In July 2012 I camped at the Cae Du campsite just outside Beddgelert in Snowdonia with the intension of capturing a sunrise over Llyn Dinas. The lake was a short one mile walk from my tent. I visited the lake the evening before to check out the position where the Sun would be rising and a suitable location on the waters edge providing the right composition.
The next morning my alarm woke me at 4am and I struggled to rise from my camp bed. I'd normally just roll over and go back to sleep but the need for a toilet forced me to dress so I gathered my camera gear and trudged off in semi darkness along the path to Llyn Dinas with sleep still in my eyes and with a breakfast bar to eat.
It was a very good decision. The location that I'd initially set on didn't produce a good enough composition so I walked a further half mile around the rough and boggy edge of the lake and stumbled on a lone tree that I didn't know existed. It was perfect.
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| Reeds in Mist |
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| Daybreak on Llyn Dinas |
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| Sunrise on Llyn Dinas |
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| Towards Llyn Dinas |
Within the golden hour I'd managed to capture this series of photographs from just before the Sun rose to shortly after on my walk back to my tent for breakfast. The early morning mist that blanketed the lake early on was slowly burnt off by the rising Sun. The icing on the cake was this final photograph "Llyn Dinas at Dawn" which won the National Trust Handbook Cover 2018 Competition. The handbook was sent to over 5 million NT members and I received the prize of a top Panasonic camera valued at £1,800.
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| Llyn Dinas at Dawn |
Since taking these photographs in July 2012 I haven't shot another photograph in the early morning golden hour preferring to shoot infrared images in the bright light of midday but the old saying that "The early bird catches the worm" rings true if you're a dedicated landscape photographer.
