Pen-y-Cilgwyn, Nantlle Ridge.

As I spent all of my Christmas holiday relaxing to the max in Germany, I decided to head over to Wales to say ‘hello’ to my family and friends the second weekend of January – and for a second Christmas.

Since I don’t get the chance to go out much around Dublin/Ireland these days, I often look on Flickr to see of any nice locations people are finding in Wales, and making a list of where to visit when I get the chance to head back home. However, this time – by pure coincidence, I came across an very small thumbnail of the Nantlle Ridge, taken from somewhere that I’ve never seen before. I personally love the Nantlle Ridge, I’ve always tried my best to capture it as best as I can – but this new view I saw from the thumbnail was mighty epic. I put my OS Map skills to work, and quickly figured out that it was taken from above Cilgwyn, on a wee hill called Pen-y-Cilgwyn. This was somewhere I’ve never visited before (in all my years living literally 5mins away) as it leads up to the Cilgwyn landfill site – but boy! does it have a view – my personal new favourite view of the Nantlle Ridge:

Pen y Cilgwyn

Pen-Y-Cilgwyn

Bedol yr Wyddfa

The last image is of the mighty Snowdon Horseshoe – taken from a wee lay-by in Dyffryn Mymbyr, as I drove around taking in the landscape when I don’t get a chance to head up to the mountains when I’m home.

Snowdonia Break

We headed to Wales for a short break this week – to hike and to relax for a few days. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t on our side, so we only managed a short hike up Yr Aran, and decided to be ‘tourists’ and visit a few of Snowdonia’s top tourist spots.

Cwm Llan, Eryri.

Rhaeadr Ewynnol - Swallow Falls

The first photo is taken from the summit of Yr Aran, looking towards Snowdon and into Cwm Llan, and the second is a short test I did at the Swallow Falls waterfalls in Betws y Coed, playing with ‘long’ exposure in the daylight. I didn’t have my tripos with me, so this was as long as I could manage without getting some major motion blur.

Afon Llugwy, Swallow Falls.

Here’s something different than the usual – an almost abstract shot that I took of Afon Llugwy, which is much different from my usual panorama, it was nice to play around with this in Post, as I quite like the results.

Snowdonia Winter, early 2013

As I’ve updated my photography section I decided to head into my iPhoto to look for any un-stitched/edited panoramas that I might have hanging around, and boy – I found a couple of what I thought was really nice. I’m not too sure why they were left un-stitched, as I really love they way the came out, especially the first one, looking towards Snowdon (on the left), with the Nantlle Ridge swooping to the right, and Moel Hebog standing strong in the distance.

Yr Wyddfa o Moel Eilio

Craig Cwmbychan o Moel Eilio

Dyffryn Nantlle

The last is somewhat different. When I headed over to Wales a couple of weekends back to see my family and for my big Birthday, I decided one evening to scout the land for possible location ideas for a short film that I’m currently thinking about animating. I really like the location, and the old tree is perfect. Taken from the slopes of Mynydd Mawr, in Dyffryn Nantlle.

Updated ‘Photography’ section

Iestyn Roberts' Photography
Iestyn Roberts’ Photography

Hello, I’ve gone ahead and created a new section for my ‘Photography work’. I wasn’t too happy with how my photos were previously displayed, so I’ve joined Tumblr and created a whole new page that’s linked to my homesite and Flickr.

Iestyn Roberts’ Photography

(If anyone knows how to disable the ‘click to load more pics’ function and have all my photos load at once on this theme and Tumblr, please get it touch, as I’ve searched high and low – and can’t find a work around anywhere)

Dyffryn Nantlle

As I’m currently back in Wales, every evening I try to head on out to the mountains with my camera, to have a break from my computer. Here’s a couple I’ve taken this last week:

Llyn Nantlle

Yr olygfa o dop Mynydd Mawr

The first is of the fantastic Llyn Nantlle. I was really lucky to capture this – after driving like a fool in the new van to try and capture the great contrast between the mountains and the skies, I only took one photo, and the sun sank really fast behind the clouds, and after hanging around for a good 30 mins, there was no sign of it ever coming back. But I was really happy with the result.

The second if the view from the summit of my favorite mountain – Mynydd Mawr, looking over towards the Nantlle Ridge. The lake from which the first image is taken from can be seen in the Valley below.

Nant-y-Betws

As the sun was blasting, and the promise of a lovely sunset was imminent. I headed up Craig Cwmbychan, (the ‘head’ of the elephant that is Mynydd Mawr) to try and capture the sunset, blasting through Nant-Y-Betws below.

Nant-y-Betws

So here’s Nant-y-Betws, looking over from Craig Cwmbychan, Mynydd Mawr towards Moel Eilio, and Snowdon on the far right. Llyn Cwellyn can also be seen below.

Tiss a lovely Valley.

Llanberis Pass

Whilst closely watching the sun setting on Monday, I headed up the beautiful Llanberis pass, hoping that the sun will be blasting right up the valley, as it sometimes does – but I wasn’t in luck. The sun did however, set behind Llechog and Grib Goch, with a bright red hue.

Bwlch Llanberis - Llanberis Pass

This was taken just on the PYG track, Pen-Y-Pass. Grib Goch is the steep pyramid shaped peak on the left, while on the right of the valley, we have the terrain sweeping up to Bryn Du, and making it’s way up to Glyder Fawr.