Day trip to Manchester and Anglesey

So after 2 days of listing arts and crafts stuffs on eBay for my sister, Chris joined me in Cheadle and we went for a day out. At first we headed to Bramhall park, which has an Edwardian style hall (that was sadly closed that day). Wandering around we took a couple of shots, I was so busy using my new (old) Zeiss that I didn't take anything with my DSLR while I was there.

After the park, we headed on the Quarry Bank Mill, somewhere I've visited years ago. There I took some shots with both my Zeiss and Canon, firstly of one of the machines used to make material and then of the mill itself from the outside.

Today we ventured out to Anglesey, to a place called Ty Croes where we climbed down onto some rocks right next to the sea. Being by the sea is one of my favourite things to do, I love the sound of the lapping water and experimenting with my Zeiss and Canon got some excellent shots.

After receiving the summer work from uni, we've been working to get the landscapes done. Chris is a much more experienced landscape photographer than me, and knows lots of places to take decent shots. I've learned a lot about landscape photography under his instruction!

After Ty Croes, we headed over to a wind farm above Llanrwst. I've only ever been that close to a wind turbine on a coach in Norway years ago. It was a little scary being so close to them, they make a lot of noise which I wasn't expecting, and we estimated the blades must have been turning in excess of 90mph. But they made for great pictures, and the sky was quite dramatic which helped.
Finally we headed to a viewpoint not far from the wind farm, it was a gorgeous place, and the view was stunning. The tall mountain you can see in the distance is Moel Siabod.

So it has been another few days of photography, it's nice to have someone to photograph with.

More soon :)

A Grand Day Out

Again, I've neglected you, blog. This is because I've been splitting my time between here and Conwy and despite having been out almost everyday with my camera I can't show you what I've been doing as the pictures aren't ready.

The reason they're not ready yet is because as we speak, they're being developed! A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex from eBay. To say I was excited about its arrival was a massive understatement! Anyway it came, I went to Cambrian in Colwyn Bay to get it checked over and to buy some film and then off I went with Chris to try it out. Anyway, watch this space!

Anyway, to the point of this blog. For quite some time now I've been meaning to take my Dad back to where he grew up. My sister Joanne took the initiative and organised a day out for us, and Mum to the Wirral.

I'm sure a lot of people are the same, but I love hearing the stories my dad has about growing up. All of the things he used to get up to are fascinating to me, even though he can't understand why! I rolled in last Friday after being at Chris' and Jo was pretty much ready to take us.

Our first stop was Port Sunlight, if you've never been there, I can't recommend it enough! One minute, you're driving down a non-discript road, and the next you take a random left, and go back in time several decades! The roads are clean, every lawn is mowed and the maze of houses are spectacular, apparently there are only 2 of each house and there are streets and streets of them! Most of the 900 buildings (including some larger "principle" buildings) are grade II listed buildings!

What's even more fascinating about Port Sunlight is that it is a village that was built specifically for the workers of Lever Brothers, a factory that produced Sunlight soap. William Hesketh Lever believed that happy workers were hard workers and would regularly take his entire force on trips and supplied them with pleasure facilities. Level Bros went on to become the worldwide company we know as Unilever.

I took photographs of the War Memorial in Port Sunlight, it was so grand without being too over the top. You can see my parents and sister in the picture. I've honestly never seen him get so enthusiastic about anything, I guess considering he hasn't been back there in over 50 years, it's understandable!

He was talking almost non stop as everything he saw reminded him of a story. I took a picture of him in a row of trees near to the Port Sunlight museum and the Lady Lever art gallery.

After we stopped for some lunch, and so dad could rest his legs we went on to Shorefields. It's the street he was born and grew up on, and he got pretty emotional to see how much had changed. There was someone in his old house although by the time we knocked on the door they had gone out. There was a woman gardening a couple of houses down and dad nattered to her for a good half hour.

We wandered through the streets to a clearing that overlooked the Mersey and the Liverpool cityscape across the water. Dad and Jo wandered along while he recounted stories of his youth.

I was taking shots with my Canon and also my new (old) Zeiss, which takes ages to set up as it is completely manual. It really makes you work harder to get the correct exposure, especially when you consider the cost of film and developing!

Anyway I digress. After Shorefields I wanted to get a little closer to the massive boat that was docked nearby and we ended up by a pier that had long since stopped filling up ships, and wandered down the jetty, dad struck up a conversation with a bunch of local kids who were sitting on a gutted and burned out ship while I set up a shot with my Zeiss. It was very run-down, and although I could see the huge ship, it was blocked by the pier. I found a very lonely looking fishing boat to photograph instead.

We stopped at a gorgeous pub just outside of Shorefields, and dad was chatting away enthusiastically all through the meal. It was so nice to see him so happy and enthusiastic despite how much it must have hurt him to walk so much. We all had a great day, a massive thanks to Jo who made it all happen! I think we'll be going back before long! Watch this space...

Another beautiful sunset and a pre wedding shoot

Wow, what a manic few weeks it has been! Having just about got over visiting Alton Towers last week, I had a chance to venture out with the camera. It was a beautiful sunset over Conwy Marina, and so I took a few shots with Chris. I took one of him setting up his shot too, he had clambered over a fence to get to where he was, I wasn't feeling quite so brave.

This morning I was all set to head over to Llandudno to meet my friend Abbey and her fiancé Patrick. I was just about to head out and then I realised I had left my keys in Chris' car from the night before! Eventually, I found a number for a taxi as the trains and buses were all over the place due to Sunday hours. I met them in Whetherspoons and we had a chat about the wedding. It's going to be on Halloween next year and will be loosely based around a Halloween theme.

The weather wasn't on our side to begin with, so we hid in the pub while we caught up and waited for the rain to subside. When it did, we walked down the pier, I'm sure people must have thought we were celebs or something, as they all avoided us! The pier made a nice back drop to the shots and we walked the length and back. There was a parade and lots of stands and stalls down the prom, it turns out today is the 90th anniversary of the Royal British Legion and it had drawn a fairly big crowd.

As we said our goodbyes, the weather had decided it had held off enough and it began raining again. I'm happy with the outcome of the shots and look forward to the wedding.