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Snowdon Marathon Commission Work
The Snowdon
marathon organisers approached me in June 2008 after I had supplied
them with 15 of my images for a separate project they were
undertaking at the time. The brief was quite straightforward.
Would I take
images of Snowdonia and the surrounding area, so that they could be
presented as prizes to the competing runners? They would need at
least eight different images. Two extra large canvases, one each for
the male and female winners. And six large canvases for the top
three placings of the men and women. Plus twenty medium size
 canvases
for other category winners and runners-up. And to top it all off,
eight large framed prints for the dignitaries.
The marathon
itself would take place on October 25th, so in theory I
had nearly four months to get the shots. I say “In Theory” as it
never turned out that way. I was committed to go to Australia in
late June for five weeks work, and would not be home till early
August, but this still left me with about two and a bit months.
Wrong! August as you all know was a complete washout, we had rain
just about every day, and
early September was not much better. So with a 10-day holiday in
Hong Kong booked for the 10th I was rapidly running out
of time.
On returning
from the Far East the weather had settled down somewhat, so on
September 22nd I left home for Snowdonia on a beautiful
sunny afternoon, but by the time I got to
Beddgelert the heavens had opened, and I returned
 home
without a single shot. This would
happen three more times in the couple of weeks I had left. This is
one of the problems we have here on Llyn, our weather pattern is
quite different to the rest of north Wales, so
when it’s nice here, the rest of the
country could very well be awful, and vice versa of course!
Next day on the
23rd things were quite different, and by the end of the
day I had one image at least, which I thought, was of a high enough
standard. It was a daylight image taken at Llyn Gwynant (Wy-010).
My next two trips turned out very well, I captured a few good shots,
some at Llyn Gwynant, all were taken after sundown, and I
was well pleased
with the results. I love this light on water thing and all these
shots were in that category. (Wy-011,
Wy-012 and
Wy-14)
By this time and
with about a week left I headed for Llanberis and Llyn Padarn, here
I shot an image that would be one of the main prizes (Wy-030).
It was a beautiful afternoon, and I used 70 - 200 zoom without a
filter, looking south across the lake for a detailed shot of
Snowdon. The light was quite amazing, and the trees surrounding the
lake had turned a golden colour in the late afternoon light. On this
particular day I was accompanied by
Alun Hughes a camera operator / producer, working on a
documentary about the marathon for S4C. 
On my last
outing to Snowdonia and again accompanied by Alun, I decided to
return to Llyn Gwynant, even though I had been there on two other
occasions. The reasoning behind this was quite simple. To me this is
one of the most beautiful parts of Snowdonia, and it’s easy to get
to from Llyn. Plus if the light was poor or not right I could quite
easily jump in the car, and be at a different location within
minutes. On this particular day the light was just about perfect,
and after the sun had gone down, the sky turned a beautiful pink for
about five minuets (Wy-027). And
here I got the women’s first prize shot (Wy-026),
one of my personal favourites.
As it turned out
I got a lot more than the eight shots that was needed, and I'm quite
happy with the results.
Many thanks to
Mrs Jayne Lloyd of the Snowdonia Marathon for entrusting me with
this project. |
