A Bridge Between Two Worlds

As I gaze out over the vast expanse, I am transported back to a world of distant dreams, and I wonder whether they were, in fact, memories.

So many times over the past few years, I have been led to a place for the first time and experienced a feeling of familiarity, as though I have stood there many times already.

This is such a place. Five-hundred metres up on a small rocky outcrop in a foreign land, I am far away from everything that I thought I had known.

Silhouettes of pine trees dominate the horizon and appear as dark brushstrokes against a wash of violet and mauve; the kind of fleeting colours that are only visible during these ephemeral sacred hours. Beyond the trees, snow-covered peaks of distant mountains float serenely above an advancing ocean of fog.

As the fog rises from the valley beneath me and wraps itself around me in the warmest of embraces, my soul feels a sense of safety and peace. It is during these sacred hours, when the earth becomes a sanctuary of temporary silence, that two worlds meet, and I feel like I have returned to the home that I have been eternally longing for.

The camera is the bridge that connects these two worlds. Not only does it capture what it sees in the external world that is so familiar to us all, but it reflects, at the same time, the inner world of the artist; one that is completely unique and so often unknown and unseen, even by the artists’ eyes at times.

The eyes are a window to the soul, and for many of us, that soul has been abandoned and forgotten throughout our years here on earth. Just one look at the news headlines on any given day is a stark reminder that many of our bridges have been built so long that it is difficult for us to remember where we came from, and what we were when we entered this familiar world.

Another world exists inside of me, as it does inside of you, too, and it is in the safety of this inner sanctuary that our souls reside, buried somewhere beneath the wreckage and debris of our personal and collective pain and suffering, where they are left clinging onto and protecting our fragile innocence.

These worlds are our own original creative masterpieces; and many of us, myself included, have been so desperate to tear down the walls that have guarded these inner worlds from the demons that patrol the outer one for an eternity.

In my own case, my early childhood experiences and encounters with demons in the outer world have played a vital role in the formation of my rich and vibrant inner world. The only escape from the pain of my childhood was to retreat across the bridge into the safe confines of my inner sanctuary and build the walls high and wide to keep it guarded and protect, at all costs, my own innocence.

Many of my happiest childhood memories are from the times that I spent in solitude; those precious moments spent curled up with my head in a book or role-playing outdoors in the muddy no-man’s-land that was my garden with my tanks and toy soldiers. In later years, this evolved into a world of fantasy as I locked myself away in my bedroom and escaped into post-apocalyptic landscapes and magical realms as various characters in computer games. This is a story that is shared by many, I am sure, as we have sought to escape the tragedy of our own existences.

Though my own ‘escaping’ was seemingly innocent, it took me decades to understand the depths of the effects that it was having on my sense of self, and it took for me to reach a dark place in my mid-twenties for me to begin piecing together the puzzle of my life and find the courage to revisit some of my most painful memories; the points at which I had abandoned pieces of my own soul as a means of safety and survival.

This innate ability to do whatever necessary to ensure our survival and gain acceptance to the ‘tribe’ throughout our early years, even if that means sacrificing a fundamental part of who we are; a piece of our own soul, is what makes us human beings so intelligent.

Survival is essential as we navigate the earliest and most treacherous stages of our lives, but there comes a point when it is no longer enough to merely stay alive, and we must shift our efforts towards living beyond the mode of survival in the outer world; towards truly thriving here on earth.

This meant, for me, that the desperate urge to share more of my inner world with the outer world became too strong for me to ignore. I had to find the courage to open my sensitive heart up, face my fears in the form of the demons that now haunted me in my mind, and reveal the eternal beauty that was locked away in the corner of my heart where the light of my fragile innocence still dwindled.

With reference to Donald Kalsched’s book titled, ‘Trauma and the Soul’.

The Power of Creativity to Transform and Transcend

I held onto a great deal of fear throughout much of my early life. My deepest fear was that of men throughout my younger years. The three beasts that raised me broke me down and shamed me, and they inflicted a great deal of further pain onto everyone else around them. Through these men, I learnt to fear my own masculinity. My greatest fear, therefore, was myself, or rather, the fear of what I might become. As a result, I spent a long time hiding from the world and harboured a deep fear of being seen in the light of who I was.

By going out in search of photographs, I embarked upon the quest to find my own truth. En route towards that, I have been finding many of the missing parts of my own psyche and soul. Like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, I have been piecing myself together over the past few years, adopting new parts and cutting away the old. Creating from my own place of pain has eased much of my own suffering. By exposing my wounds to the light and revealing my own darkness to myself and the world through my creative works, I have been busy disarming my demons and learning how to dance with them in the moonlight.

The camera came to me at a point in my life when I was struggling to navigate through the darkness of night. I had found myself drifting without purpose or direction. In fact, bar the childhood dream that I had of playing football professionally, I never did have much of an idea of where I wanted my life to lead.

Those who don’t determine a course of their own end up getting caught in the wake of those who do, and that is what was happening to me until I picked up the camera and pen almost six years ago. The practices of photography and writing helped me to find new direction, and access the very depths of my own soul; some of which I was always aware of, others, even still, are unknown to me.

Though I often walked with a heaviness and lingering sense of listlessness throughout most of my early years, I had no idea of the heavy emotional baggage that I had buried down in the unconscious valleys of my mind. That is, until I began exploring my own creativity with the camera and reflecting upon the things that I had created with my pen. Through creativity, we are able express our truest and most authentic selves. For many of us in the world, that ‘Self’ is the one that we are so desperate to reveal, having spent such a long time trying to hide it through fear of judgment, rejection, or shame.

Creativity, I believe, is the most powerful instrument for healing that we have in our inventory. Creativity has an unseen power to transform and transmute our greatest pain and suffering. By creating something beautiful from the place of our deepest struggles, we disarm our most frightening demons. By walking fearlessly into our darkest caves, and shining our light from within, we can face these ugly forces head on and learn how to tame them.

When we find enough courage to create from the deepest depths of our hearts, we can take our demons by the hand, blind them with our radiant light, and lead them to an eternal dance beneath the glowing moon.

It is in this very darkness, that we find the truest and most potent of all powers here on earth. To create from the source of our greatest pain brings the ultimate liberation. By visiting these frightening places within ourselves, we learn to wield the sword of darkness and bring it forth into the light of day, forcing our demons to yield before us.

This eternal dance between the threshold of darkness and light is one of pure beauty. By mastering the steps, we can integrate the lost parts of ourselves, heal our deepest wounds, and become more whole human beings. One force cannot exist without the other, and to become aware that both darkness and light exist inside of oneself, to know both intimately and to know how to make one yield whenever necessary, to grasp a firm hold on the darkness and expose it to the light; that is our ultimate superpower.

By harnessing the power of our creativity and creating from this place of truth, we become alchemists of the modern world; transmuting our own emotional pain and suffering. The ability to perform such inner magic brings the ultimate sense of freedom and the very healing that we need to exist fully as our soulful selves here on earth. It gives us the ability to create light from our darkness, and pure beauty out of the ugliness that we all have within ourselves.

‘Seeking Bliss’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

People are often shocked when I tell them that many of my photographs contain anger in them. There seems to be a general surprise that something so beautiful can contain such a dark and ‘ugly’ emotion. We are led to believe that we should fear the darkness, and, in turn, the darker emotions like anger that exist within ourselves. I can’t help but wonder why. Isn’t it within the purity of darkness that we are all formed? Anger, as far as I am now aware, is the greatest catalyst for growth and a fuel for change. Anger, when harnessed, is the most potent of emotions, and can quickly be transmuted into love. Without the feelings of anger from my childhood, I don’t believe that my creativity would exist in it’s current form.

Nothing has been more cathartic to me than finding my own way to express these emotions through creativity, therefore, revealing a more pure, whole, and authentic version of myself to the world. In doing so, I have found a light within my own darkness. I have attributed meaning and purpose to my most painful experiences and memories, and, therefore, made peace with them. By accessing my own creativity, my pain has become my power.

I feel with such strength that all of us could benefit from finding our own method to release emotional baggage, particularly the darker emotions that are buried down in the unconscious depths of our psyche. For me, there is no better way to do so than by transmuting them into something beautiful that adds value to the world; be it via a photograph, book, video, poem, dance, song, or any other method that you care to imagine.

When we increase our own awareness of our abilities to imagine, to seek inspiration, and to create, we can break down the barriers and move beyond the limiting beliefs that we have chosen to adopt throughout our lives so far. By doing so, we regain control of our own destiny, take over the helm and decide which port we are sailing towards.

Not only do we create the work itself, but we, in turn, become the creators of ourselves and our own individual futures, as well as the future of our species as a collective. That future is, no doubt, a brighter one, should we all learn how to better navigate our complex emotional landscapes by further understanding and utilising the power of creativity to dance with our own demons underneath the moonlight and tame our own darkness with light.

Exploring the Inner Landscape

The Formation of the Inner World

I have written openly in recent years about the early life experiences that shaped the way in which I see the world today; equipping me with a lens of compassion and sensitivity.

For those of you who are new readers to my journal, I’ll provide a little bit of context. The outer world into which I was born was rather chaotic and turbulent, to say the least. I spent many of my waking hours on guard, wondering when the next home makeover might be. It didn’t take much to send my first stepfather into a fit of rage. He usually liked to have his own way, and if he didn’t, objects were very likely to go flying across the room. Life with my second stepfather at the head of the home didn’t bring much more in the way of peace, either.

These experiences forced me to withdraw into the safe confines of my own world. It is one that I built inside of myself as a way of dealing with the chaos of the outside world. I was far too young to be able to control or influence what was going on outside of me, but I learnt early on that I did have control over my own thoughts and actions. I have been directing these towards building the most beautiful inner world since those earliest days.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

~ Viktor E. Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning

‘Enlightened’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

Research shows that sound moves at a faster speed in water (1500 meters/sec) than in air (about 340 meters/sec). As we are formed in water whilst in the womb, I wonder whether the formation of my inner world was accelerated as the sounds of my alcoholic fathers’ rages may have affected my energy before I was even conscious. These photographs, I feel, are representations of that world. Inside, there is an overarching sense of peace and tranquillity; similar to those that you’d feel beside an isolated mountain lake at dawn, or whilst walking along a footpath between trees.

Every adventure and each new meandering footpath into the unknown introduces me to an unexplored corner of my own inner landscape; one that is equally as complex as the one that is outside of me. Sitting beside a lake in stillness allows me to reflect upon my life and make sense of who I am, and, as importantly, who I am not, and further understand the events that shaped me. As far as I have been walking outdoors into the wilderness, I have also been travelling inwards. As I deepen my understanding of my inner world, so my understanding of Mother Nature and her ways deepens, too. It is an eternal cycle.

