Tag: Wales
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#422 – Rhydymwyn Valley Works, aka The Mustard Gas Factory, Part 3
The Atom Bomb Connection Rhydymwyn was used to house gaseous diffusion machines with the objective of separating the uranium isotope U-235 from U-238 as this was thought to be the quickest way of producing enough material for an atom bomb. The site was chosen for a number of reasons – there were empty buildings of the right size, it…
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#421 – Rhydymwyn Valley Works, aka The Mustard Gas Factory, Part 2
This pencil graffiti has lasted surprisingly well considering it is supposedly 70 years old…… Being a regular visitor to both derelict and active industrial sites, I’ve walked across all kinds of surfaces, but never a rubberised one. The site roads on the southern section were coated with a rubber like asphalt designed to stop…
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#420 – Rhydymwyn Valley Works, aka The Mustard Gas Factory, Part 1
The landscape of Britain continues to be littered with the remains of past conflicts. From the Napoleonic era forts of the channel, through to the likes of Chatham dockyard and old ordnance factories, pill boxes and ammunition dumps – you don’t have to look that hard to find something. I’d previously visited the remains of…
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#403 – Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Part 3
Winding engine (I think) in one of the sheds. Just a few more random ones from the visit. It was good to have some expert accompaniment on the visit, so thanks again to Iain Robinson for spending a good part of the day with me as he’s very knowledgeable on the local quarry industry and…
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#402 – Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Part 2
While I’m not a frequent visitor to North Wales, I have visited at least annually over the past ten years, and had experienced only one sunny day in that time. So I was pleasantly surprised to experience the area when it wasn’t smothered in cloud, fog and rain. Photographically, this represented a departure from me for two…
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#401 – Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Part 1
I’ve no particular association with the area or the industry, but I have an odd fascination with the slate industry and the way it has shaped the landscape of North Wales. In most industries, once a plant has worn out or is rendered obsolete for whatever reason, the place is either raised to the ground and something…
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#352 – Cwm Bychan – Another Get Carter Landscape – 3
And so to finish off this short series, a few black and white images. After lugging my tripod several miles to allow me to do some exposure bracketing, I realised in post processing that it probably wasn’t necessary, there was adequate information in the correctly exposed raw file. But as I’d gone to the effort…
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#351 – Cwm Bychan – Another Get Carter Landscape – 2
Warning – equipment discussion! A popular misconception is that an ultra wide angle lens is required for landscape photography, and while useful, it can often lead to hackneyed compositions and converging verticals. Used judiciously they are a useful tool, but not the only tool in the landscape photographers bag. I bought my Nikon 16-35…
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#350 – Cwm Bychan – Another Get Carter Landscape -1
If you’ve seen the classic film Get Carter, then you’ll recall the closing scenes of the film when Jack, against the backdrop of a clanking colliery ropeway on the bleak Durham coast, gets his revenge on the gangster who killed his brother. Watch it here if you’ve not seen it – it’s a tad…
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#345 – Reworked Images 11 – Dinorwic
This is the same scene that I posted up a few posts back, albeit a few feet to the left and a few feet higher up. I’ve not made it as contrasty as the other one as I don’t think it needs it due to it being entirely monochrome. I’m not convinced about the cohesiveness…
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#341 – Reworked Images 7 – High and Dry
When I visited the Duke of Lancaster a few years back, I took the opportunity to take a lot of photographs, from as many different angles as I could think, on a variety of different lenses. At the time, I only actually processed about 10 or 12 of them, but after a 3 years break I…
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#339 – Reworked Images 5 – Dinorwic Flower
The finished image The starting point – pretty much straight out of camera with one or two tonal adjustments. I originally cropped this into portrait format, processed it, and subsequently presented it that way for several years. When I revisited it, I decided to process it in its original landscape format, and then decide afterwards…
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#313 – The Duke of Lancaster’s New Clothes
Seeing the Duke of Lancaster from the road for the first time is a bit of a surreal experience. The North Wales coast road is a fairly uninteresting drive as coast roads go, you can rarely if ever see the sea, and the road is a frustrating affair of dual carriageways, single carriage ways, roundabouts,…
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#305 – Bad News From Brymbo
If you’ve visited my website, you may have already seen this, but I wanted to spread the news through other channels as well. I have had the following sad news from the Brymbo Heritage Group who look after the last surviving buildings of the Brymbo Steelworks site in North Wales. “Due to the snow that…
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#296 – Man Made Mountains Project
Man Made Mountains from Fourth Dimension on Vimeo. Not my work, but an excellent video that is definitely worth a look! I struggled to understand what the project was all about at first, but realised that the end product was in effect a temporary exhibition of the photographs taken of the slate industry, in the…
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#253 – Return To Dinorwic – Film Shots
I’d promised myself that I’d shoot more film in 2012, so the first proper opportunity I had was Dinorwic. As described in previous posts, I took along a digital compact, and two film cameras. Not ideal, but at least the X10 is small enough to slip into a waist bag and is out of the…
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#252 – Return To Dinorwic – Details
Something I try to do when exploring somewhere is to go close in and pick out the smaller details. Not only does it give some variety to the wider landscapes and architectural shots, it allows for a bit more creativity and to look closer at textures, shapes, etc. If you read the Geotopoi blog, some…
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#251 – Return To Dinorwic – Compressor House
Now this was an interesting surprise. I’d previously only explored the upper levels of the quarry, but down in the lower levels was another compressor house. It was not as exposed as the Australia Level building, and as such was in better condition. It was also much more accessible as it had a decent footpath…
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#250 – Return To Dinorwic – Australia Level Part 2
Throwing caution to the not inconsiderable wind, I decided to continue wandering along the Australia level, if nothing else to see if there was a less difficult way down. Seeing some buidlings ahead, I wandered over to see what they were. Various bits of scrap littered the grass outside which piqued my curiousity, and inside…
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#248 – Return To Dinorwic – The Inclined Plane
Like my previous visit, the quarry was shrouded in mist, only this time it didn’t clear. This trip though I was determined to reach the Australia level as well as see a few other bits and bats I’d not seen before. Not knowing the ‘easier’ way, I simply went straight up the fearsome C3 incline…
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#247 – Return To Dinorwic
Industry has it’s own unique way of shaping the landscape, but mineral extraction is one industry that leaves the most permanent mark. From the slag heaps of the coalfields, to the huge holes in the ground that quarries leave, once operations have ended, it isn’t just a case of pulling the buildings down and building…
Mechanical Landscapes 