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52 images Created 24 Feb 2015

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  • It was dreamlike, and I was alone in my dreams. The clouds rose and fell like waves on the ocean, one minute revealing the peaks the next shrouding them. A bitterly cold North Westerly blew the swirling vapours at speed across the slopes, chilling me noticeably at the same time. The scenes changed so quickly that it was hard to believe I was in the same place. I was in awe and utterly captivated by the sheer scale and drama of the situation and it was hard to leave the summit, until the sun went down that is, and the wind dropped and a freezing clammy air enveloped me.
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  • Such beauty in such turmoil; drifting curtains of heavy showers backlit by the most wonderful Autumnal sunset. Spray-covered faces; salt-crusted skin, and sea-coasted glass all made for a vivid experience of nature in full flow.
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  • This really is the season of storms and gales. After days of torrential rain, fingers of sunshine searched through layers of cloud trying to make a clearing. I grabbed the opportunity after work today to see if I could catch any of this dramatic light. At the coast the light had already subdued but the wind remained extremely breezy. I carried just one camera and one lens and left the tripod in the van. I had literally just 10 minutes of tantalising sunset before dusk drew a darkening curtain across the windswept stage
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  • Half an hour of amazing swirling cloud, showers and atmospheric drama last night over the Irish Sea from South Stack. I make a point of avoiding photographing the lighthouse, but I do love the sea from here. Actually the wonderfully curved curtains of rain only lasted a few minutes before becoming more regular sheets of rain.
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  • Wonderful moonrise tonight over Tryfan. Been some incredible sky based wonders this last few days here in North Wales - didn't have my long lens with me, but the mid-range in some ways has given more topographical context.
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  • June 2020. Absolutely deserted beach and the mesmerising lure of crystal clear water and open sea. With the world full of virus this short moment of feet in water and and the gentle sound of lapping ripples against thr rocks, was pure medicine, a mental cure.
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  • 710 square kilometres of incredible white gypsum, that in the evening light pouring over the San Andreas Mountains turned vivid hues of pink & purple. Gentle ripples formed in the sand where this damp and binding mineral has been blown by regular strong winds. <br />
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To the North, almost 60% of these white sand gypsum dunes are still used for military weapons and missile testing - the first Fat Man plutonium bomb was tested in the Northern dunes.  <br />
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And yet, there was such a quietness there, calm and even solitude when you walked a little further into the dunes. We did two visits to this National Monument, and honestly, I could have spent many MANY more days in the minimalist nothingness.
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  • A vast cloud towers over the San Andreas mountains to the West of White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. These are to the South of the same White Sands National Monument where America carried out many of it’s early nuclear weapons tests.
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  • Had no idea that a huge sea of cloud would be building as I summited Garnedd Elidir, but it was such an incredible surprise benefit of this last minute evening walk into the hills. <br />
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Though Yr Wyddfa was packed with 1000s of visitors ever day this week, I was completely alone on my summit and was therefore able to let my mind float at cloud height with all this sumptuous vapour. It’s precious enough being alone on the hill tops, but being presented with such spectacular weather phenomenon is such a heightened privilege. <br />
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Strangely, as I left my perch and headed down the scree slopes, the inversion faded, as if it was purely there for me, at a time when I needed it.
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  • The sun had long set, but in the gathering dusk the subtle hues still looked beautiful. There was barely a breath of wind and only the gentlest of soft ripples radiated across this false bay. A young couple slowly and quietly beached a canoe on a distant pebble bank, two micro figures in a vast watercolour landscape.
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  • Another momentary wonder of light and land, as Carnedd Dafydd captures a rare sunbeam during a dreary, damp evening. Standing on the bank of the Afon Menai was beautiful for it’s sounds, tiny waves slapping pebbles on the shoreline; two Oystercatchers pile-driving the shell-strewn mudflats for rich food on the outgoing tide, and a Curlew calling as it skimmed the sea surface towards Y Felinheli but the light, was dull as dishwater. I was about o head back fro the van when a glimmer of light appeared over the Eryri hills, and within a few seconds a huge beam of sunlight scanned the peaks, illuminating the details and textures with such clarity. I shot just five frames before the sun disappeared completely and drops of rain touched my face.