‘‘As above, so below. As within, so without. As the Universe, so the soul.’’

‘Silent Waters’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

The Camera as Tool for Self Study

I understand that my approach to photography is different to many, perhaps, more traditional photographers, as I choose not to focus too much on time, place, or too many of the technical elements that might take away from the deeper, and, to me, more interesting topics such as ‘why’, ‘what’, or ‘who’. The act of picking up the camera to begin telling stories of my own connection to the landscape was my process of awakening to something beyond this three-dimensional physical world. It was my way of accessing a voice that was deep within and connecting with a divine higher presence.

‘‘Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.’’

~ Carl Jung

Given the environment that I grew up in, I feel like I received an immersive education in psychological understanding, having been closely observing the inner world of my parents, and how they were reflected in the outer world that they created. Inner chaos created outer chaos. I choose to open up and write about my early life experiences because I believe that these adverse childhood experiences have given me a unique set of skills and placed me in a position to offer some unique insights into the psyche, and shine a light on what the creative practice of photography and writing, as well as spending prolonged periods of time in nature can offer the human soul.

At more than one stage throughout my life, I have been limited by the four walls of my home. Having nursed some deep psychological wounding as a result of my early life difficulties, I became addicted to computer games for large parts of my teenage life and early adulthood, disassociating and escaping from my reality. As a result of this addiction, I rarely ventured outside of my bedroom, never mind outdoors into the unknown. Upon reflection, I can see how limited I was in my ways of thinking, and how confined my world was; both inside and out.

By choosing to step outside one day into the wide, open landscape, I chose to open the chamber of my own psyche; stripping back old beliefs and building new ones. So began my process of both self creation and self destruction. As I discover new areas of this world and walk along previously untrodden footpaths, I allow my brain to build new neural pathways. No longer am I stuck in old ways of thinking, keeping me a prisoner of the past, but I open myself to endless avenues for exploration. Our worlds, as mentioned earlier in this essay, are merely a reflection of our thoughts, and so, by frequenting nature as often as I can, I allow myself to break many of the old thought patterns that weren’t my own, observe my current thoughts, and provide an opportunity for new ones to formulate.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Though the initial stages of my photographic journey saw me focus on the technical elements of the practice as I familiarised myself with the camera, lenses, settings, and understanding of light, I quickly began to formulate an interest in the psychological aspects of the art as I observed the many changes that were occurring within myself as I progressed along my way. I started to follow my intuition and inner guidance; ‘feeling’ my way towards new areas of the landscape and capturing my emotional state in my photographs. It turns out that many reflected the feelings of peace that I had become familiar with in the safety of my own world. It wasn’t a conscious decision to create photographs like this. I was simply following my inner bliss which led me along this footpath and eventually to the warm and safe embrace of the trees.

‘‘If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.’’

~ Joseph Campbell

I am somebody who likes to know the ‘why’ behind most things, and I began to ask myself that simple question more often about the work that I was creating; particularly throughout 2021 following a conversation that I had with my nan who used her child-like imagination to see things in my photographs that weren’t apparent to me. I became curious about my nans’ inner world, and her own apparent reconnection to her imaginative inner child, now that she was well into the latter years of her life. It raised some deep questions inside of my mind such as, ‘why would I want to wait all those years to imagine and simply play again?’ and ‘what happened to the boy who used to love getting lost in stories and at one point even enjoyed writing his own?’

Whilst outdoors with my camera following that conversation, I would begin to see things differently. Narratives and stories that were personal to me started to become apparent. Some even forced me to look at and make further sense of familial relationships; past and present, as the stories that I had ‘seen’ turned out to be reflections of many of the stories that I had buried within my psyche.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

~ Carl Jung

‘Soul Retrieval’ Through Nature Photography

That conversation with my nan forced something of an evolution in my work and the way in which I look at the world as I reconnected with my own inner child again and began to engage with my imagination to create photographs of subjects, such as the dancing trees in ‘First Dance’.

I began searching inside of myself that year to find out when I had started to build the bridge that lead me away from my own imaginative, sensitive and curious inner child, and what events caused this disconnection. Of course, I looked immediately towards the trauma that had built up inside of me after growing up in a home environment that was marred with instances of domestic abuse and violence. I also drew back on the experiences of fleeing those places that I called ‘home’ on three separate occasions as a child because of my mothers need to escape the ugliness of the environment that we were being raised in, therefore, leaving parts of my own self behind with the wreck and debris. Finally, I recalled many instances of emotional abuse that I was subjected to from these men in my life who would relentlessly throw insults at me for being a sensitive, expressive and emotional soul; traits that I believe all humans possess at their core. Upon feeling the emotional abandonment from these men, as well as that from my biological father at birth, I learnt to abandon parts of my own Self. For most of my life, up until I began this inward journey and found creativity, I hated being labelled by people as sensitive. I wrongly viewed it as a weakness, and constantly relived the rejection that I felt as a child.

This separation from parts of myself is what is known as ‘soul fragmentation’, or ‘soul loss’. It is common, once we experience something traumatic in our lives, whether physical or emotional, to try to escape the full impact of the pain by blocking it out. It is said that parts of our soul separate from us at the time and place of the event, which can cause a person to become dissociative and lead to further problems such as depression, disconnection, loss of purpose, and feelings of incompleteness and hopelessness.

In hiding and abandoning parts of myself from the world, I had also built many false sides that I would often display in the hope of gaining acceptance and approval from my caregivers and, in later years, my peers. In hindsight, I know that my addiction to computer games was my own attempt to block out much of the pain that I was feeling from my adverse childhood experiences. I felt empty, lost, disconnected and alone for large parts of my teenage years and early adulthood, and I struggled with a lack of purpose and meaning for those years of my life, too.

In recent years, as I have been further exploring my interest in psychology and spirituality, I have been reading about many interesting concepts and beliefs from different cultures and religions across the world. One of the ideas that has fascinated me the most is that of something called ‘Soul Retrieval’, which has its’ origins in ancient shamanic traditions. The word ‘shaman’, which originates in the Tungus tribe of Siberia, means ‘one who sees in the dark’. Soul Retrieval is the process where a shaman moves into altered states of consciousness to travel to realities that are outside of our normal perception, also known as the spirit worlds, to retrieve the lost parts of a humans’ soul.

By substituting the computer games for creativity and time in nature, which allows me the time and non-judgmental space to find stillness and reflect, I have been processing much of the pain that I had once been avoiding. By revisiting many of the early life experiences that caused this fragmentation of my soul, I believe that I have been integrating many of the lost and forgotten parts of myself, as well as further distancing my true self from those parts of the false self that I had created in my quest to ‘fit in’ and be accepted.

Every winding footpath and walk through the woodland leads me a little bit further into my own inner landscape. With each walk outdoors into nature, I learn that the acceptance that I was always seeking could only come from within. I owe my life to Mother Nature for her help in guiding me along my path. I am a more complete person for each conversation that I have had with the trees, and my soul now sings whenever I sit beside the silent waters in Snowdonia. This journey inwards, for me, has been an incredibly healing one, and I hope that my words can go some way towards helping other people along on their own.

A New Dawn

A familiar stillness is in the air. The world has not yet woken up and I seem to be the only one here on Earth. It feels almost post-apocalyptic. I think back to many of the films and computer games that have inspired me throughout my life so far, and, on mornings like this, I feel like I am the character inside of my own.

All of this time alone on the road gives me time to think. That is the beauty of being awake during these sacred hours, and another reason why I love to travel outside of my immediate local area for photography occasionally. The thinking time in the car is almost as important as the photography itself. I put on some music - ‘Immunity’ by Jon Hopkins is often one that I listen to during travel. The beautiful melody and vocals inspire me to go deeper into my own thoughts; deeper into myself. I often dream about my future, and piece together the puzzle of my life by reflecting upon the past.

This morning, I am in the process of deep reflection. I can’t help but go back to visit a previous version of myself; one who hadn’t held a camera yet, and actually had no idea about what ‘photography’ was.

I never harboured much interest in art when I was younger. I put in minimal effort during art class in school, and instead sat and daydreamed about the computer games that were waiting for me back home. I was an avid gamer from the age of around five or six, until the age of twenty-five. I still remember, as if it was yesterday, the morning when me and my older sister stealthily sneaked downstairs before the sun had risen to turn on our stepfathers’ games console for the first time. That morning, we probably managed to play for an hour or two before he woke. In later years, I could easily rack up ten, sometimes even twelve hours of screen time. I can’t help but think about how much my life, and I, have changed in a relatively short period of time.

Instead of roaming around dreamed up worlds, playing a character from the imagination of someone else, I find myself trudging through ‘Dead Marshes’, roaming the forests of ‘Fangorn’ and post-apocalyptic wastelands here in the real world.

I am inspired to dream again. I wonder what might be possible for this character that is myself, given another few decades of growth. I have been recovering many of the lost parts of myself; the skills and superpowers that I left behind and ran away from as a child; those of empathy, sensitivity and curiosity, all of which us humans are at our core. Now that I have them, and have discovered more of a sense of my authentic ‘Self’, I can’t help but think about many of the other characters that are roaming this world as they play out their own stories, and try to find their own place here in this gigantic jigsaw puzzle.

I look out of the window at the world that is whizzing by. Silhouettes of pine trees against the twilight blue sky. These are the moments that help to reprogram my mind. The order that follows from chaos. No future, nor past. I take a deep breath, and come into the ‘now’. Everything is still. I can hear the stars whisper. Promise of a new dawn echoes in the clear night sky. The mountains draw near. Their outline dominates the horizon. A sense of safety washes over me. I am home.

My destination this morning is a small area of heathland beneath the Moelwynion mountains, just a stones throw away from the birthplace of the red dragon and the grave of the legendary hound, ‘Gelert’. I stumbled upon this land and made friends with a beautifully expressive silver birch tree there back in the summer of 2021, and I return today with the hope of creating a photograph that has been formulating in my minds’ eye since that afternoon.

A blanket of mist has been drawn over the landscape overnight. It seems as though the trees are still tucked in and dreaming beneath the sheets. I dare not wake them up prematurely, so I park up beside the road and tread the half-mile track as lightly as a ballet dancer would on its’ stage.

This landscape, a stage all of its’ own, and the main character in this performance is my friend, the silver birch. As it begins to awaken, I join it on the stage to express myself in the ways that I have learnt to over the past few years; with my camera and words. Two characters in perfect harmony.

I often see parts of myself inside of my photographs, and express from a place deep within. In this case, I see some further parts of myself that perhaps went missing through my younger years. Expression wasn’t particularly encouraged as I grew up. My mother, unsurprisingly following years of abuse, was chronically depressed throughout much of my childhood, so our house was never filled with too much joy. Me and my siblings would play, but always quietly and carefully. My stepfathers’ volatile moods ensured that we would be walking on eggshells for most of our waking hours. He would also place expectation on me to ‘be a man’, meaning that there wasn’t much room for me to display my emotions.

