On Location Photographing Snowdonia Part Two
Welcome to part two of my on-location blog post featuring more photos and stories from a trip I took to Snowdonia in February 2024.
If you didn’t catch part one, I encourage you to pop over by clicking on this thumbnail so you can start from the beginning of the trip. For those of you who have already read part one, we pick things up where we left off, as I finish up beside Lynnau Mymbyr after taking one of my favourite photos of the entire trip.
I packed up my camera gear on a bit of a high, jumped in the car and made my way to the Ogwen Valley.
Photographing the Ogwen Valley and the mighty Tryfan
Parking up again just a little further down the road here, I walked to Ogwen Cottage to finally get a coffee and have a spot of lunch. It was a pleasant afternoon, not too cold with the sun making regular appearances. As I sat there, sipping my coffee, I was drawn to the scene across the road, as I could see the old boathouse basking in the sun.
Photographing the Boathouse on Llyn Ogwen
Encouraged by the success I had taking that photo of Snowdon in similar conditions back at Lynnau Mymbyr, I finished my drink and crossed the road to photograph this popular view of Llyn Ogwen.
I used a 10mm focal length for this photo to avoid chopping off the top of the tree, while still leaving some grassed area at the base of the image to create a natural frame. Ordinarily, I may have lowered the camera, making the shrubbery more of a feature in the foreground, but I wanted to keep the boathouse isolated by the lake, and if I had got any lower, the top of it would start to overlap with the mountains.
It was now close to 2pm, but with it being February, the sun was still low in the sky and the light had a subtle warmth to it. So, although the photo I took below isn’t necessarily portfolio-worthy, I’m still quite pleased with how it turned out.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/80th Second | f/9 | ISO125
Looking down the valley from Y Garn
Seeing the light hitting the landscape as the sun was intermittently breaking through the clouds, I decided to climb part way up Y Garn, close to a location where I took a similar photo from the previous winter. This time, I climbed 150-200 metres higher to find a better vantage point and found a great spot, offering fantastic views of the Ogwen Valley.
With low, moody clouds working their way down the valley and the sun still breaking through over my right shoulder, the landscape in front of me was a sight to behold and I wasted no time setting up the camera to photograph it. The light was warm, making the landscape glow where it fell and with the cloud just about kissing the top of Tryfan, I took another of my favourite photos from the trip.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF10-24mm | 15mm | 1/100th Second | f/8 | ISO125
The Sleeping Dragon’s Back
With the wider landscape photographed, I donned the 50-140mm lens and zoomed in tighter on Tryfan. With its vertical crags and jagged edges, this iconic Snowdonia mountain is also referred to by some as the Dragon’s Back. You can certainly see why from this angle.
Waiting patiently for the opportune moment when the clouds revealed Tryfan’s summit while illuminated by the sun, I took the two photos below at 50 and 140mm.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 50mm | 1/40th Second | f/11 | ISO125
Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 140mm | 1/11th Second | f/11 | ISO125
Spotting some tiny figures on top of Tryfan in the distance, I mounted my 70-300mm lens and zoomed in to take one last photo. I could see someone climbing on the trig point/platform up at the top, so I held off taking the photo until the figure was standing upright.
For illustrative purposes, I’ve shared a couple of different versions of the same photo underneath, both zoomed in to 100%, but each focusing on a different part of the frame.
Looking again at the photo I took of the view down the valley and how far away from Tryfan I was, it’s quite astonishing that I can pick out so much detail from the photo I took.
Even though the sun had gone in while I took this photo, I still cooled the image down a little more when editing it as I liked the monochromatic look it gave.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF70-300mm | 300mm | 1/320th Second | f/6.4 | ISO125
The rugged face of Glyder Fawr
Happy with the photos I’d taken up on the slopes of Y Garn, I made my way back down towards Llyn Idwal. As I got close to the lake, Glyder Fawr came into view and even though the light was far from ideal, the dark clouds skimming the peaks of this rugged mountain caught my eye enough for me to grab the camera one more time and take this photo.
I love the detail in the rock face, the white slither of water as it tumbled down the mountain and the dark clouds hugging the ridge as they glide past.
The most challenging aspect when taking this photo was making the scene feel balanced as the ridge continues up on the left-hand side and works its way downwards on the right. To solve this dilemma, I opted for a square crop.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF16-55mm | 25mm | 1/30th Second | f/8 | ISO125
With there being only an hour or so of light left in the day, I wandered to my car contemplating somewhere nearby to take one last photo before heading back to the hotel for the night.
When it comes to my landscape photography, two things I admit to being are both stubborn and a creature of habit. I’m the kind of photographer that, once I decide on a photo I want, I will keep returning to a location to try to capture it. This is as true for when photographing close to home as it is during photography trips further afield such as this. So, when all of a sudden, the cloud started to clear above me and being so close to Tryfan once more, I made a snap decision to take a walk back up to the waterfall along Afon Lloer and try to get the sunset photo of Tryfan I wanted.
Well, would you believe it, the clouds continued to thin to a clear blue sky. Far from ideal conditions for the photo I wanted to take. I sat alongside the waterfall questioning the decisions I make in life knowing that once again, this photo has eluded me.
I very thin layer of high cloud did eventually make its way into the scene over towards the setting sun, which gave me a little hope, and I was able to take a nice enough photo, but I guess I’ll need to come back once more at least to try again. Every cloud and all that.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/25th Second | f/14 | ISO125
With what I thought was the best photo of the evening taken, I set off back to the hotel to get some much-needed food and rest as I’d be up early again on my last morning in the national park before my 5-hour drive home later that afternoon.
Photographing a misty sunrise at Lynnau Mymbyr
Waking up and heading out into the dark the next morning, I made my way back to Lynnau Mymbyr. I decided to head back to the lake as very little wind was forecast and I was hoping to photograph the lake with the Snowdon Horseshoe reflected in the water.
It was pitch black when I arrived and I couldn’t see a thing, but as the light gently increased, I got an impression that the lack of visibility wasn’t just to do with the time of day. As it turns out, there was a thick cloud of fog between the lake and the mountains in the distance.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF16-55mm | 55mm | 13 Seconds | f/10 | ISO125
Embracing the cool, pre-dawn light, I started by taking a long exposure of this tree sticking out partway across the water. Apart from the occasional car driving past me, everything was silent, and I felt a minimal-looking scene would work well and represent the feeling I had as I stood there on the edge of the lake.
Although I like the 3x2 ratio of the original photo, back at home during the edit, I went for a square crop. I feel the square provides a more balanced composition as it avoids the trees on the left creating too much visual weight.
The blanket of fog in the distance was shifting from left to right, seemingly rocking in the cradle of the valley and every now and then, Snowdon would appear in the distance for just a short while and I had to be ready to take a photo when it did.
Wanting to take a wider composition, allowing me to make a feature of the rocks in the foreground, I zoomed out and waited for the opportune time to click the shutter.
With Snowdon just about visible and the atmospheric mist across the lake, this is one of my favourite photos I took that morning.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF16-55mm | 18mm | 1/4th Second | f/10 | ISO125
I wanted to photograph the wide vista but minimise the foreground and sky. One way I could achieve this is to choose a wider focal length and just crop the image into a panoramic. The issue with that approach is that the wider the focal length, the smaller the mountains will look in the frame.
What I tend to do in this situation is to create a stitched panoramic image using a longer focal length. This way, the mountains still retain their prominence, and I don’t have to crop the photo and essentially throw pixels away.
To get as much resolution as I could, I rotated the camera to a portrait orientation and zoomed in even further, pulling the mountains closer to me. Although this means I need to take more photos as I pan, the resulting image has a far higher resolution. I took the various photos while panning the camera from left to right, overlapping each one by around 50%. I made sure to start and finish the panoramic further to the left and right of the scene than I needed as this gave me more flexibility with the final crop back in post-production.
Taking multiple photos and stitching them together can be problematic if there’s movement in the scene, particularly in water as it can make them more difficult to line up. Thankfully, the water was still, and the clouds were moving slowly enough that Lightroom had no issues at all. After a creative crop, the resulting photo below is a respectable 115 megapixels and if I ever decide to print this photo, I’ll have no issues regardless of the size I want to make it.
It can be tricky to view panoramic photos properly when using a small phone screen. If you are using a phone to read this blog, try to view it on a larger screen or at least select the photo and rotate your screen to get a better view.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 74mm | 1/2 Second | f/11 | ISO125 (Stitched Pano)
With the telephoto lens still attached, Snowdon made its last appearance of the morning, and with the lake still offering up these fantastic reflections, I composed a landscape-oriented photo making more of a feature of the mist and mountains in the distance.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF50-140mm | 50mm | 0.6 Seconds | f/11 | ISO125
Happy with the pre-dawn photos I’d taken, I stopped to take a break and just enjoy the scene unfolding in front of me. I was hoping some colour would appear in the sky but the very subtle hint of magenta you can see in the photo above was the best it got before thicker clouds started to roll in across the mountains. That was the last time I would see the Snowdon Horseshoe that morning.
As dawn turned to day, the sun, which was now rising over my left shoulder was lighting up the hills with a beautiful orange glow, so I grabbed the camera and made a few handheld photos of the scene. Having Snowdon visible in the background would have been the icing on the cake, but it was not to be.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF16-55mm | 20mm | 1/50th Second | f/8 | ISO125
I also took a more simplified photo of the view across the lake, removing the foreground rocks to give the image more of a mirror-like look. The subtle ripples you can see in the water “ruining” my perfect reflection was not due to wind, but the effects of some early morning swimmers over to the left of me.
Of course, I jest about it ruining my photo, as I appreciate the lake is there for us all to share. I waited a while, but more swimmers started to arrive, this time to the right of me, so, all I could do was try to take the best photo possible at the time. I still really like the results.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF16-55mm | 19mm | 1/50th Second | f/8 | ISO125
Getting on for mid-morning, the best of the light was gone and with only a few hours left before driving home, I went back to the Ogwen Valley as there were still a couple of photos that, for one reason or another, I hadn’t yet managed to take.
Photographing Cwm Idwal and the Ogwen Falls
Once again, I parked further up the road, beside Llyn Ogwen and walked up to Llyn Idwal as I wanted to take a photo of Cwm Idwal’s fantastic natural amphitheatre. It was a composition I had taken the year before and although I was happy with it, the lack of a wide-angle lens meant that I couldn’t include enough foreground or leave enough sky above the mountains.
Next to the bridge where Llyn Idwal feeds into Afon Idwal, I placed my tripod into the shallow water and mounted my camera about a foot above the surface. I used two of my Kase filters for this photo. The first was the CPL filter which helped to remove some of the glare from the water and wet rocks. The second was my three-stop ND filter which enabled me to set a shutter speed of 1/20th of a second and smooth the water a little as it rolled over the rocks in front of me.
Right in the middle of the image, at the top of the ridge is a big crack in the rock called Twll Du (Black Hole), also known as the Devil’s Kitchen. It’s called the Devil’s Kitchen because water flows into the crack at speed and the spray it causes appears like a plume of steam rising from within the rocks. It’s said, when steam can be seen rising from the chimney, the Devil is cooking.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF10-24mm | 12mm | 1/20th Second | f/11 | ISO125
While sitting on a rock, having a snack, I decided to send the DJI Mini 3 Pro drone up to see what the view looked like from high above Llyn Idwal. The clouds continued to hug the top of the peaks with the sun breaking through from time to time. I flew towards the Devil’s Kitchen at the back of the lake, turned the drone around and framed up this familiar view of Pen yr Ole Wen with its peak lost in a layer of clouds.
While keeping half an eye on the drone’s battery levels, I waited for what seemed like an age for the clouds to become a little more central above the mountain and once in position, I was able to take this photo of Llyn Idwal and Pen yr Ole Wen across the valley.
With the drone safely landed, I made my way down to the Ogwen Falls to take my last photo of the trip.
DJI Mini 3 Pro | 24mm (effective) | 1/6,400th Second | f/1.7 | ISO100
Dark clouds over Tryfan at the Ogwen Falls
This is a view that escaped me when I visited a year before. On that day, the skies were blue, and the light was too strong to make a photo I was happy with, so, with another opportunity to photograph the scene, I scrambled back down to take in this popular view of the Ogwen Falls with a part covered Tryfan lurking menacingly the background.
The good news is that the sky wasn’t blue, and I had some moody clouds to use to add a touch of drama, but as good as those clouds were, unfortunately, they were also blocking Tryfan’s recognisable peak. Not to be deterred, up went the tripod and out came the camera for the very last time of the trip. Once again, I used the CPL and ND filters for this photo for the same reasons as before and then I waited in the hope that Tryfan would make an appearance.
Fujifilm XT5 | XF10-24mm | 16mm | 1/5th Second | f/8 | ISO125
All I needed was a second or two to react and take the photo, but it was not to be. I even sent my drone up while I waited but still, the clouds wouldn’t release their firm grip of Tryfan’s peak.
Even with a lack of interesting light, I’m still happy with both the photos I took at this location as the dark clouds provided some contrast and mood I could work with. Tryfan’s summit never did make an appearance and after around an hour, it was time to pack up and head home.
DJI Mini 3 Pro | 24mm (effective) | 1/1,250th Second | f/1.7 | ISO100
As I embarked on the 5-hour drive home, I reflected on how I thought the trip went and what I might do differently next time. I was feeling optimistic about some of the photos I took, and it seems that optimism was well placed, as along with quite a few photos I was happy to share on this blog, I did manage to take one or two photos I especially like and may even make it into my portfolio. I’ll leave you to guess what ones they are.
When I return (and I will return), I plan to visit in Autumn as I want to capture a bit more of the Snowdonia woodland in my photos and maybe visit a few of the beautiful waterfalls found in the national park. I do have a family trip to Snowdonia planned for the end of May 2024, but it will be a busy week and I don’t expect to get too many landscape photos. I also plan to travel lighter on the next trip. I got away with it this time as I didn’t summit any mountains, but next time I plan to climb even higher to take in some new views to photograph. At the time of writing, I have already added a 16-80mm lens to my kit which means I can carry just the three, lighter lenses which will help me when I take on those more strenuous hikes.
I know these longer-form posts are not for everyone, so thanks for sticking with it and reaching the end of this rather long two-part blog post. I’m motivated to share more from my landscape photography trips, so stay tuned for more on-location blog posts soon.
Until next time,
Trevor.
If you enjoy these longer, on-location articles, I’ve posted a few more from some of my previous trips to Wales below. All the On-Location blog posts I’ve ever written can be found here.
