During the bank holiday weekend me, my dad and the dog went to Llanberis in North Wales. There’s a large campsite there which even in the middle of Bank Holiday weekend had plenty of free space. The weather wasn’t especially great, but I managed to get some nice photos.

We arrived on Thursday to avoid the traffic, and after battling with the tent managed to get it upright and securely attached to the ground. Friday was spent walking up Snowdon, going via the col between Snowdon and Moel Cynghorion before meeting the Ranger Path to the summit. About half way up it started raining and didn’t stop until we were part way down again.

There’s a new cafe on the top of Snowdon, a massive collection of slate, steel and glass giving massive panoramic views of the mist and rain. It’s very well heated and somewhat of a shock when you’ve spent four hours trudging through the rain and mist. And yes, it was full of badly prepared tourists who’d caught the train or walked up in shorts and a t-shirt.

Just as we were leaving the weather cleared, warmed up and dried us out. All the way down the tourist path we were treated to the exact sorts of panoramic views the people rammed in the cafe couldn’t see because the summit was still thickly covered in mist.

On Saturday we went to a place outside Porthmadog called Borth-y-Gest, a place I last visited about fifteen years ago. Scrawled on a rock in a remote cove on the beach I found some graffitti that was possibly done by someone I know which was dated 1991.

Sunday was spent visiting Beaumaris on the Isle of Anglesey, watching hundreds of people crab fishing off the pier, eating fish and chips and watching a sailing race. On the way home, while driving along the coast road to Conwy we stopped to watch some kite surfers.

I like the cheap look caused by a mixture of the software and the camera hardware. The borders and fake film bleed looks a bit cheesy, but it seems to work quite well for random shots like these.

Took this balanced on a chair by one leg, the other propped against the kitchen door. I knew my rock climbing skills would be useful. The subject was reasonably cooperative, neither jumping on my face nor running away. I would have used my macro tube, but the spider is too large and the location too difficult to set that up, sometimes you need to compromise when taking photos.

Sandal Castle is a ruin in Sandal, a suburb of the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, overlooking the River Calder and Pugneys Country Park. It was the site of royal intrigue, the opening of one of William Shakespeare‘s plays, and was the source for a common children’s nursery rhyme.

I like the low quality look this image has which is caused by me stacking a polarising filter and red filter onto the lens, and then not realising the vignetting around the sides until processing later. There’s some slight Photoshop work done on the image to remove all the colour and fix the black levels.