It fills me with a great amount of gratitude to have finally found my methods to express the deeper parts of myself and my emotions using my camera and pen, but still, I look at my friend, the silver birch, with a hint of envy, and wonder what it might be like to sing or dance in front of a crowd, as it does every day to the mountains.

I stand here and dream again for a moment. ‘Who knows where this path might take me in the future’, I think to myself. I come back to the moment, and enjoy the silence and stillness of this magical morning. I open up the shutter on my camera to capture the photograph that I have been dreaming about for eighteen months. It is even more beautiful than I could envision. With this photograph, comes the promise of the new dawn, as whispered by the stars. I have been granted the chance to make of it something better than yesterday.

Becoming Nature

The impact that Mother Nature has had on my life over the past few years has been profound, to say the least. My life is, in so many ways, unrecognisable to the one that I was living just a few years ago, not to mention the one that I was living throughout my childhood years, during which I was often too afraid to leave my bedroom. Those people in my life who have known me for a while have even made comments about the significant changes within myself in recent times, and I believe that is a testament to the trees, mountains, and lakes that I have been frequenting over the past half decade.

The natural world that we inhabit is in a constant state of change, and it is only natural that we as human beings, children of Mother Earth herself, live fully in alignment with her, and do what we can to change, grow and evolve, too.

The key for my own happiness and, more importantly, fulfilment, as I have learnt recently, is change and growth, and I believe that it is the same for all of us, whether we are conscious of it or not. Be it business growth, physical growth, personal or spiritual growth, the key for most of us is more, bigger, better, and stronger, and I feel like much of our general discontentment as a species comes as a result of stagnation, and lack of awareness that what we crave and so desperately need is growth and change.

With that being said, I also firmly believe that the root of our unhappiness and discontentment can be found when we observe the increasing distance in our collective relationship with the source of all life itself, Mother Nature.

As human civilisation continues its’ rapid charge into the Information Age and beyond, and we spend more time plugged in, wired up, and completely disconnected from our nature, it is difficult not to observe the dramatically rising numbers in mental health conditions and neurological disorders throughout the world.

It seems to me as though we can’t cope with our own rate of ‘evolution’, and are quickly becoming too caught up in, and identified with our thinking minds. Lack of education around how to manage these fragile devices of ours too often sees people falling into a trap and becoming consumed by their own thoughts. Increased time on screens forces comparison, and often leaves people feeling empty, worthless, and unfulfilled. We also seem to be more divided than ever, with everything now apparently becoming a war of two sides, and our screens certainly don’t help matters, only serving to encourage and accelerate division. We are in desperate need of unity.

Nature, from my personal and anecdotal perspective, has provided me with an escape from my own mind and allowed me to disconnect from my own thoughts and enter into the all-important and often too ephemeral state of ‘being’. This is a topic that me and Marc Robbins discussed in great depth on my latest episode of ‘Finding Light’, and I found it most interesting that many of our own reasons for practicing photography align, having walked similar paths through life. When I feel any negativity creeping into my own thinking, and a disturbance of my own emotions, the first place that I go is outdoors into the warm embrace of Mother Natures’ arms. She presses the reset button and usually brings me swiftly into a state of ataraxia. In nature, too, as I have observed, there is no judgment based on who I am, what I believe or what colour I am. Out there, we are all the same. We are united as one.

Having become increasingly conscious of the effects of early trauma in my own life and development, through observation of myself as well as that of the lives of my parental figures and siblings, I have some understanding of how our bodies hold onto our experiences, and how our own energy has been affected and disrupted, causing behaviours, reactions, and emotions that are seemingly beyond our control in certain situations. It is my belief that the time that I have spent outdoors in nature over the past few years has created a huge shift in my own energetic body, and, as Eckhart Tolle might call the ‘pain body’, bringing healing to my wounded spirit, and helping me to build the bridge between who I was and who I am now, lengthening the distance between my unconscious actions, driven by early observations, and my conscious actions, driven by this state of ‘being’ and ‘presence’.

As mentioned in an earlier essay, I believe that, for myself, the trees have played a role of therapist, as well as best friend, and father, and the branches have untangled the knots within my own mind, helping me to make sense of who I am, or, perhaps, ‘what’ I am, because, with every walk outdoors, I become a little more like the trees that I choose to connect with. The trees and landscape, as a whole, has provided me with a non-judgmental safe space to simply ‘be’. Mother Nature has accepted me wholly, as I am; and that all-accepting, unconditional love is something that I feel I have been able to take out into the world and offer to other people. It makes me wonder what the world might look like if we all worked to develop a deeper level of self-love and self-acceptance.

The identity that I spent some time building throughout my twenties, I now strive to disidentify from, as I recognise the oneness that I, and all of us, collectively share with Mother Nature herself.

It has come to my awareness, all the more recently, that man is not separate from or superior to nature, but we are nature itself. My body remembered when I took my first steps outdoors after my awakening back in 2018. Feeling lost and somewhat depressed as I lay in my room in tears one night, unsure of what my life had come to, and which way to turn next, I found the camera and the camera took me home; outdoors into the wilderness. The voices of my ancestors whispered softly as I took my first steps along the icy path to Llyn Idwal one bitterly cold, winters’ afternoon, and my soul remembered how it felt to be at one with nature once again, laying to rest the deep yearning for belonging that has been ever present in my life for as long as my memory serves.

The deep feelings of inner peace that I experience whilst outdoors, continue to point the way towards healing, towards home, towards that very oneness that we all so desperately need with Mother Nature, and I hope that these words and photographs can echo her cries for unity. With this being said, I have been feeling, with increasing strength recently, that this isn’t ‘me’ creating these works, but that they are simply being channelled through me from the planets’ life force; Mother Gaia herself. My next chapter, I feel, is about continuing to explore the disidentification from myself as my soul remembers its’ place here in the eternal, and how, in some ways, I am this earth, and Gaia herself, as are we all.

There is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom to be gained from Mother Nature and the places that we visit here on earth. The trees and woodlands themselves hold plenty of secrets; many of which we are only just beginning to discover, and, if we learn to silence our minds for long enough, maybe then we will hear more of what the trees whisper to the winds. With enough time outdoors, walking beside the rivers and along mountaintops, perhaps we might all be able to remember who, or what, we are. Maybe then, we will form the community that many of us deeply desire.

It is my belief, as mentioned earlier, that we are all one here on this planet; one collective consciousness, and I can’t help but feel as though the earth is trying to make us all remember, waking us up one person at a time. That is why being outdoors in nature feels so healing to us all, in my opinion. Mother Nature gives us her love, so that we might pass it on to each other, and live how we are supposed to live; here in the moment, and in harmony with her, and each other.

We are nature, and we desperately need to go back. Back to a time when nature was diagnosed whenever we had a problem, instead of prescription pills in the name of profit. Back to a time when we all understood the secret language of the trees, and shared their stories with each other so that we all might live deeper and more meaningful lives. Back to a time when we kept a community tightly around us, all looking out for one another, picking one person up if they fell.

A world of isolation is not healthy for anyone, and I can’t help but feel as though we have all spent far too long by ourselves in recent years. Maybe you have doubts about who to trust and keep around you. I think that you’d be justified in being a sceptic after recent world events. I can’t help you there, or tell you which way to look, but I can tell you that Mother Nature has yet to fail me since I placed my trust in her. She has been letting me into many of her secrets as I sit in silence beside the lakes in Eryri, and the ancient trees nearby have been sharing much of their wisdom; talking to me with love and kindness as they allow me into their safe spaces. They have brought plenty in the way of healing to my wounded spirit over the past five years, and helped me to accept and love myself fully. I wonder what she has been bringing to you in that time, and what the trees have been whispering to you in your moments of silence?

Why I Create Photographs

The art of photography has been something of a spiritual practice for me. I don’t wish to discredit the pursuit of creating photographs for creating photographs sake, but I have always been looking for something more from photography than the mere documentation of a place or time. I seek to express who I am at my essence. I strive to communicate emotions. I want to share my own human experience and allow the viewer to feel what I feel when I am standing out there, all alone in these wild places, and maybe even go some way to helping them answer some of the questions that they have about their own lives.

Around six and a half years ago, I reached a place of complete discontentment with my life. A relationship had recently ended and I had begun to feel trapped. I was working a dead-end job in a local supermarket, with no vision or direction for my life, and, to be honest, I had completely lost sight of who I was. I wasn’t content to let this precious life pass me by so I decided to wake up one day and make it one worth living. I had a story inside that was beating at my chest and needed to be released, so I picked up my phone camera and began telling it.

It was never going to be a straightforward story, and it’s one that will probably take me until the end of my days to tell effectively. I’m trying now though, and that’s a big step along this journey of mine. There was a time when all of this was locked away inside, and that was incredibly painful. I knew that I had experience and knowledge that could help people, yet I was too fearful of what the world might think about me to open myself up and air it. My fragile ego kept me imprisoned, and held me back for many years.

I guess it goes to show how much I have grown. I’m now in a place where I can talk about the things that once brought unexplainable pain and suffering, whereas I was once a closed book, hiding myself away from the world; often too afraid to be seen, never mind allowing my voice to be heard.

Being a quiet type; people always assume that there is something wrong with you. My main concern when I am busy talking is that if I am talking, then I’m not observing. If I am not observing, then I am not learning, and if I am not learning, then I am not growing. So that, I guess, is the first reason why I create photographs. Photography requires observation. It requires introspection. It requires that I pay attention, and, most importantly, it allows me to learn; about my artistic medium, the world, and about who I am. It allows me to be myself, and to make use of many of the traits and quirks that I have been hiding for much of my life.

If I expressed myself as a child, I would usually be met with shame from the father figures that I had. I was too sensitive, emotional, and open for them. They disapproved of the pure, childlike love that I had for this world, myself, and my mother.

You see, my openness, purity, and innocence reflected back to them everything that they weren’t. I can understand that now as an adult. It’s the case anytime someone makes a criticism about another persons’ character. As a child, of course, it’s difficult to comprehend this, however, and the words of others, especially caregivers, sink in right to our core. I allowed the words of these men to affect me deeply throughout much of my life, and only recently have I started to understand the impact that they had on my development throughout my earliest years.

The world that I lived in through these early years was completely unsafe. The three men that I had around at different stages throughout the first eleven years of my life were all volatile, violent, and wildly aggressive. They were often fuelled by alcohol and drugs and it was difficult to know which version of them I was going to meet. Each one of these would bring out a different version of my mother, too, so, as a child, I was often on guard and in a state of hypervigilance as a way of keeping myself safe. I developed a deep understanding of my own complex emotional landscape as a result of my early experiences. This, I believe, allows me to translate how I’m feeling whilst out in the woodland, or beneath mountains and, therefore, helps me to communicate things through my photographs that words have never allowed me to. These photographs, I believe, are representations of the inner world that I began creating in my moments of dissociation from the real world that I belonged to in my youth.