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  • Even as I stood under my huge brolly, with the rain lashing at my back, the wind eddied rain drops onto my lens regardless. This is one of the most popular bucket & spade beaches on Ynys Môn hence my usually giving it an extremely wide berth, but today, even without continued lockdown, the rain kept most people away. I actually loved the view; I loved the minimalist simplicity of it all; the vast stretch of water, the ship in the distance waiting for pilotage to Liverpool; the gusts of wind ruffling the surface of the Irish Sea, and the misty distant island headlands. For the first time in years, I felt connected to this beach, a place I could relate to and allow my mind to wander in. In the silent downpour I felt peace.
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  • Absolutely beautiful conditions last night on the West coast of Anglesey where I did a long beach walk.  The weather over Menai was thunder and rain, but this was just at the edge of the weather front where low evening sunlight bathed the beach. On the outgoing tide the most perfect tiny waves pulsed towards the sand banks, backlit by the sunlight. It was like viewing a gigantic ripple tank experiment. The sun didn’t remain intense for long and turned to one of those hazy evening where sun disappeared behind a huge cloud bank, but it remained serene anyway and held a beauty of its own.
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  • A throw of darkness covered the Welsh hills whilst wisps of pale clouds swirled and writhed below. Bitter winds whistled across the slopes and summit castellations. I huddled behind an airy dry-stone walls whilst hail pounded my shoulders for almost half an hour, chilling me until my hands went white.<br />
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After such an elemental bombardment I should have been miserable but I wasn't. I felt more alone than in a long time, and as I stared at the grass around my boots I became aware of a warm illumination. I looked up at the hills beyond where wide beams of sunlight gently caressing their surface, burning away the darkness and mist, revealing a myriad of details on this earth's ancient skin.<br />
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Knowing the mountains were near empty, made nature seem even more humbling, more magnificent, more wild, perhaps the best it's ever looked, or so it seemed in my own emotionally pulsing headspace.
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  • I sat above the vast bowl of Cwm Marchlyn just staring at the dark water in the reservoir below. Random gusts from a stiff breeze punched the surface of the lake creating the most wonderful and mesmerising abstract movies. It was impossible to tell where the next impact flower would appear. I was lost in the performance as the wind sang to me through the rocks I was crouched amongst.
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  • I think most of my family, friends & followers of my work have seen how far I’ve been sinking since lockdown started back in Africa in March. I haven’t coped that well with losing access to one of the main cures for my darkness, getting out into the landscape & nature. It’s been a real battle internally and I felt I was losing a grip on what life was about, so many waves of loss, fear and entrapment. <br />
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So with the latest minimal change to Welsh lockdown rules, and the ability to drive five miles to meet friends or get exercise, it’s been euphoric for me. My first walk up a small hill, just to be in the mountains again, was as if it was my first time! My heart literally was pounding with excitement and I found myself grinning constantly as I ascended the hill. I found it remarkable to just watch my feet in their walking shoes, taking steps up rocks and grass covered slopes. The wind was cold and I’d delayed the start of the walk to allow a heavy hail shower to pass over, but when the June sunshine appeared it bathed me in warmth and joy. <br />
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From the summit I was able to see all the major peaks, the Carneddau, Tryfan, the Glyderau, Yr Wyddfa, Garnedd Elidir, and even Yr Eifel on the Llyn. A couple passed me on their way down and after an awkward, socially distanced acknowledgement as is the way these days, I saw no one for the rest of the time in the hills. It was the sort of solitude I yearn for, the solitude of choice not the solitude of jail.   <br />
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Shortly before another heavy hail shower, which lasted almost half an hour, I found myself enchanted by the morphing dark clouds over the Carneddau, even their ominous depth seemed magical and awesome. Quite suddenly an intense beam of warm sunshine split the sombre scene and caressed its way up and over Foel Meirch until it ticked the shrouded summit of Carnedd Dafydd. It was my perfect light, theatrical and dramatic, a play with no characters, just backdrops. <br />
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I sat on the summit, alone and happy in my own thou
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  • Blue Moons, Harvest Moons, Cherry Moons, Supermoons ZZZZZZZ ……….It’s the same moon, miraculous, magnificent and enchanting and this time without one vapour trail spoiling the pure air between us, such natural skies this day.
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  • We decided to ignore the warnings not to drive during Storm Ciara, and headed for the sea. The narrow coastal roads were covered in seaweed and pebbles but high up above the cliffs of South Stack we only had the gale force winds to contend with. I left Jani warm in the van and fought my way down to the cliff edge, thankfully the wind blew me onshore not off! On arrival the skies were dark and gloomy but as I set up the tripod, sunlight burst through a break in the clouds and illuminated the short grasses clinging to the siltstone & quartzite rocks around me. <br />
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I had to lean hard onto the tripod just to try and keep the camera still enough to make the shot. Even then I decided on a higher ISO for safety. Almost as soon as the sun warmed my wind-blown face, it disappeared and I was blown uphill back to the van!
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  • An incredibly gale blasted early morning hike into the Welsh hills. I was literally blown over twice and the tripod was next to useless for photography. The light conditions and cloud effects were not what I’d hoped for but it was strangely beautiful in it’s super-bright blanket of haze, softening the distant hills and making Tryfan stand out in a way I couldn’t have imagined. Nevertheless the quality of light diminished with every passing minute, so I was happy to race back down the mountain to meet up with friends to go rock-climbing on Tryfan Bach!
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  • Nominated image in the 13th Black & White Spider Awards 2018<br />
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This is the deserted mining town of Kolmonskop in Western Namibia. In 1909 diamonds were found here and this industrial hamlet developed. The nearby harbour town of Lüderitz nearby also gained rapid prosperity.<br />
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Since then however diamonds are mostly found elsewhere and so these towns went into decline. This small industrial complex is forever fighting to remain above the gale-blown desert sands but this and Lüderitz are still incredible places to visit as so little has changed at all since the early twentieth century.<br />
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It’s quite eerie standing inside the large derelict buildings, the winds literally howling through the broken windows and doors and dunes almost visibly being created in front of your eyes.
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  • One of the most perfect stretches of road that we found in Namibia. Miles of perfect black tarmac with distinctive white markers created such geometry amongst thousands of acres of desert sand. As with most man-made things that I observed in Namibia, they all seemed slightly incongruous within such vast wilderness landscape.
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  • After miles of dirt-road driving through vast empty desert landscape, it was quite a shock to see anything man-made other than the road itself, let alone signs that indicated that civilisation actually existed somewhere amongst this isolation. It was a blast of ‘normality’ and ‘order’ yet seemed utterly incongruous to our surroundings. I loved the surreality of it all.
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  • The rain was relentless, falling in vast sheets across the sombre Welsh hillsides, soaking the landscape and everything upon it. I’d just descended from the gale-blown summits where I’d not seen a soul, but I was more than happy in my wet solitude. I could hear a hidden river tumbling through dark rocks in the valley below.<br />
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The wind drove the rain through the back of my waterproofs as I trudged down the tiny path back to habitation. It was near silent, no calls of birds or bleating of sheep, just the drumming of the downpour on my hood. <br />
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I loved it all. Amidst these huge Welsh mountains that one-minute seemed imposing and soft like a watercolour the next, I felt alive in this huge valley, a tiny, isolated figure moving through an ancient glaciated landscape. These are times and conditions when you feel humbled by the elements and connected to the earth.
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Glyn Davies, Professional Photographer and Gallery

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