Summit Photographs

Mountain, Landscape and Travel Images by British Photographer Nick Mason (www.summitphotographs.com)

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Autumn in the Black Mountains

Summit Photographs has not been inactive but, despite the glorious weather of late, it has been a frustrating few weeks. Every time I have been out recently the light has let me down and planned shots have not materialised. It is not without reason that David Noton talks of "chasing the light."

Well, it finally came together this evening. I had identified this spot a couple of weeks ago during a walk when the light failed to materialise and hadtargeted an evening shoot. An hour or so before sunset the sun dropped below a bank of cumulus in the west and from then on the light just kept getting better and better.

Yes, it can be frustrating, but it is worth it in the end!

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Closer to home A recent shot from the stunning Glamorgan Heritage Coast - Summer Evening at Tresilian Bay, near Llantwit Major. The texture in the rocks and the interplay of light and shadow making it a perfect image for black and white.

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Alpenglow, Hongu Valley, Nepal

There is an old adage in photography that the light is not gone until the light is gone, and this shot, also from the new Himalayan Mountainscapes gallery on the Summit Photographs website, is a perfect illustration of that.

Modern digital SLRs can record low levels of light that were almost impossible to capture on film, and with twilight lingering for a good hour after sunset it pays to hang around until there really is little light left. This panorama, stitched together from several images, was taken a few years ago from Mera high camp, at around 5300 m, long after the sun had gone down and with night falling rapidly. Needless to say it was very cold!

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New Himalayan Mountainscapes gallery on Summit Photographs!

I have just uploaded the latest gallery to the Summit Photographs website (http://summitphotographs.com). The Nepal Mountainscapes gallery contains some of my most spectacular images of the Himalayan giants found in the Everest region of Nepal.

Here is one of my favourites from the selection: afternoon clouds form around the West Ridge of 6623 m high Thamserku Peak. And yes that tiny red dot is a human being!

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You win some, you lose some . . .

"Sunrise," Pen y Fan

The weather forecast has been changing all week, but several eventually seemed to agree that last night would be very clear and so I decided to head up into the Beacons to get some moonlight shots of Pen y Fan and Corn Du.

As I drove up an empty A470 at around 11pm the twilight was still lingering to the north west with the promise of perfectly clear night skies, that was until I reached the steep hill that pulls up from Nant Crew, when I was suddenly driving upwards towards a huge cloud of Biblical proportions and everything went very dark.

I parked at the Storey Arms and wandered up onto the summit of Pen y Fan where I pitched my tent and waited for the weather to clear, and waited and waited . . . This photograph was taken just as the sun was supposed to be rising and illuminating the summit plateau.

Never underestimate the effort that goes into my photographs. Some of them are very hard won!

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Early Summer Evening, Pen y Fan North Face

I have walked up Cefn Cwm Llwch, the north ridge that leads to the summit of Pen y Fan, on numerous occasions, but it was only last month that the potential for this shot struck me. Looking across the steep north face to Cribyn and the eastern Beacons beyond, it is easy to see why, during a hard winter, it becomes a playground for winter climbing.

This is the last I shall be posting from the Wales monochrome gallery on my website (www.summitphotographs.com) as I am now putting the finishing touches to a spectacular gallery of Himalayan landscapes.

Enjoy!

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Autumn Dawn, Llynnau Mymbyr

Another shot from the Wales Monochrome gallery on the website (www.summitphotographs.com). It is a classic, and perhaps even over-photographed, view that black and white raises above the clichéd and familiar.

I hope that you enjoy it.

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Spring in the Brecon Beacons

Another from the monochrome images of Wales gallery for the website (www.summitphotographs.com) capturing so much of what I love about this magical part of Wales.

This is an image that is made for printing large!

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Monochrome Magic

I am in the process of putting together a gallery of monochrome images of Wales for the website (www.summitphotographs.com) and thought I would give you a taster. It is a classic view but one that, taken on a cold December morning with a thick covering of hoar frost giving wonderful textures, works very well in monochrome.

More to follow!

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Helambu Sunrise, Nepal

Currently working through the next album to go up on the revamped Summit Photographs website (www.summitphotographs.com) and thought it would be good to give you all a foretaste of what is to come.