These early experiences formed the foundations for my deep affinity with Mother Nature and the stillness and silence that she provides. The consistency that she offers was something that was foreign to me, having grown up around complete chaos. As my trust has been growing with this world over the past few years, I have been more and more willing to express my truth and reveal more of what is in my heart, and I am able to make more sense of this during moments of reflection whilst immersed in nature.

The past half decade or so has been a process of unpackaging, understanding, and unlearning much of what I believed about myself and the world around me. It hasn’t been at all easy, and I often wonder why I bothered to embark on this journey to begin with. It would have been much easier for me to stay sat in the comfort of the office that I had fallen into after working in the supermarket. The pull that was, and still is, inside of me to do something meaningful with this life however, proved to be too strong for me to ignore, and it’s what keeps me going when darkness falls along my path.

The practice of photography has brought a much needed sense of catharsis, and, through my creativity, I have been able to express many of the emotions that were repressed inside of me for decades. I feel as though each click of the shutter lightened my heavy burden somewhat, and I feel like a huge space has been created inside of myself which I can now take out into the world and offer to other people, so that they might unload some of their own baggage, too.

It is my belief that the process of photography, and the time that I have spent outdoors in nature, have proven to be two vital components in my journey to heal my relationship with Mother Earth, and the relationship that I had with myself, in turn, has healed and deepened extensively. I have learnt to love the sides of myself that I was once running from and doing my utmost to hide from the world. These parts of myself have been integrated into the version of me that stands here today, and I feel as though this is a much more complete, well-rounded, understanding, empathic, and loving version of myself. In allowing myself to exist fully, I believe that others are encouraged to do so when they are around me, and I have noticed it in many of the conversations that I have been having over the past year or two, in particular.

Recently, I have begun dreaming about a world in which we can all heal, and work towards becoming our best and truest selves. If we all worked towards this healing, and achieving a deeper understanding of self, doesn’t that allow us to further empathise with and understand the people surrounding us? What might that mean for this world? Instead of meeting people with judgment and criticism, maybe we could meet them with the same unconditional love that, through our own creative and healing processes, we have developed within ourselves. Perhaps then we will realise that any shortcomings might not be ‘them’ but the unconscious, unhealed, and unintegrated parts of ‘them’ coming to the surface. The parts of ‘them’ that is, perhaps, a result of their own unhealed trauma, inflicted upon them from their unhealed parents who simply lacked access to the knowledge that we have at our fingertips today.

I offer my own story as an anecdote for what Mother Nature can do for the human spirit and souls on this earth. I act as a mere conduit for what exists out there beyond this vessel that I find myself in. There is, I think, such a thing as a universal consciousness here on earth and through silence, stillness, grounding and creativity, I feel as though I am finding my own way to interpret and articulate the message that Gaia wishes to share with us human beings.

What I believe we need, is more awareness for the healing powers of Mother Nature, and understanding of the deep wisdom that she holds. That can only happen through conversation. It can only happen when people like me and you swallow our pride, face our fears, open up about some of the things that we have lived through that brought us pain and affected our consciousness, and share some of the lessons that we have learnt along our collective way. The lessons that I learn, I’m sure, can help you. The lessons that you learn, I’m sure, can help me. Together we learn. Together, we heal. Together, we create lasting change in this world, and, perhaps, make it a better place to exist in together.

Top Locations in Wales - A Landscape Photography Paradise

Welcome to Wales. Land of myth, legend, and folklore. A land that has been inspiring artists, writers and poets for generations, and I’m one of the latest in a long line of messengers waxing lyrical about its’ natural beauty. Having explored this enchanted land for years now, it is easy to see why so many people seek out this charming landscape for inspiration. The trees speak softly, the mountains stand guard like watchmen, and the rivers and lakes house fairies that will bring healing to your soul.

I’ve been a lover of The Lord of the Rings books and movies since I was a child, and now, having explored so much of this beautiful country, I see why Wales is credited with providing inspiration in so many different ways for Tolkien as he created his imaginary world. Even his Elvish language was inspired by the Welsh tongue.

Wales is a dream for any landscape photographer and, though relatively small in size, it offers something for every one who shows interest in landscape and nature photography. It has provided me with a constant source of inspiration over the past half a decade that I have been creating photographs, and these very lands have helped to heal many of my own wounds and brought a sense of peace to my soul. I still have so much ground to explore, so many photographs to create, and stories of my own to tell. Despite countless adventures to Eryri/ Snowdonia and seemingly walking every inch of my local mid Wales landscape, I sometimes feel as though I am only just scratching the surface of what this glorious country has to offer.

In this article, I want to introduce you to some of my favourite locations in Wales for landscape and nature photography that I have discovered so far. These are places that have, and still do, provide me with an incredible amount of inspiration for creativity and storytelling, and now I hope that I can inspire you to go out and unleash your creativity and tell your own stories of these wonderful places.

The Great Wood, Gregynog Hall - Mid Wales

I walked innocently into one of Wales’ most beautiful ancient woodlands, yielding my flask filled with coffee, books and camera. As I closed The Fellowship of the Ring for the last time, mounted my flask back into the side pocket of my bag and withdrew my camera, my hands rose to the heavens as beams of soft, golden light shone down on me through the canopy. It was an enlightening moment in my photography journey so far.

I credit this beautiful woodland in the heart of Montgomeryshire for changing the way that I do photography forever. In my initial years behind the camera, I could often be found running around from place to place, gathering photographs like a bee does honey. Finding these trees back in 2021 forced me to slow down and connect on a deeper level to the landscape that I found myself in. There was something very special about this patch of oak woodland and it made me feel emotions that I hadn’t experienced before. These trees played more than their part in inspiring my 2021 photobook titled, ‘A Year Amongst Trees’.

Some of the trees were planted back in the 18th century, and one of them was even standing when Henry VIII was reigning over the country. Walking between these gigantic trees for the first time was a rather special experience. I looked up in wonder as I marvelled at the sheer size of the ancient oaks that stand here on this ground, and felt an overpowering sense of insignificance at species that have been standing since the days of my great, great grandfather.

The woodland itself was used as hunting ground back in the day but now it’s left relatively untouched, bar a few sheep that sometimes wander the land, and the footsteps of myself and a few others that like to roam aimlessly amongst the ancient oak trees.

Autumn is, of course, the best time to visit most woodlands, in my opinion, and this one is no different. The bed of bracken and ferns is good enough to sleep on, and with fog and mist regularly filling the valley, you might just be treated to some of the best photography conditions that you remember, as I was on this magical autumn morning in 2021.

The sun rises quite lowly over the Montgomeryshire hills, and the light can be truly special if you care to be out early enough to capture it. Two or three of my favourite photographs have been produced here in this woodland after months of scouting and mornings spent walking meditatively between the old oak trees. I’m an advocate of the Japanese art of ‘shinrin yoku’ or ‘forest bathing’ to clear my busy mind and gain some clarity in my life, and there is no better place to take in the wonders of the woodland than right here in Montgomeryshire, in my opinion.

Photography Tip:

Try photographing with the camera pointing into, or at a 45 degree angle to the sunlight. Using mist in your photographs can be a perfect way to diffuse the sun and avoid blowing out those all important ‘highlights’ which will cause you to lose lots of detail in your imagery. Using the beautiful and soft morning light can provide some wonderful opportunities for photographs and maximise your chances of getting some of that all important fog or mist needed to create those beautifully atmospheric stories with your camera.

What I love most about this woodland is that every season brings with it plenty of new and exciting opportunities for photography. Just as you might be beginning to think that you have seen it all and expended all possible compositions, a change in temperature may make you think again before moving on to your next location. This woodland has kept me busy for two years already, and I’m sure that there are many more still to go.

Photography Tip:

If you are someone who bounces around from location to location in search of the next photograph, why not change your approach and try photographing one location for a while. You might be surprised to see how your vision evolves as you force yourself to look deeper into the landscape to find your next image.

For more tips on how to improve your woodland photography, click here.

Rhiwargor & Lake Vyrnwy - Berwyn Mountains, Mid Wales

I stood alone in the heart of the Berwyn mountains. Overnight, a sprinkling of snow had fallen, peppering the tops of the mountains that surround Lake Vyrnwy. As the water gushed down from Rhiwargor, past the ancient silver birch trees and along the grassy banks, I approached excitedly with my rucksack in tow.

I had one of those feelings that something special was going to happen that morning. The forecast looked good for some atmosphere and breaks in the cloud for light to enter the landscape. The scene had already stood out to me as one with a lot of potential during the autumn months that preceded. I knew that the snow-capped mountains behind were going to look special with the beautiful stream carrying the eye along the tree-lined embankment and out into the distance. What happened next, and for only a matter of seconds, could never have been predicted, and probably wont be seen again in my lifetime. A fleeting rain and snowstorm passed over my head. As it swept beyond and into the distant mountains, beneath which Lake Vyrnwy lies silently, a brief break in the clouds allowed the most gorgeous golden light to flood in from the east, backlighting the drizzle and sleet beautifully. The flash of burning embers brought to attention the silhouetted old guard of ancient silver birch trees that appear to be charging over the hill and away into the light.

You might be able to tell from this short piece of writing that this little corner of Lake Vyrnwy is up there amongst my favourite places to photograph out of all of them on this list. There really is something for everyone around this glorious part of the country. Whether you’re a tree lover like myself, or mountains and waterfalls are your thing, you aren’t going to be disappointed when you take a walk around Rhiwargor and Lake Vyrnwy.

Photo Tip:

Don’t be afraid to be a little curious whilst outdoors exploring, especially around Lake Vyrnwy, where some of the best photographs appear once you have veered away from the well-known footpaths. There is nothing quite like making your own tracks in this life, and photography has provided me with the perfect opportunity to do just that. I allow the camera to lead me, rather than me lead it, and the great outdoors will always provide opportunity for further exploration.

This part of the world is another of those that looks glorious throughout the seasons and offers plenty of variation when it comes to landscape photography. The area is a woodland paradise, and there are trees growing out of every nook and cranny on the hillsides that surround the lake and waterfall. There is an abundance of silver birch trees that line the slopes of the waterfall, and the colours that are on display throughout the autumn months are truly magnificent.

If you like photographing reflections then you may want to make a stop off at one of the small beaches or picnic areas around Lake Vyrnwy, where you’ll be presented with some truly remarkable compositional opportunities. First thing in the morning, the lake is often completely still and the reflections are perfectly mirror-like.

