Snowdonia, Fairy glen and Nant francon valley waterfalls 10/12th november 2011

My next trips were to Snowdonia national park in north wales,  the first location was Fairy glen , near Betws-y-coed .  it is a deep gorge with the river running through and very large boulders all around, access is difficult having to climb down very slippery steps! 

As soon as i got down to the gorge  i found the light was looking really nice for a change,  i knew i only had a very short time to get the shots i wanted before the light went!!!!!!!!!!  and this shot has all the atmosphere  i wanted to capture!   

Shot with 100mm L macro !

The river widens out below this gorge and long exposures create trails on the waters surface!

These two frames were all i got before the light went, but on the walk back to the car i found these oaks beautifully lit up !

Shot with 70-300 is

The Nant francon valley waterfalls where next,  i have only visited once in summer so hoped they would look good with a bit of autumn colour!,  and i was not disappointed!   lol

here is one of the first shots, a wide view of the waterfall!

17-40mm L

And a longer shot!  taken with 100mm Macro lens!

I then started to walk down the valley towards the direction of the Devils kitchen,  a really nice walk in the ever increasing sunshine!

I came to a lovely small waterfall with good colours

Continuing down the track just to shoot a few shots down the valley!

At the end of this path it opens out into the valley floor with Devils kitchen in the distance!

A last view before walking back to the car!

 Another great trip! 

All shots taken with canon 5d2, 17-40L , 100mm L macro.

The English Lake District Nov 7th yewtree tarn and Thirlmere

After leaving Tarn hows i walked down the waterfalls path to the car park which is near Yewtree Tarn, i knew there was not going to be much colour, but did find these ghostly reflections in the tarn which look quite nice :)

Next stop was Deerbolts wood where i stopped off for a few minutes to shoot these shots of the colourful trees!

I then drove over to see Thirlmere,  most of the larch needles had dropped!!!!!!!!!  but driving around the back road i found the late afternoon sun lighting up the water a beautiful colour, so managed to get a few shots.

On the way back to the main road , i noticed the sun lighting up the fell side behind the trees which looked stunning!

                                                       That was the last shot of the lakes trip.

                     Will blog a butterfly trip next,shot in the summer ,   something quite special :)

The English Lake District Nov 7th 2011 pt1

The day after the Westonbirt trip i travelled up to cumbria to the Lakes to see what i could shoot!  the plan was to visit one of my favorite waterfalls at Ambleside, Stock ghyll force.  a stunning waterfall and stream when in full autumn colour!
Unfortunately when i got up to the top falls most of the leaves had already dropped!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are the lower falls.

But the top falls !  not much colour!

So  here is a shot from 2010  to show what it should have looked like .lol

After this disappointment i drove over to clappersgate and again most of the leaves had dropped!   so a quick think was in order,  there is a small tarn just up the road from Skelwith bridge and when i drove past "WOW! "    what an amazing site! , a fast turn around and back to park by the bridge and a long walk back to shoot the beautiful tarn. there was plenty of frost on the ground in this area so wanted to get the shots before it started to thaw!

The first shot, a wide angle taken with 17-40 L  on 5d2

and this might be my favorite shot of the Autumn !    taken with 100mm L Macro lens, which is superb on the full frame 5d2. gives a really good field of view and exceptional image quality!

And with wide angle 17-40 L

After shooting at this location i made my way up to " Tarn Hows "  a beauty spot up in the fells near coniston.

the light was not too good and most of the colour had long since gone but still managed a couple shots, taken from the "Scott monument"

and a final shot later in afternoon !

The next part of the day was to visit "yew tree tarn" and then "Thirlmere" this will be the next blog!

                                           All shots taken with 5d2,100mmL ,17-40mm L

Westonbirt Arboretum, silk wood

Continuing the Westonbirt Arboretum trip, in the afternoon there were literally hundreds of people in the arboretum to see the wonderful autumn colours and it was making photography extremely difficult!
we decided to head over to  "silk wood" where there is a Japanese maple collection .

As in the previous blog, i will let the colours tell the story!
here is the last pic i shot in the old arboretum, a twisted acer trunk!

Here is a view looking down between the old arboretum on the right with "silk wood" on the left side.
mobile phone picture!

Into the wood the maples and acers were as impressive as in the old arboretum!  this one shot at wide angle with camera as close to ground as tripod would allow!

and another view!

A close up of the leaves !

Here is a shot of Pete trying to shoot a beautiful autumn tree!    a constant stream of people making it very difficult!  lol

whereas i concentrated on a few closer views!

Moving through to the Japanese maple collection we found most of them had already dropped their leaves!!!!!
but i managed few shots of the area!

The maples are set out in amongst the larger trees, which gave interesting lighting!

On the way out i passed a spruce that was beautifully lit up by a shaft of light!  shot with 70-300 zoom i think this is one of my fav shots of the day!

and a wider shot of a different tree with nice atmospheric lighting!

Finally on the way out, a few more shots with side lighting !

and a final shot of the day!

      It was a fantastic day,we just don't see colours like this near home!  well worth the near 3 hour drive!

               IMAGES SHOT WITH CANON 5D2, 100mm L MACRO,17-40 L & 70-300 IS