This image, of one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever witnessed, was shot at dawn near the village of Syaule in the district of Helambu, Nepal. Tragically this region was ravaged by last year's earthquakes from which it is still struggling to recover.

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Spring is here!

I have been working through some photographs that I took this time last year and never had time to process.

This panorama, looking up Cefn Cwm Llwch towards the summit of Pen y Fan, the highest point in the Brecon Beacons, with Cribyn to the left, was shot for black and white and works best in that medium because of the textures on the north faces of Cribyn and Pen y Fan as well as the contrast in the sky, that are lost in a colour rendering.

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Dusk, Nash Point

Having spent a frustrating evening a few weeks ago hoping that the light and the tide would coincide on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, I was making my way back to the van when I turned to look out to sea and was struck by this sight.

As the old photography adage says, "The light is not gone until the light is gone."

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Evening at Nash Point

It has been a very quiet year for Summit Photographs. Moving and renovating a house has taken up almost all of my time, so it was good to get out recently to Nash Point on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, a 40 minute drive from home, where I was rewarded with beautiful evening light as the sun went down and the tide was beginning to ebb away from the spectacular wave-cut platforms for which the coast is famous.

I feel very fortunate to live with so much beauty on my door step.

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The light's not gone until the light has gone There is an old adage in photography that you do not say that the light, the key quality that elevates the best pictures above being a mere record, is no good until there is none left. Yesterday on Pen y Fan was a perfect example of the truth in this saying.   After a frustrating 10 days of being stuck in the other job, knowing that full on winter conditions were building in the Brecon Beacons, I finally got the opportunity to get out. I was keen to put my skis on and do some touring but when I got to the Storey Arms car park, the promised good weather had not materialised and the snow was not as low down as I had expected and so I resorted to Plan B (it is always important to have a Plan B and generally a Plan C and D as well!), shouldered my camera sack and headed off for a wander.  I spent the afternoon surrounded by cloud with blue sky remaining tantalisingly just visible through the clouds overhead. As the sun began to set the cloud I was in on the summit of Corn Du turned first golden and then pink but stubbornly refused to drop lower as summit clouds often do as the air temperature begins to fall. I was on the verge of giving up and began to pack my sack when I suddenly looked up to see myself surrounded by a spectacular cloud sea. The cloud had opened, in seconds, like a curtain with only the very tops of Corn Du and Pen y Fan poking out the top. Over the next half an hour the light got progressively better and better. This shot shows the summit of Pen y Fan with the summit rocks of Corn Du in the foreground. I hope that it conveys some of the magic.

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Winter is Coming!  With the exhibition successfully completed (and a huge thank you to everybody who attended) it was good to get back out into the hills today, particularly with the arrival of the first snows in the Beacons.  I only had the afternoon free, after a weekend on-call, and so wanted to get high quickly to catch the evening light from the tops of the Beacons. The blue skies grew darker as I drove north up the A470 and I found myself setting off from The Storey Arms in a very heavy snow shower. Things did not look promising when I arrived on the summit of Pen y Fan and it was also COLD and very windy.  I hung around on the summit plateau, never quite in the right place for the transient clearances and then with about 20 minutes to sunset the sky began to clear and the setting sun created the most spectacular light over the summit of Corn Du (seen here) and Bwlch Duwynt. It was good to be out again.

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Exhibition News A very successful opening party on Friday evening at Saltmarshe Gallery, Cardiff, to launch the Jewels to Gather exhibition followed by plenty of interested visitors over the weekend.  The most popular photograph among visitors, just pipping the current Facebook cover photograph of dawn over Llyn y Fan Fawr, above, is this shot of the north face of Thamserku (6623m) taken from Machermo village in the Solukhumbu region of Nepal. It is the first time that I have seen either image printed quite so large and they both look stunning, but it has been the jaw dropping realisation that the little red dot in the foreground is a human figure, that has really given this shot the edge.  The exhibition continues until 5th December. We are contracting down to the ground floor now that the weekend launch is over, but all 71 images from Wales, Norway, the Alps and the Himalaya will continue to be on display so drop by Saltmarshe Gallery at 352, Caerphilly Road, Cardiff CF14 4NT, for a visual treat!

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Alpine Solitude  Another taster of the forthcoming exhibition: a lone skier skins into an untouched valley in the High Tarentaise of the French Alps.  A simple image full of the peace and beauty of the winter mountains.