotland …