Chasing light in Barmouth

Dilyn y golau yn Bermo

Chasing light in Barmouth

I live in the beautiful yet landlocked town of Shrewsbury.

It’s a gorgeous and historic market town in the heart of Shropshire, and bursting at the cobbled seams with photogenic opportunity. It isn’t, however, anywhere near the sea… And I’m a marine scientist.

I’m drawn to the ocean, especially when creativity strikes. With a heatwave forecast and having wasted a couple of days sat indoors doing admin, I decided I deserved a big day out. A day out on the coast.

Craving mountains with my salty sea air, there was an obvious contender: Abermaw.

Or, as us Saesneg folk know it, Barmouth.

The original plan was to set an early alarm and get there in time for golden hour. Make the most of dawn light. Then run 10K, wander the Prom, grab lunch, chill on the beach, feast on fish ‘n’ chips, enjoy golden hour – and drive home. Phew.

In reality, as a man in his late 30s in the midst of a heatwave, absolutely none of that happened. I couldn’t be arsed to pack my big rig (mirrorless, lenses, etc) favouring the drone. I wasn’t in the mood to rush. It was a slow start via a local coffee shop and a mid-morning arrival. Pulling up in the One Big Car Park after two hours on the road, the sky was grey and the humidity oppressive. Shit. What was I going to do?

Thankfully, I’m a master of spontaneity. I’d make it work.

With shafts of sunlight rivalling cloudbursts to the southwest, I plotted a course of action. In short? Run! I grabbed my drone, tarp and sunglasses – and my spotter – and we ran onto the beach to the high water mark.

I’d pre-planned a few suitable locations for flight. The Crown Estate very generously make vast tracts of foreshore available for drone operations. I’m a GIS specialist when not manning a camera, and it was a fun challenge combining “Crown Estate land between mean high and mean low water” polygons with SSSI boundaries, CAA airspace restrictions and so on.

This was even more fun when all I had to do on the day was run to a literal dot on a map. Of course, I still had a raft of pre-flight checks to work through. Checks completed, we put the tarp down as a makeshift, sand-free droneport. After a quick “gulls ahoy?” check, I set the drone up into the sky.

I flew for twenty or so minutes in increasing wind, making it up as I went along. I’d fitted a polarising ND filter and was eager to see what it’d do. It was so hazy and the light so dim, though, that expectations were low.

Worse still, an irate seagull started to pursue my little craft. Dammit. As a bird enthusiast and aspiring good egg, there was one clear course of action: land, and pronto!

It’s fair to say that, whilst the light was naff and the winds a threat, the flight was worthwhile. Look at the shots above. Not perfect, but full of potential. Especially given my top-secret and barely mentioned intention to illustrate and write about coastal change in the UK.

After so much excitement, my spotter casually mentioned raindrops – and rarely have I moved so fast. Drone in box, box shut, tarp folded and off we went.

Lunch was a makeshift picnic, enjoyed in the front seat of a Citroen with splendid views of the car park. Meanwhile, I tried – and failed – to recharge a drone battery with a Belkin power bank. Never, ever accuse me of living a less-than-glamorous lifestyle.

After lunch, the clouds started to part and we decided to wander across to Morfa Mawddach. The estuary is always gorgeous, and I cannot contemplate a day in the area without crossing Barmouth Bridge. So that’s exactly what we did.

Halfway across, the sun poked its face through the passing cottonwool and flashed a big, beaming smile. The waters of the estuary switched from grey to azure blue in a heartbeat. The Cambrian mountains grew taller and more confident. I developed a strong urge to fly, tempered only by realising the wind – not gusts, but the wind itself – was pushing 30 knots. “Maybe later…”, I lamented.

I’m no fanboy but I own an Apple phone and, when shooting in raw format with sufficient light, find the sensor remarkably good. So regretting leaving my mirrorless at home, I took a few shots with the 5x telephoto (110 mm equivalent) lens. Nothing that’ll make an album, but considered as ‘sketches’, they’ve inspired future shoots.

Having made our way across the bridge, the sun was fully ‘out’. I really, really wanted to fly. Naturally, I’d pre-planned some drone take-off and landing sites and… Yeah, you get the idea! Here are a few shots from drone ‘n’ phone that I’m sort of, almost fond of: