Tenby & Lydstep Head, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, Autumn
After a morning spent carefully watching the weather apps, it was time to venture out.
After a morning spent carefully watching the weather apps, it was time to venture out.
Southwest of Wales one can find the historical port town of Tenby, or Dinbych-y-pysgod (“Fortlet of the fish”) to give its proper Welsh name. While we drove through the lashing rain, we arrived at Tenby in relatively dry conditions, wandering around the town and its beaches as the clouds gradually lifted and broke apart.
With the light getting better and better, we drove a further ten minutes southwest to Lydstep Head, a new location for us, to check out the area’s fabled cliffs.
Boy it did not disappoint.
Photos taken on my Fujifilm X-T2 using my Vivitar “Series 1” 28–105mm f2.8–3.8 zoom and Laowa 9mm f2.8 prime lenses. RAWs converted in Capture One for iPad then developed and finalised in Affinity Photo for iPad.
Tenby & Lydstep Head, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, Autumn by Ian Cylkowski is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Tenby
St. Catherine’s Island is a tidal island, just off Tenby’s south beach. It’s home to St. Catherine’s Fort, a Palmerston Fort constructed in the 19th century, in response to concerns about an imminent invasion from Emperor Napoleon III of France. Since the 1960s the Fort has stood empty, owned by no-one, though there are community initiatives to accommodate visits and tours.
This is the old Lifeboat Station, built in 1905 and superseded by the newer one just round the corner of Castle Hill in 2008. The old Lifeboat Station is now a private residence. Can you imagine?
As we continued to round the shoulder of Castle Hill the clouds above broke up and lifted. This allowed glorious autumnal sunlight to start emerging onto the scene, highlighting the beautiful coloured buildings of Tenby.
Tenby Harbour, enjoying a lot more sun as the clouds were lifting and breaking. Such a wonderful Welsh coastal scene.
Gosker Rock, which stands conspicuously all on its own on Tenby’s north beach.
Back on Tenby’s south beach, conditions were really starting to get epic. Time to head back to the car and find the cliffs of Lydstep Head.
Lydstep Head
On Lydstep Head, passing squalls quickly dowsed us in rain before carrying on across the sea. Their cloud formations made for epic compositions. I stacked 5 frames on top of each to shoot this photo of the cliffs at Lydstep Point with the rain clouds being lit up in the distance.
East from Lydstep Head another squall dropped a load of rain on top of Caldey Island. I zoomed in for a tighter composition of this fantastic phenomenon.
I mean, wow. The vertical cliff pictured here is Whitesheet Rock, with its dramatic vertical folds. Lots of Pembrokeshire’s coastline is comprised of limestone, which can often produce incredulous rock and karst formations.
A tighter composition of Whitesheet Rock. It doesn’t seem possible that cliff formations can look like this.
The other side of Whitesheet Rock above the aquamarine waters of Lydstep Haven.
Getting some of these compositions around Lydstep Head’s cliffs were some of the most challenging tasks I’ve ever done. The winds coming across the sea were funnelled through and around the geography of the area, creating blusters of 50+ mph. For a lot of these photos, I pretty much had to “spray and pray” to ensure I got something.
Powerful winds force the sea to crash against and around the cliffs of Lydstep Head, as they have surely done for millennia. Who knows what these magnificent cliffs will look like in another thousand years?
Much of Lydstep Head is owned and maintained by the National Trust. Period regenerative grazing occurs here, but closer to the cliffs the land is largely left to do what it will in the elements.
A slow-moving squall sits above Caldey Island in the distance whilst the sun drench the Lydstep cliffs with warm late-afternoon light as powerful winds blast the sea at the seemingly impossible cliffs.
Beyond Lydstep Head to the west, the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path continues over and above the cliffs. That will have to wait for another day.
For this day, circumnavigating Lydstep Head in glorious light and epic conditions was more than enough for the day.
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Retro Reworking: Pembrokeshire & Brecon Beacons, South Wales, Autumn, 2018
I think we’re due a break after the year we’ve had.
I think we’re due a break after the year we’ve had.
Happily Lisabet and I was able to book our usual two-week September/October break. Where to go this year?
We felt that Scotland, as much as we dearly love the country, would prove too costly with 2022 petrol prices. What about Wales? It’s been a good while since we’ve visited, moreso since we’ve been to South Wales in particular.
South Wales it is, then!
Until that glorious day, I decided to see if I could:
Find my old South Wales photos from 2018, and;
Convert and/or reprocess them.
Point 1 was a success, and I was able to retrieve them from one of my old external hard drives. The issue? This was the period when I was shooting with the beautiful Sigma dp0 Quattro, which produces RAW files (X3F and X3I) that barely any software can read. On the machine I use these days, a 4th-gen 12.9” iPad Pro, I quickly suspected there’d be no way I could read these files.
Thankfully, I wasn’t quite right.
It’s true I can’t read X3I files on an iPad. These RAW files are made using Sigma’s SFD (Super Fine Detail) mode, where the camera automatically exposes seven frames and merges them into a single super high quality RAW file. Only Sigma Photo Pro can read these files, on Mac and Windows.
However, the frankly fantastic Affinity Photo for iPad can read Sigma’s normal X3F files. During my 2018 exploration around South Wales I, unfortunately, shot mostly in SFD mode (X3I files), as I was still very much at the tail end of my HDR phase.
I do still have some singular X3F files, though, and these I’ve been able to convert in Affinity Photo for iPad and go through my current workflow.
So… until I’m in glorious South Wales again, enjoy these reworked photos from my 2018 trip! They were all shot using my camera at the time, a Sigma dp0 Quattro with a fixed 14mm f/4.0 lens. Converted in Affinity Photo for iPad, developed in RNI Films, and finished off again in Affinity.
See my 2018 HDR-esque Pembrokeshire work on Unsplash.
Pembrokeshire National Park
Brecon Beacons National Park
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The Sea Takes Bites Out Of The Land
I wasn’t sure how to compose this photo. Should I compose for the gorgeous turquoise water? The cliffs? The nearby ridge?
When confronted with such vistas and their options, my brain often defaults to, “Shoot it all!” And I think it’s what contributes to what I think is the weakest aspect of my photography: composition.
Sometimes I wish I could learn how to focus and compose for just one subject…
Camera: Sigma dp0 Quattro
Lens: built-in 14mm f/4.0
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/11.0
Shutter speed: 1⁄25s
Software: Sigma Photo Pro, Nik Collection, Affinity Photo
Hiking and Photography in South Wales
This year we’re spending two weeks in South Wales: first week in the Brecon Beacons National Park, and the second in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.
It’s become something of a tradition in Casa del Hexabet to take a two-week hiking holiday somewhere in the UK. Typically this is somewhere in Scotland, which has led to wonderful experiences in Glencoe, Skye, Torridon, Arran, and more.
We love Scotland dearly. But sometimes, variety is good.
This year we’re spending two weeks in South Wales: first week in the Brecon Beacons National Park, and the second in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.
I’ve only ever been to South Wales once, many years ago; I stayed with a load of friends at Castle Farm, near the tiny hamlet of Capel-y-ffin in the Black Mountains of the Brecon Beacons National Park. My memories were of lush, green valleys, rolling hills, sheep, a huge absence of people, and expansive views.
I was pretty much at the start of my photography journey back then, so I’m very much looking forward to expanding my South Wales experience with new eyes, especially around the Pembrokeshire coast, which I’ve never been to. Below, you can see some of my early attempts at capturing the scenes around the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons National Park.
Particular highlights I’m looking forward to in this year’s South Wales trip: Pen-y-fan, all the waterfalls, Llyn y Fan Fach, and practically the entirety of the Pembrokeshire Coastline.
Here’s to good light!