a very Merry Christmas!!

It’s Christmas Eve Eve!!!

I’m so excited I may burst!

Anyway, for this (slightly earlier than usual) blog post, I’m laying bare my “Landscape Photography By Car” images before you.  These fifteen photographs are the culmination of three months or so hard work location scouting, shooting and processing.

For those who don’t know, this project was meant to show that you can still take lovely landscape images without the need to hike for miles and miles. In fact, the furthest I walked to get any of these images was less than 20 yards.  Seriously.  Though that "long" walk (to make the first image below) did involve some steps which frankly nearly killed me on the way back up.

I started this blog way back in 2014, just after my cancer diagnosis with the aim of keeping myself busy and maybe helping someone else going through something similar.  And that ethos remains, so If these images inspire just one person with mobility issues or difficulties or cancer or any debilitating illness to get out with their camera and enjoy their countryside wherever in the World that may be then it’s been a success.

I made a video to go along with these images too, and you can watch it here if you like.  I’d appreciate if you do watch, a comment on the video as it took a lot of hard work to put together.  

Likewise, these are my images.  They may not be unique, but they are all my own hard work.  "Hard" I hear you say?  I may not have walked far, but I still get really tired very easily, and putting this project together wasn’t easy I can assure you.  So, please don’t steal them.

waves crashing at Bracelet Bay

This was the farthest I had to walk for any of these images, although there were around 20 steps down to the rocks which nearly killed me.  I'd gone to the Mumbles hoping for a lovely sunset, but clear skies put paid to that so I searched out more intimate images with my telephoto lens and captured the waves being kissed by dawn rays as they broke over the rocks below me.

Capel y Baran at sunset

I love shooting images here.  It's such a peaceful location.  Again the hoped for sunset this time didn't materialise, but I think it made for a much more serene image.  And anyway, I'd be back for some drama later in the Autumn.

leaves

No image scouting, fretting over composition or light here.  These leaves met Dexter and me as we got out of the car one Friday at Craig y Nos.  The bright yellow against the shiny wet granite make for a beautifully simple iPhone capture.

stormy dawn skies at Mumbles 

A second visit to the Mumbles for a stormy, moody, dark sunrise that almost didn't happen at all.  I made sure to capture the lighthouse's lantern to add some more mood to the scene.

fallen leaves

This project is all about not walking to make images, and this picture took that ethos to its extreme.  It was made in my garden with freshly fallen leaves following an early Autumn storm, I think the first one of the season.

old barn, Ystradfellte

This and the two images that follow were taken from the side of a road I'd driven many, many times when I used to go to the waterfalls in the Neath Valley.  I'd never stopped on the road before, so had never seen these lovely compositions.  See, every cloud...

Neath Valley panorama

misty sunrise over Waterfall Country

Autumn colours

This is another image that I didn't have to leave my house for.  I was looking out of the windows from the back of my conservatory when I noticed the lovely Autumn colours on the mountainside behind my house.  A quick iPhone image confirmed they were worth further investigation so, perched on my windowsill I grabbed this with my telephoto lens.

Beacons

There's no better feeling than being up in the mountains before sunrise knowing that you're the only person for miles around.  This image was shot from the Trecastle road that rises from the Swansea Valley, and is a view down towards Crai Reservoir.  Unfortunately, the mist on the horizon hid Pen y Fan, the highest peak in the southern British Isles.

Scott's Pit

This relic of coal mining from the 19th Century was a constant sight throughout my childhood, as it's located directly opposite the house I grew up in.  It used to be covered in ivy and was nearly demolished at one stage, but it remains as a one in the world example of this type of steam pump house.

foothills

I've taken an image very similar to this in the past.  But I liked it so much that I just had to shoot it again for this project.  This is also taken from the Trecastle road, but looking directly south down the Swansea Valley.

another storm

Sometimes you just know when you've nailed an image.  I don't just think this is the best photo in this project, I think it's one of the best I've ever taken.  Everything at Limeslade Bay that morning (light, tide, clouds) came right for once.

the last one

I love taking pictures of leaves.  For me they document the year; from early Spring buds right through to this, the last leaf left on this tree over the lake at Craig y Nos.

back to church

For the last image in this project I went back to the Baran Mountain over the Swansea Valley just before sunset for this apocalyptic image of the chapel there.  I think the wider perspective helps to place the chapel more firmly in its environment, and shows it in all its isolation.


That's it on the image front for 2018 (there will be an image-free post on New Year's Eve though).  Back with more hopefully inspiring photo's on 7 January next year.  Thank you to everyone who has looked at my pictures, read or engaged with my blog or messaged me  over the last 12 months.

Merry Christmas everybody!!