Beacon Images Blog

Visit to Big Pit at Blaenavon

2012-02-26T21:49:00.000Z

This weekend I visited Big Pit which is a mining museum at Blaenavon in South Wales, most of the outside I have photographed many times, so I concentrated more on internal shots. The first one was a amp meter of some sort of heavy drilling machine, the second one was in the personal locker room where the miners would had kept their own kit, and the final image was taken in the generator room, which was dark, but had some strong light coming through one of the windows.

Llanddew Church

2012-02-18T11:41:00.003Z

I have been visiting this church on various occasions at different times of day, just to get the right lighting. This particular day the sunlight was strong, so I took three different exposures and blended them in Photoshop before converting to Monochrome, then with quite a bit of dodging and burning, I made the main cross more pronounced within the image.

Playing with Macro

2012-02-13T21:22:00.000Z

We had a Macro workshop at my Camera Club last Friday evening, so it was interesting to have a go at something new. This was a slice of orange in a glass of lemonade suspended by a piece of wire and lit by two desk lamps.

Afternoon Walk up Fan Frynych

2012-02-11T14:16:00.000Z

11th February 2012

As the sun had popped out for the day, I thought I would go out for a walk. The walk started along this muddy track as the sun had now turned the melted snow and frost into a watery mess on the ground, but as we ascended the ground got firmer, as the sun was still not able to penetrate the colder ground. Just before leaving the tree line, the sun was nicely positioned to light up our track, so a photo just had to be taken.

Plus a close up of the fence line, showing the melting ice.

Port Talbot International Salon

2012-02-05T22:28:00.000Z

5th February 2012
I have had three images accepted into this years Port Talbot International Photo Salon, these particular images have done well in lots of other competitions and salons.

Blorenge Paragliders

2012-01-28T15:32:00.000Z

28th January 2012

With winds being low today and the sun starting to poke it's head out through the clouds, I decided to head over towards the Blorenge to see if any of the paragliders would be out today. Parking is by the Radio Masks, which means a good walk over the summit of the mountain before you can see if anyone is about. As I got there one paraglider had taken off, only leaving a few friends at top, after talking to them, it seems as if more people would be heading here soon, so I set myself up with lunch and a flask. After about a hour, there were paragliders laid out all over the ground obviously waiting for the right amount of wind before deciding to jump off the side of this mountain.

Visiting the Black Mountains

2012-01-26T12:22:00.000Z

5th January 2012

Today was spent visiting the Black mountains, This old church is tucked away deep in the mountains, and every wall is leaning in a different direction. Today I waited for sometime hoping that some sunlight would eventually filter through a hole in the cloud, so when it did I had to work fast.

We then continued and stopped off at Llanthony Priory, which again has some great light.

Blaenavon Railway

2012-01-18T16:15:00.000Z

18th January 2012

Today we went out walking around the Blorage area (Mountain near Abergavenny), but the weather was not very inspiring, but on the way back we stopped off at the Blaenavon Railway, no trains were running but the site made for a few nice images.

Purton Boats

2012-01-14T12:34:00.000Z

14th January 2012

Crossed the border yesterday into England to visit the Sharpness to Gloucester Shipping Canal. When they built this canal, at the Sharpness end the canal runs very close to the Severn River which is tidal, so to stop the erosion they purposely ran aground about 80 boats and just left them to sink into the mud in order to stop this erosion, today about 50 are so deep that they can no longer be seen, but this leaves about 30 boats still visible making for a interesting walk along this river bank.

Towards the Sun

2012-01-09T12:29:00.000Z

9th January 2012

After all of the rain of the previous week, it was nice to see the sun again. So it was good to get out walking with the camera, this is part of the Sarn Helen track across the Brecon Beacons. I just like the way that the scene in front of me was lit up by the sun.

First Photo of 2012

2012-01-01T11:58:00.000Z

1st January 2012

After last nights New Years Eve party, we had a early start to the year by climbing to the top of Pen y Fan (highest mountain in South Wales) to watch the sun rise for the first time in 2012. Although when we started climbing the sky's were clear as we could see the stars, but as we ascended the cloud built up, and the wind. Once on top of the summit, visibility was very poor and no chance of seeing anything, so after having a hot drink and some breakfast, a few photos were taken before we started our descent.