Wales Archives - Page 21 of 22 - Ed O'Keeffe Photography

17 March 200828 May 2017

Storm on Criccieth Jetty, Wales

The weatherman reported a severe weather warning to the west coast of Wales and my dad reported that we were only a few miles away from the location of his “Storm Approaching” photograph (see below) which won many awards and is one of my favourite pictures of his. So what did I do? Well I got my camera out and went to the jetty at Criccieth in a vain attempt to recreate the photo that I liked so much.

I didn’t have a copy of the original and hadn’t seen it for maybe four years or more, so I knew my framing wasn’t going to be the same, but it was the same location in a storm, so that was exciting enough for me. My version lacks a lot of the light and sky / cloud details that my father’s original has; however mine has a more powerful impact with the jetty. In my opinion the original is vastly better, but I thought it was worth sharing the story with you.

16 March 200828 May 2017

Portmeirion Italianate Village, North Wales

Some people I spoke to before going described it as an interesting, Italian styled village, but others told me it was more like an old Italian themed Disney Land. Not knowing what to expect, this time last week I found myself there on what turned out to be a fantastic day for photography. I can confirm this is nothing like Disney Land. However it is, as the Wikipedia describes it, full of “deliberately fanciful nostalgia” and in my opinion that is what makes it so interesting and unique. The statues, architectural details and other weird and wonderful things could probably keep this photo blog going to the end of the month (don’t worry, I’m not planning on doing that).

The above photograph was taken at the top of the “woodland walk” and by the looks of it, not a lot of people make the effort to climb up here. I was looking at recreating the cover image on the tour brochure. Sadly, whilst sitting down to have a bite to eat on the grass below, it started to rain heavily. Shelter wasn’t far away and almost everyone either headed home or went into the cafe. Fortunately, ten minutes later the sun came out, so I walked up to this point and was lucky enough to catch the light. You can probably see the rain clouds over the hills on the other side of the estuary. Needless to say, I am very pleased to be able to bring you this picture.

15 March 200828 May 2017

Rope detail on Grass

Last Saturday was very wet, windy and with dull lighting. We drove down the coast to the village of Aberdaron, but it was so windy we could hardly stand up straight on the beach. Driving over to the north side of the LlÅ·n Peninsula to Nefyn the weather was a little calmer and I took the above photography as an interesting coastal detail. We were stood at the top of a hill looking down to the beach where over a dozen fishermen were setting up to go fishing, this little piece of rope seemed worthy of a photograph. It’s the type of coastal or seaside details I really enjoy both photographing and looking at and I am very much looking forward to getting a nice big print of this to put up on the wall of my flat.

14 March 200828 May 2017

Caernarfon Castle, North Wales

After a morning climbing up the Great Orme in Llandudno we then went on to Caernarfon. It was definitely castle photography weather this time last week. The most difficult part about composing this picture was all the boats in the bottom half of the picture. With my 18mm wide angle lens it was impossible to get the picture I wanted without “cutting” one of the boats in half by the frame of the picture. It would have been a more pleasing composition with another white yacht in the centre of the image. Using Adobe Photoshop I applied a natural density graduated filter to lighten the lower half of the photograph.