The Victorian water tower on Lake Vyrnwy makes for an interesting subject, appearing to be almost fairy-tale like; perfect for the stories of old witches and wizards like in Welsh folklore tales. There are many compositional opportunities for photographs of the tower. The main bridge at the south-eastern point makes for the more common angle, but I prefer to be a little more creative and make my own compositions these days. Sunset provides some incredible light, and sets beyond the Berwyn mountains that stand watch behind the tower. On a side note; you might want to look out for one of many walking routes that will lead you out onto the tops of the mountains surrounding Lake Vyrnwy. There are some terrific hikes to be found here and you could easily spend a few days in the area.

If you care to slow down and open your eyes widely enough as you make your way around the 12 mile stretch of road that runs around the lake, you might notice that there are some beautiful patches of native, deciduous woodland just waiting to be explored. This one, towards the easternmost point of the lake, holds promise for photographers and storytellers who are brave enough to ascend the steep banks and venture into the unknown. Some of the ancient oaks will make you feel as though you have been transported back in time; perhaps to a time when the Celts gathered around oak trees as part of their rituals and rites, sometimes even offering worship to a goddess of the oak tree, named Daron.

Photography Tip:

I like to look for a main protagonist in my woodland photographs occasionally. Characterful trees, like the one above, can help to tell a story, and every woodland seems to have at least one that stands out from the crowd like the ugly duckling.

Llyn Dinas & DINAS EMRYS | Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

If wild swimming is your thing, be sure to watch out for a sharp pointy thing floating around in Llyn Dinas. Rumour has it that Excalibur, weapon of choice for King Arthur, might have been thrown into here back in the 6th century. Providing you don’t find that and make yourself a millionaire, you’ll want to wander the waters here on the lookout for photographs as it’s one of the most underrated places in Snowdonia for photography.

The light rises in the morning over the Moelwynion mountains; of which Moel Siabod is the tallest and can be seen at the northernmost point of the lake. It is just viewable, off centre to the right, in the photograph above. There are plenty of loose rocks and stones that make for some interesting features in photographs, and a few species of trees line the shores of the lake which can be added to your imagery to create the complete landscape photograph that will combine all of the elements.

If you managed to find the sword, you might want to keep it wielded as you cross the busy road to Craflwyn Hall, from which a footpath runs behind that will lead you to Dinas Emrys; birthplace of the red dragon.

It is rumoured that King Vortigern was building a castle on Dinas Emrys back in the 5th century which kept collapsing overnight because of tremors throughout the landscape.

Having queried it with his men, and failing to come to an answer to explain what was happening, King Vortigern was advised to seek the help of a boy that was born of a virgin mother. Vortigern sent his men out to search for such a boy and they eventually found Myrddin (Merlin) the wizard.

King Vortigern was going to offer Merlin’s life as a sacrifice but Merlin quickly advised him that the reason he couldn’t get his castle to stand was because two dragons were living inside of the hill, beneath the pool of water that, to this day, can still be found on Dinas Emrys.

The two dragons were awoken from their slumber and coaxed out from under the water. One was red and the other, white. They began to fight in the air above the hilltop. Eventually the white dragon fled, leaving the red dragon victorious, giving King Vortigern a new emblem for his flag, and a sign of the impending victory against the Anglo-Saxons.

Let thoughts of dragons, kings and wizards inspire you as your imagination runs wild atop this beautiful hilltop in north Wales. Sunrise makes for a beautiful time to visit, as the view towards the Moelwynions and over Llyn Dinas is one of the best in the area. Lining the western face of the hill as you walk to the summit is an enchanted oak forest, through which the winds blow and bring voices of Welsh baritones from afar.

If you’re a woodland photographer, then you’re likely to have a field day on Dinas Emrys; the trees are some of the gnarliest and most wicked in the national park, and there are many stories to be told of them.

Rhaeadr DDu & Ganllwyd - Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

Rhaeadr Ddu, the beautifully quaint little waterfall in the southern region of Snowdonia translates as ‘Black Falls’ due to the appearance of the black stone over which the two-tiered waterfall descends. The short walk from Ganllwyd will lead you along a path next to which the Afon Gamlan runs through the Coed Ganllwyd National Nature Reserve. You’ll walk for no more than a mile, at which point you’ll be transported into a real life fairy-tale, surrounded by ancient, twisting oak trees, with the sound of the ever-changing waterfall for company. Visiting through different seasons will bring with it new conditions, as the water levels can change rapidly depending on rainfall in the area and surrounding mountains.

One of my favourite times to visit this fantastic and somewhat, underrated location has to be throughout the spring. I was lucky enough to capture the photographs below during the peak spring weeks in 2022 when the colours were at their vibrant best.

Waterfalls tend to look at their most spectacular after a few days of heavy rain, which does make for some great photographs. However, I prefer to shoot them when the conditions are a little calmer due to the look and feel that I tend to like in my photographs. My style reflects the more calming and peaceful moments as opposed to any chaos and drama. Perhaps this is how I feel when I’m outdoors in nature and therefore that is how I like my viewer to feel when looking through my portfolio.

I think that it’s very important to try to gain an understanding of yourself and some level of self-awareness as you progress through your photography journey. Spending time in beautiful places like this should make self-reflection incredibly easy, giving you plenty of time to think about the stories that you’d like to tell through your photography.

Photography Tip:

When photographing waterfalls, it might be worth attaching a circular polarising filter (CPL) to your lens. There are many places that CPL’s will work wonders for your photography but none will be transformed quite like a colourful autumnal or spring waterfall scene, where the effects of twisting the filter to your likening will bring out those beautifully vibrant orange, yellow and red colour tones and reduce the glare on the surface of the water, helping to add depth and mood to your image.

For more tips, I have a blog containing Ten Top Tips for Landscape Photography.

Waterfalls have to be up there among my favourite things to photograph. There is nothing quite like the feeling of excitement building as you hear the sound of the crashing water gradually getting louder as you approach. This little gem in Ganllwyd provides some really special ancient woodland with moss covered trunks and dry stone walls too, all of those will make for some fantastic subjects to photograph aside from the waterfall itself.

Photography Tip:

I like to keep my eye out for natural frames in the scene when photographing waterfalls like Rhaeadr Ddu. In the first image, you can see that I have been sure to include those twisting tree branches in the top of my frame, which help to keep the viewers eye pinned on my subject; the stunning waterfall. In the second photograph, I got down low to find a subtle leading line and natural path through the rocks to lead the viewer towards the waterfall, also making sure that I included those lime green spring leaves to add to the overall balance and story of the image.

If you cross the road after you have made your way back along the footpath from Rhaeadr Ddu, you’ll find yourself the most beautiful stretch of river that is lined with trees and peppered with rocky boulders. It might appear to you, as it does to me, to be yet another one of the pictures from Tolkien’s imagination, and it would be easy to sit and picture a herd of horses charging up the valley. You might want to break out your camera and tripod to grab a quick photograph before they do though. There are opportunities to attach your wide angle lens and get closer to some of the rocks, or use a mid range telephoto as I did here to scope out a segment of the river.

This stretch of river is best viewed in the morning, as the sun will rise over the hill to the east. My intuition tells me that late autumn and early spring could be a wonderful time to visit, as the sun will rise a little further round the hillside, providing you with some lower and, therefore, softer light for your photographs. This will also mean that the leaves are beautifully backlit, adding to that sense of dreamlike magic that Wales often provides.

A little further along the A470 in Ganllwyd is something of a hidden gem here in Wales. The Coed y Brenin forest boasts a number of waterfalls and if you’re willing to become a little bit more curious, then you might just discover something special like I did when I stumbled upon Pistyll Cain one winters’ afternoon. The waterfall is hiding away somewhere around a mile or so upriver from the Afon Mawddach. Here you can see a photograph from one wet and wild afternoon on which the wind was blowing the waterfall back up the gorge into which it falls.

St. Mary’s Vale & Sugar loaf - Abergavenny, Black Mountains

Tucked away in a quiet corner beneath the distinctive summit of the Sugarloaf, is a hidden world of twisting oaks and forgotten silver birch trees. The unforgettable St. Mary’s Vale is nestled away somewhere between the ridges of the Llanwenarth and Rholben hills. On one side of the valley, ancient oaks hang onto its’ steep sides, and silver birch pepper the ground too. On the other side of the Nant (stream) Iago, an ancient beech forest stands elegantly on the banks of the valley, and one step into here might make you feel like you have wandered into Lothlorien.

Maps of this small area around the Black Mountains show promise of plenty more native, deciduous woodland, and this is one part of the country that I am dying to explore more often. If photographing trees is your thing, then you can’t look far past the beautiful St. Mary’s Vale and surrounding areas in the south of Wales.

Once the morning mist has dissipated, be sure to wander along the footpath that winds between the ancient trees, which will lead you to the top of the unmistakeable Sugar Loaf; a 596m hill that is the southernmost of the summits making up the Black Mountains. From this hilltop, you’ll be treated to one of the finest views in south Wales, looking right out over the River Usk to the south, and Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) to the west.

With this being Wales, you’re almost guaranteed to face some dynamic weather conditions, no matter when you visit, so be prepared with a variety of clothing choices, and also ensure that you have your camera at the ready because you might just witness a passing snow and hailstorm, and glorious, lateral light like I did in the photograph down below.

Moel Y Golfa - Mid Wales

Standing at 403m, it would be very easy to bypass this humble hilltop as you cross the England/Wales border to make your way towards some of the more popular spots in mid Wales, such as Lake Vyrnwy and Elan Valley. Many locals even often overlook this hilltop in favour of its’ neighbour; Rodney’s Pillar, of which, due to decades of quarrying, stands out in the landscape like a sore thumb from the west. Moel Y Golfa has been left relatively untouched by humans, bar the monument known by us from around the local area as ‘Gypsy’s Monument’. Atop the hill, you’ll be treated to some spectacular views of the Berwyn Mountains and even as far as Eryri/ Snowdonia out to the west. From experience, sunset is by far the best time to explore this landscape, and lateral light interacts beautifully with the unique rock formations on the summit. In summer, splashes of pink and purple paint the ground, in the form of heather which flourishes up here overlooking the mid Wales savannah.

Photography Tip:

Attach your wide angle lens and point it towards the ground up here to create some beautiful depth in your photographs. The rock formations on the ground are far too interesting and captivating to leave out. Look out for the lateral light at sunrise or sunset to add depth and natural contrast to your images.

You’ll want to come equipped with your telephoto lens if you are hiking to the summit of Moel Y Golfa as there is a terrific meander in the river Severn down below, which beautifully demonstrates how the river has formed over millenia and eroded through the landscape. Here in mid Wales, if you didn’t already know, we have an abundance of glorious oak trees that stand proudly in the fields and meadows. With a long enough lens, you’ll be perfectly placed to scope some of them out for those lone tree photographs that every photographer loves. Happy sniping folks.

