Framedlight

 Again a long gap between blogs but I will attempt to back fill a little. These pictures are from a long weekend we took in June. I had bought a Lomograph 32mm Minotar lens that will fit on a digital camera. (I also have the film camera which sports the same lens). I was really impressed by the way this lens renders colour, and for a really cheap lens it is quite sharp. It also has a rather nice vignette which I must have cut most off as I was shooting in square format on a full frame camera. We went on a long walk, after parking in Penmachno, near Betws-y-Coed. It was a slightly pointless walk, as although we ended up coming along the river from Betws, we were mainly going on dark forestry paths through pine plantations.  The last 3 pictures were taken in the village of Penmachno. We were staying in a rental cottage in Pentrefoelas, not a scenic village, on the A5. We happened to be opposite the pub which we thought useful until we saw the reviews. It was very local but our v...

We were to leave our comfy cottage in Rhyd Ddu a day earlier as the forecast was so bad for the Friday we thought we may as well travel home during the rain. On the Thursday our friends and old neighbours from Nannerch joined us and little photography was done but more eating substituted. As we motored home we stopped in a little wood at the side of the road near Beddgelert to take a few snaps - and that was it. So only three pictures, and one of these is a black and white conversion.

As promised the photos from the previous blog have been digitally converted to monochrome using Silver Efex Pro 2. In most of them I have been pretty heavy with the grain. Which do you prefer? The last picture is the one pinhole photograph I took. My umbrella was blown inside out by the wind and a strut snapped while I was taking it!.

In came New Years Day 2014 with wind and rain. As the conditions were fairly depressing we thought of going with the ambience and visiting a ruined slate quarry at Blaenau Ffestiniog. The quarry opened in 1810 and 50 years later mining for slate had also begun. The mine was known as the 'Slaughterhouse' as so many men were killed - between 1875 and 1886 there were 22 deaths out of a workforce of around 550. The fortunes of the mine were varied and it opened and closed several times as companies went into liquidation. It closed finally in 1970 although a little quarrying for slate took place in the 80's and 90's. It is approached up a path leading up from the edge of the town passing a small waterfall. The stream follows the path up to a lake and the outflow was used for turning machinery, The main buildings are a set of miners cottages now fallen into disrepair, although in late 2013 a move was made to save them. As there had been some work going on when we were there...

The car park at Cwm Idwal was busier than we expected, but as the area is large the mountainside was not crowded at all, although it is a very popular spot. As you leave the car park the track takes you over a bridge with a water fall from the stream that comes down from Llyn Idwal, one of the destinations of the walk. The weather was showery with alternating gloom and sun. It never rained torrentially and we kept up a reasonable clip across the path to the lake and then ascending up the side of the hill to get photos across the lake with the one iconic tree. Coming down was trickier as some of the path had been damaged by the recent rainfall and we had to find a route across a stream to keep our feet dry. We must have walked for four hours and the old dog Hettie was struggling with the descent. She did have the joy (?) of a dip in the Idwal when we got back down however. By then the light was beginning to go, the car park was practically empty and we made tracks for the cottage. Th...