Cors Bodgynydd & Llyn Bodgynydd - Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

There are no fun stories of myths and legends around here, and that’s great because it means that it’s one of the lesser known spots here in Eryri/ Snowdonia. Maybe it will give you an opportunity to write your own story for the history books. The tree-line pathway below certainly looks as though it belongs in a fantasy story, don’t you think? I’ve had many relaxing mornings around this beautiful area over the past few years.

The sun sets beyond the Carneddau mountain range that provides the perfect backdrop for any landscape photographer. I love this location because it offers something different to your usual Snowdonia landscape. It isn’t exactly grand or epic like you might expect from the area, and instead offers plenty of poetic charm, similar to what you might see in a 19th century oil painting. The colours throughout the autumn months are truly spectacular, with an abundance of silver birch trees lining the outskirts of the lake, and colourful grasses and plants emerging from the water.

There is plenty of diversity to photograph in many different styles, with the mountainous backdrops allowing you to shoot wide and capture the whole scene, and the variety of tree species and plants giving you the option to break out a long lens and capture something a little more intimate.

Follow the footpath around the edge of Cors Bodgynydd and you’ll uncover something of a hidden gem called Llyn Bodgynydd, which provides this sensational view of Moel Siabod. Mornings are by far the best time to photograph this glorious location, with mists regularly shrouding the lake through the spring and autumn months.

Cnicht & Croesor - Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

Standing proudly in isolation among the Moelwynion mountains, is Cnicht, often known as ‘The Welsh Matterhorn’, for its’ beautifully formed pyramidal structure when viewed from certain angles. Its’ name, Anglo-Saxon for ‘knight’ was given to it by medieval sailors who likened it to the shape of a 14th century knights helmet after they viewed it from the sea to the west, similar to the view that I had when creating the photograph down below in the summer of 2021.

Cnicht is one of the lesser photographed mountains in Snowdonia, and that’s absolutely fine with me. I love the challenge of finding unique and interesting photographs of the national park, and this area around Croesor and Nantmor offers plenty. To my eye, there aren’t many more perfectly shaped mountains in Snowdonia and I am very much looking forward to including it in my photography portfolio moving forwards. There are some spectacular patches of woodland around here, and I recommend that you lace up your walking boots and follow your nose on the hunt for your own unique compositions.

That is all for now in my latest photography location guide to Wales. I hope you have taken something away with you, and are feeling inspired to get out there in the landscape; to connect and create. Wales is a land that holds plenty of promise for photographs and stories and I hope that you enjoy creating yours. As you can tell by reading this, Wales has provided me with enough inspiration to last a lifetime, and I am sure that it will offer plenty more for me yet. As always; stay connected and creative, be curious, and go wherever your heart is leading you. It won’t often lead you wrong.

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If you like the locations in this guide, and are feeling inspired, then perhaps you might like to purchase my top 40 photography locations in Wales bundle down below, which will grant you access to my Google Maps saved pins, as well as a short eBook guide and some of my favourite hiking routes that are downloadable on the OS Maps app.

My Top 40 Favourite Photography Locations in Wales

£25.00

Get access to the locations of my top 40 favourite photography spots in Wales, mainly covering Eryri/ Snowdonia national park and mid Wales.

This download includes:

1. Access to a PDF eBook guide that contains a detailed description of many of the locations

2. Access to the KML Map data for all locations and instructions on how to install onto your Google Maps.

3. GPX file download containing routes for some of my favourite hikes in Wales, and instructions on how to install to OS maps mobile app.

4. Lifetime access, meaning I’ll email you whenever I update the map or eBook with new locations.

Please note that these downloads and links are for you personal use only. Please do not share as I have spent a lot of time and effort creating them.

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Relinquish Control

‘We must concern ourselves absolutely with the things that are under our control and entrust the things not in our control to the Universe.’

~ Musonius Rufus

When we are young, we struggle to even control our bodily functions, and we rely on our caregivers to keep watch over us. As we develop, we gain control over these functions, if we are lucky, but then we realise that we need help to control other areas of our lives such as our finances, our diets, and our weekly schedules, so we might take a course or hire personal trainers, coaches and personal assistants to help us. Most of our lives are spent pursuing control, in some way. The greatest of which, I believe, is the quest for control over our minds. In many cases, it is this lack of control that leaves people feeling the need to control others, and how often do we see this desire in the teacher that has lost their temper when they lose control of a classroom, in the coach who loses his mind when the team won’t perform as they have been coached, or even in the incessant alpha-type friend who doesn’t appreciate how you have tried to undermine his leadership by attempting to change the plans for your pack?

What I love most about nature photography is that so much of it involves relinquishing control to the outside events. We are taught humility on the grandest scale as we stand before Mother Nature with our preconceptions, hoping for ‘a little more light over here’ or ‘a touch of mist to blow in and cover that tree over there.’ I have lost count of how many times I have been out to one of my favourite locations with an idea in mind of what I want to happen, only to stand disappointed when nature throws me something unexpected to deal with and accept. On the other side of the coin, I can also count times when I have been out for a walk with zero expectations and faced some of the most extreme and unpredictable conditions that have resulted in some of the most interesting and exciting photographs in my portfolio, and generally exhilarating experiences of my life.

So many of my photographs are produced after months of scouting out locations, waiting patiently for colours to change, or for the conditions to fall favourably, or for me to connect emotionally to a place so much so that I might feel drawn to create a photograph to tell its’ story. I often find myself falling into the dangerous trap of forming my own preconceptions when it comes to my art. The desire to control how my images look, in the hope that they might be recognisable to others, might, perhaps, be limiting me in what I am able to see when out in the landscape.

There is a small portfolio of my work forming, however, from those days on which I have ventured outside and reacted impulsively to the conditions and the environment that I find myself in, with no idea of what to expect, and no previous experiences to teach me where might be best to stand. These are the days on which I feel as though I have relinquished most control. I have no choice but to succumb to Mother Nature who shows me just how powerful and frightening she can be. All of my senses are heightened and as the thunder claps overhead, and lightning strikes all around me, I spare a thought for the trees that have fallen victim to her over time; remnants of which stand like memorials on the nearby hills that I have walked, and I wonder what she might be able to make of me with just one strike of her electrically charged whips.

Aside from the technical workings of the camera, and my choice in which lens I attach, the only thing that I really have control over when outdoors in the landscape is myself; where I decide to stand, where I point the camera, what story I decide to tell, and whether I bother to put myself out there in the hope of capturing something at all.

In this instance, whilst walking in Eryri/ Snowdonia a few weeks ago, I noticed that I had been met with an inner conflict, and I had a choice to make. A little voice in my head was telling me to escape the storm and seek the comfort and security of the warm van that was waiting for me. My intuition, however, was telling me that something special was going to happen once the storm had passed over my head. I took a moment to silence the mental noise. I listened to the inner voice that was calling, and hurried over to this lonely oak tree that I had spotted on the walk up the mountainside earlier that day. You might find it strange when I say this, but trees often speak to me when I’m outside walking, and this one was calling my name as the rain began to fall.

Luckily, Mother Nature was on my side that day. She granted me a few precious moments with this tree that will live on in my memory for a lifetime. Moments for which I will be eternally grateful. I received yet another lesson from this journey that I’ll be able to take with me forever, and it was one in which I became the victor over myself, in my pursuit of my highest self.

In life, we can get caught up all too easily inside of our own thinking minds, perhaps becoming too identified with our egos which demand certain outcomes based on past experiences, opinions, future predictions, worries and fears. What being out here in these elements gives me is, of course, the ultimate sense of presence and complete oneness with the Universe. Relinquishing control of all outcomes and desires, I am merely an extension of this consciousness that surrounds my body. It takes me over. I become the observer of this very moment. No longer identified with my egoic mind, I tune into my intuition and senses; attuned to the magical light, connecting with the trees via breath, feet grounded firmly on the floor, raindrops falling from the sky and onto my delicate skin. All of this occurs and I notice a subtle shift in my energy. Over time, these subtle shifts, of course, compound to something magnificent. In these moments, I am something much bigger than ‘me’. I become Mother Nature herself.

What I crave most from this life is growth, and that goes above absolutely anything. If I am learning and acquiring wisdom, then I am at my best and most fulfilled. These lessons that I receive from Mother Nature are invaluable, as I look towards something to make up for the lack of a father figure in my life. She is, after all, our greatest teacher and many of the problems that exist within our world and society can be traced back to the fact that we are so out of alignment with her ways, blind and ignorant to the lessons that she has to teach.

The ancient wisdom that many of our ancestors left behind through philosophies such as Stoicism and Taoism, both of which draw inspiration from nature, seems to have been widely forgotten, as we generally choose to lead lives in which we remain relatively comfortable, pursuing nothing but profit in our pursuits of happiness. Discipline and self-control seems to be a thing of the past, most noticeably within our diets, as highly processed fast food is so easily accessible for most and anyone that prioritises eating well with home-cooked natural ingredients might, as from my own experience, be known as a ‘health freak’. The Stoics taught the game of self-mastery, of winning the mental battles that occur inside of all of our heads; doing the things that we don’t want to do because we know that the version of us that exists tomorrow will thank us for it.

As I stood on that mountainside, dancing bare—footed under stormy skies, dodging hailstones the size of blueberries, watching on with more than a little fear as thunder cracked above this wild and exposed landscape, flashes of lightning illuminated the sky and reminded me of just how little control I had over any of this environment. My body wanted nothing more than to return to comfort. My soul, however, was singing and dancing inside because it knows and understands that it has a purpose here on Earth to observe and create that makes any pain and discomfort somewhat bearable and, perhaps, even embraced. We humans build great civilisations that consume so much of this earths’ power and resources, yet Mother Nature could wipe them all out with one fateful strike of lightning in the right place. It is with the thought of this unfathomable power that I am reminded to remain humble, to succumb to Mother Nature, and to remember that my ability to control lies only within myself.

The Cold Winter Air

I inhale deeply. The cold winter air fills my lungs. With each breath I spare a thought for the trees that provide me with life here on earth. I’m surrounded by a variety of tree species, and amongst the trees, I feel like one of them. There are Scot’s pine marching up the hill behind me; some appear to have been standing for over a century, overlooking the mid Wales savannah that surrounds me and this hill.

The pine trees aren’t alone. I pass by a splendid, mature beech tree that is keeping them company, and there are plenty of hawthorn, rowan and countless old oak trees; an abundance of which have set their roots down in the surrounding valleys, a few hundred metres below the ground on which I stand. Their roots may well be down below, but their crown and branches reach heights that I never will. I feel humbled as I contemplate the feats of Mother Nature, and how any of my achievements will never compare to hers.

Dawn is breaking and, despite my unrelenting desire to stay in bed this morning with a flu, I am here, and I get to enjoy the good tidings that she brings for those who silence the negative voice that lives inside of their heads; the one that seeks nothing but the comfort and security of a blanket on cold, winter mornings. Out here, I couldn’t be further from what that part of myself desires. Even the trees are frozen; white over with a stubborn hoar frost that is clinging firmly to their branches, and yet, they still wake to the warm embrace of the sun’s golden light and go about their duty.

The thought of this reminds me of my own duty; to create photographs and stories, and explore what it means to be a human being; to give life to others in the only way that I know; by sharing my emotions and, hopefully, allowing people to feel something when I do. In the same way that I have been given this gift through music, films and stories throughout my short life so far, I feel a great need to give back to a world that has given me so much already. I’m being pulled by a force far beyond myself to share my love for this planet and bear the fruits from the garden that I have been growing inside of myself.

I am reminded of our nature by the trees who give without asking, grow continuously, take only what they need, shelter us humans from storms, share their wisdom with the young, and listen without judgment or opinion.

I’ve made friends with so many of them recently and up here, I shake hands with some new companions and quietly introduce myself. Beneath us, a sea of fog has advanced overnight. As the sun rises to the east, the tide begins its’ steady retreat, revealing a frozen army of trees, icy blue like the sea herself, fossilised on her bed.

My eyes are drawn immediately to a distant hilltop. A copse of trees stand alone above the fog, glistening in the soft, morning light that kisses the tops of their branches, gently waking them from their sleep. My thoughts fall silent. I breath in the crisp, winter air and take a moment to appreciate the spectacle that I’m witnessing. The fog performs its’ dance in the valleys down below, revealing new characters with each routine. It is moments like this that strengthen me enough to fight off the voice inside, keeping me enthused to go outdoors in pursuit of creativity with my camera.

On these mornings, all of my senses are aroused. My nostrils are filled with rich, earthy aromas, my eyes drawn to light and colour, and sometimes, I remove my shoes to connect fully with the earth, and feel mud between my toes.

I find myself ‘here’, experiencing life fully, not focused on the things that I haven’t done, or worried about where I ‘should’ be in life. I look around me, marvelling at the beauty of the planet that I find myself on, and I feel like a part of something much bigger.

As hard as I try to stay present, my mind can’t help but wander off as I stare into the distance at the copse of trees. I’m transported to past adventures; of being perched up against an old oak tree in the safe embrace of a silent woodland, coffee in one hand, camera in the other. I think back to some special mornings that I spent in the grounds of Gregynog Hall back in 2021, and of many hours spent weaving myself between ancient, decrepit silver birch trees in forgotten corners of Snowdonia National Park.

I can hear the feint tapping of a woodpecker echoing somewhere in the valley. My heart yearns to run towards the sounds but, like all good things, my morning must soon come to an end. I set up the camera, and freeze this moment forever. It’s a photograph that will last; one with a story that I can tell of my home for a lifetime.

This part of Wales rarely gets the credit it deserves for its’ natural beauty, often being overshadowed by grander areas such as Snowdonia and Pembrokeshire. In pockets, mid Wales has areas that are equally as beautiful. Trees dominate the gentle landscape and my recent affection for the woodland has made me look upon my home with a new set of eyes. The peaks aren’t quite as dominant across the skyline here as they are further north and instead, the landscape weaves together like a blanket, rivers threading between the bumps as they retreat peacefully to the sea. These places will be missed, but I feel the need to follow the ways of the river and make haste towards the sea. I pack away my camera and pour a coffee from my flask. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the last photograph that I’d create of home.

I’ll be moving on towards a new home in January. I have been feeling myself being pulled away in search of some new adventures. As a child, I moved around from place to place, living in eight different homes by the time I was a teenager. The desire to travel is strong inside of me. I’ll be starting mine with a move back to my University town of Aberystwyth a month from now. New faces, new places, new projects and the chance to build a relationship with the raging sea. The trees have taught me so much over the past two years. I’m sure that the sea can teach me something new.

The Art of Curiosity

Life as I know it could be entirely different right now if it wasn’t for one simple act of curiosity; of listening to an impulsive thought that came from beyond the ego.

It came back on a morning in the summer of 2018. A friend of mine had asked me to go out to visit one of our local beauty spots; a waterfall called Pistyll Rhaeadr set in the heart of the Berwyn mountains here in mid Wales.

I was going through a stage of transition in my life; the end of a relationship had created a domino effect of change. I changed my job, began coaching an Under 16’s football team for the first time, made new friends, and committed to transforming my body and mindset through long and arduous gym workouts.

My new path was clear; I would become a bodybuilder and personal trainer and spend the rest of my life teaching others what I had learnt. That was until I walked past my sister’s bedroom that morning and caught sight of something glistening on her shelf.

I had spent the last 18 months posting photographs and videos of myself in the gym to the Internet. I would share my dumbbell presses, squats and before vs after photographs; me at 19 years of age weighing 8 and a half stone vs me at 26 years of age weighing 12 and a half stone. The art of bodybuilding had me feeling curious about the human body; our potential for growth, change and transformation.

Through the bodybuilding process, I learnt the power of discipline, grit, resilience, and, most importantly, of listening to the voice that exists inside of all of us, behind our egos; the voice that Carl Jung would call ‘The Self’. There was something beyond ‘me’ that was pulling me to post these photographs and videos to the Internet. The same thing pulled me towards the glistening object that was sitting on my sisters shelf that morning. That object was a camera.

As far as I remember, I’ve had a mindset that has been focused on growth and improvement. When I was a child and into my teens, I would spend most of my days playing computer games. I became obsessed with role-player games, and the idea that I could level up the characters that I had adopted in-game. I carried this mentality into my adulthood, albeit, at times, it lay dormant. My ventures into the gym brought it back to life and I remember thinking that the camera would be the perfect tool to level up the photographs that I was taking to tell the story of my transformation.

Little did I know at the time that answering the call of curiosity inside of me, and picking up that camera would change the course of my life forever.

On that first visit to Pistyll Rhaeadr, I encountered plenty of what Steven Pressfield, in his book ‘The War of Art’, calls ‘resistance’. As with all of us, I have my fair share of demons trying to hold me back; one of which comes in the form of a step father who would abuse me whenever I expressed my feelings or emotions. Photography would never have been encouraged by such a man when I was young, so there was always this idea that it wasn’t the kind of thing that a ‘man’ did in this world. I’d also never worked a camera before, I had nobody to show me how to use it, and no manual to guide me either. All of the settings were foreign to me, and it would have been easy for me to give up trying to figure out the formula for a successful photograph, but ever since I was young, I had a knack of picking things up and making them work.

With the camera set in its’ ‘manual’ mode, I went about pointing it at everything; indoor plants, my friends tuna sandwich from the café at Pistyll Rhaeadr, my friend himself, and the waterfall. I also did what every ‘Instagrammer’ would do and took a photograph of my feet dangling over the edge of the 240ft drop.

It wasn’t until I got home that night, that I realised most of my mistakes. The photograph of my feet was out of focus, and most of the others were completely black or white because I didn’t understand how to make use of different shutter speeds.

I put one toe into the Internet rabbit hole by asking the simple question, ‘how can I take better photographs’. A huge rabbit came and pulled me under. I haven’t been able to escape since.

‘The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.’ 

— Aristotle

My personal trainer studies were placed on hold because I couldn’t resist the urge to go out into the world to put what I’d learnt into practice. One adventure outdoors would lead to ten questions, each one of them to ten more. What initially started out as me learning about how to work the camera led to me learning about the landscape that I found myself in. Learning about the landscape posed new questions about myself.

The camera quickly became a tool for self study and a vehicle to share what I was learning with the world.

Five years on, and I am here. I don’t know exactly where that is in comparison to where that may have been, had I ignored that little urge inside of myself to pick up the camera back then.

I guess that the inner voice is something that we all ought to try to tune into a little more often. I believe that it speaks to us in the form of our emotions and feelings. I retreat to nature so often to get a better idea of what it is trying to tell me. If we listen to society, perhaps we may find ourselves being discouraged from doing so. Humans are natural conformists. We tend to walk in the direction of the crowd, through fear of being rejected from the tribe, or worse, being made fun of for being ‘different’. We crave acceptance. The child that puts his/ her hand up to often in school is often shamed for asking too many questions by the ‘cool kids’ who want to hurry up and get out of the class to go and play.

Humans are also naturally curious. We all want to understand things, learn about new topics and acquire new skills. I remember picking encyclopaedias up off the shelf at the age of three or four years old and scanning them cover to cover to learn about this world and everything within it. I often wonder, at what age did I begin to lose my curiosity? Well, I guess that the emotional abuse that I received from my stepfather didn’t help. He was a man who never could accept me as I was and tried to mould me into something else. I also remember receiving some criticism from a friend in school when I sang a song, and so I stopped because I believed more in what he said than what was on my own heart.

Curiosity is something that needs to be nurtured and trained, like a muscle. It is particularly important that we encourage it in children. Leonardo Da Vinci, a man known for his multitude of talents that stretched far beyond the artwork that most people know him for, would use his journal to nurture his own curiosity; regularly sketching, drawing, recording observations that he made on the street that day, and asking himself all sorts of questions that he would then go on to answer. He famously prompted himself to ‘describe the tongue of a woodpecker’, before proceeding to dissect a woodpecker later on in his life to scratch his own curious itch.

Exercising my own curiosity muscle as an adult has led me to some of the most beautiful places that Wales has to offer. I found the location of ‘Eden’ by stepping foot off a dusty track that appeared to have been walked by herds of sheep for centuries and into an overgrown and, as far as I know, unknown paradise.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day.”

— Albert Einstein

Training curiosity requires discipline, and we can all find our own ways to exercise it. I find myself intentionally practicing being curious throughout my days now. I believe that my photographs of tomorrow are a result of what I subject my mind to today. I want to learn about the world, and the people within it; therefore I make a point of finding out about all kinds of weird and wonderful topics, and I’ve trained myself to find out more about people, too. I was once a kid who hid from the world behind his mother when out in public, but I make sure that I do all I can to be the opposite of that child now because I’ve seen how important it is to learn about everything and anything.

Thankfully, I picked up a dumbbell a few years ago out of curiosity, transformed my physique, and developed self-confidence and self-belief. This led me to pick up a camera and gave me the confidence to release my work into the world. Now I feel that the same force is pulling me to write.

Resistance still regularly tells me to ‘stop! Because you don’t know who is watching and judging.’ But, I was always curious to see where this path might lead. Now I am here, and I don’t ever want to go back. I just want to see what’s waiting for me around the next corner.

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Insignificance

I was all alone. Just my camera and the cries of the raging sea beneath me for company. The only signs of colour in the landscape was a few escaping yellow buds of gorse, high up on the coastal path. The north-easterly wind had been howling all afternoon, and the tides were hitting the Devonshire coastline like a herd of charging bulls. At times, raindrops appeared to be falling upwards. It was grey, wet and completely miserable, as was I. Despite sitting that morning and compiling a list of all of the things to be grateful for, it appeared that I’d missed ‘wind’ off my list. Throughout my day so far, I had been sure to let it know about my feelings.

My morning had been spent trudging through miles of boggy ground in the middle of a bleak and miserable Dartmoor National Park. Many of the parks’ wild, naked hawthorn trees had provided shelter for me as I tried to escape the wrath of the 40+mph gales for a few minutes of silence and contemplation. I’d already seen my camera and tripod fall to the ground, narrowly missing some rocks. My feet were wet through and, after battling the wind for a few miles out here on the coastline, I had well and truly had enough. The lodge was calling my name. I wanted nothing more than to remove my socks and plant my cold feet firmly on the heated wooden floor.

My final stop of the day was a remote cove on the south coast of Devon, just outside of Plymouth. I had hiked for a few miles to get here and, despite my desire to walk on by and go straight back to the car, I descended the path and stepped foot out onto the narrow beach.

The rain was still pouring and the wind was showing no signs of letting up. Down here in the cove, it was relentless; a vicious onslaught of icy cold gusts and tidal spray combined with rain dampened any remaining enthusiasm that I had to create. Along the beach, my eyes were drawn to the mess and debris that had been washed up on the shore; wooden pallets, crisp packets, and broken plastic casing, despite the outstanding natural beauty that was all around me. Looking out into the sea, at the seemingly endless abyss brought some uncomfortable questions to mind. I stood and pondered my surroundings for a while, before trying, and failing, to find a meaningful subject to photograph.

Back in the comfort of the lodge, I sat for a while and reflected upon my first day in Devon. To say that I was disappointed with myself would be an understatement. I thought long and hard about the fortunate position that I was in to be able to create photographs, with an audience in different corners of the planet; people who are interested in the stories that I have to tell. Only a few days ago, I had been writing about ‘losing my sense of wonder’ when outside in nature, and about missing the feelings of childlike curiosity that I had at the beginning of my photography journey. Yet, here I was, with a new genre and plenty of opportunity to play and experiment without expectation, and I could barely muster the willpower to even pull my camera from my rucksack and look for a photograph.

I have been a student of Stoic philosophy on and off for a few years now and yet, I had allowed myself to forget one of the most important and repetitive teachings that has been so important to me:

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” 

~ Marcus Aurelius

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” 

~ Epictetus

That night, I sat and reminded myself that if I want to progress in my pursuit to add any kind of artistic merit to my photography, then I am going to have to show some level of discipline with my approach. If I took photographs only when I felt like it, then much of the year would go to waste. Every day brings a new chance for us to experiment and explore; both the landscape and ourselves, for new stories to tell, and isn’t that why we all pick a camera up in the first place?

In this case, I wanted a story to tell about introspection, perseverance and of dedication to my chosen craft. A few years ago, I told myself and my journal that I would create photographs as though my life depended on it. I made the decision that night to return to the cove the following afternoon to create something, anything, regardless of what the day might bring.

After a morning walk along the river, I packed up my bag with supplies and followed the calls of the sea back down to the south Devonshire coastline. My mind was much clearer this time round.

I have been a strong advocate of the power of a writing routine for a few years now and my journal has been a place for me to reflect, release, find new direction in life, and make sense of many of my emotions. Sitting at the desk that previous night helped me in many ways, and I came back to the cove with a completely new perspective and refreshed attitude. Despite what were, once again, some treacherous conditions, my perseverance paid off and I managed to come away with the following photograph.

The tide swirling in at Soar Mill Cove.

Photography, for me, is so much more about the lessons and the wisdom that I accrue throughout my journey, than it is about the gathering of the photographs themselves. Some photographs, like the above, serve to remind me of what I learn through the creative process. What they lack in aesthetic appeal; magical light, vibrant colours, mood, drama, or anything else that might, for example, make an image popular across social media platforms or in a competition, they more than make up for in the story behind them.

With my chosen form of art, what I am able to become through the journey harbours much more interest to me, than any form of extrinsic rewards such as likes, comments or sales. I create to express. I create to share my emotions. I create to make sense of and communicate what it means to me to be a human being. I create to feel understood. Anything else that comes from that is a bonus.

Out here on the Cornish coastline, during the final day of my visit, everything was put into perspective. As I stood up on the footpath to The Rumps, looking out over cliff faces that were as tall as skyscrapers, I was reminded of the insignificance of all of my annoyances, fears, hopes, desires and dreams. The wind was still howling. The waves were still crashing. The cliff faces continued to erode. Despite my concerns and complaints just a few days earlier, Mother Nature failed to relent. ‘All of this is impermanent’, I thought, and that moment was liberating.

With that thought in mind, I made my way to my final port. Here, on the north coast of Cornwall, I explored with feelings of freedom, excitement and curiosity. It was on this wonderful beach, one that had been formed over millennia that I learnt to ‘play’ with my camera again. I clambered over the huge rocks that had fallen out of the skies, I ran from the incoming tide, slipped on algae, studied the swirling patterns engraved in the rocks, and created freely, without any expectation in mind. It was here, at Trebarwith Strand, that my heart filled up, and I found a missing part of myself again.

“The great geniuses are those who have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience.”

– Alfred Stieglitz

A Simple Lightroom Trick to Transform your Landscape Photography

Sshh. I’m going to let you into a little secret. Don’t tell anybody, ok? This one small Adobe Lightroom editing trick that I’m about to share with you will literally transform your landscape photography. If you’re a beginner photographer, then I recommend that you give this trick a go today to impress anyone that might be looking at your photographs.

If you’re the type of person that spends hours scouring the Internet to look at landscape photography, then you are probably familiar with the term ‘dodging and burning’. This is a trick that photographers have been using for decades to give their photographs that extra little kick when being viewed by an audience. The late, great Ansel Adams made this technique famous in the days of film photography, when he would spend hours in the darkroom, applying physical ‘dodging and burning’ to his negatives.

What is ‘dodging and burning’?

Ok, so you don’t actually know what the term ‘dodging and burning’ means? Well, to put it in the simplest of terms, it is the act of lightening certain parts of a photograph and darkening others. It is a great tool that can be used to create some very high contrast, dramatic images, or to bring emphasis to certain subjects within a photograph.

The best part about this is that, compared to poor Ansel Adams who had to spend hours, if not days, locked inside of his darkroom, we now have the ability to dodge and burn a photograph within minutes, or even seconds once you are up to speed. In most of my own favourite landscape photographs over the past couple of years, I have used the same dodging and burning technique that I am about to share with you all.

Before dodging & burning

After dodging & burning

Why should you dodge & burn?

There are many reasons as to why you should dodge or burn a photograph. The main reason for me, as stated above, is to add shape, dimension and contrast in an otherwise flat and perhaps, lifeless photograph. In certain instances, dodging and burning subjects in the foreground can help you to direct a viewers eye to a certain place, and create a journey through your photograph. In the photograph at the top of the screen, you can see that I have added a dodge and burn effect to the rocks in the foreground, because I feel as though they are of particular interest within the scene; I want those to grab a viewers attention. This technique is particularly effective when you photograph using lateral light during sunrise or sunset. This is when you end up with areas of light and shadow, which can be emphasised using the dodge and burn tool described down below.

HOW DO YOU DODGE AND BURN PHOTOGRAPHS IN LIGHTROOM?

Introductions now aside, this is what you have all been waiting for. The one trick that is going to transform your photography and allow you to wow your audiences with mind-blowing photographs.

Lightroom Adjustment Brush Tool

Please note: I recently reverted back to an older version of Lightroom because of a catalog problem. I’ll upload a newer version of this blog for more recent versions of Lightroom once I manage to fix my issue.

Select the adjustment brush tool and set the exposure slider to around the 0.50 mark, this can be adjusted depending on the level of ‘dodge’ or ‘burn’ that you wish to apply to an area. For ‘burning’ photographs, you’ll want to move this slider into the minuses. As a general rule of thumb, I tend not to go over 1.00 either way because things start to look a little bit too extreme in my opinion. You should experiment and decide on your own formula to suit your style of landscape photography.

It’s also important that you adjust the ‘size’, ‘feather’, ‘flow’ and ‘density’ fields so that you get a lovely soft, gradual transition between your dodge and burn. The size will change depending on the area of the photograph that you want to dodge or burn. The other fields, however, should be adjusted to the following:

Feather: 100

Flow & Density: ~65

Again, you can experiment with these to see the different results that they produce. A stronger flow & density field will produce more extreme results and using a lighter feather will create a harsher transition between areas.

Once you have adjusted the brush to suit your requirements, you can proceed to paint in the areas that you wish to dodge or burn.

For extra fine tuning: Adjust the ‘range mask’ section to ‘luminance’ and increase the range slider to around the 60 mark. This will need to be adjusted to your own requirements. As you can see in the before vs after below, by adding the range mask this will ensure that the brush only applies to the lighter pixels. When applying the ‘burning’ to your photograph, this range mask will need to be flipped; the left slider will be moved all the way to the left of the bar and the right slider will be set to around the 40 mark.

Click to enlarge the images below.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Yep, that really is all there is to it. That is all bases covered; what is dodging and burning? Why use dodging and burning? And a simple and easy guide covering how to dodge and burn your landscape photographs in Adobe Lightroom. I was very surprised myself when I discovered just how easy it is to dodge and burn photographs within the editing software. Now, there is barely a day that goes by where I don’t use this trick in some way within my own photos. It really is amazing what can be achieved using this very quick, easy and simple Lightroom editing technique. Now it’s up to you to go away and see exactly what you have been missing out on this whole time. Have fun!

Brad

In Nature, I Belong

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

- Henry David Thoreau

‘Enlightened’

How did I end up here?

Out in the wilderness with nothing but my camera and the conversations in my head to keep company?

Wandering aimlessly, I find myself stumbling out of the mist onto a winding path that was lined with twisting silver birch trees, glowing in the glorious morning rays.

A sign.

Perhaps the light is reassuring me that I am moving in the right direction.

It may have taken me nearly thirty years, but I think I have finally found my way.

I'm tired but I can't stop now.

I hesitate.

Inhale.

The cold autumn air brings new life to my weary body and I scan the new surroundings with my icy blue eyes.

I keep on walking.

I place one of my feet in front of the other.

I'm scared.

This path shows no sign of footsteps.

I'm alone.

But none more so than in a crowded room, I remind myself.

My mind rests.

Safe in the knowledge that the trees would guide me home.