Dan Santillo Photography

Langland Bay

Dan Santillo — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:29:14 +0000

At the beginning of the month, I set the alarm early and headed out to Langland Bay for sunrise. The position of the sun meant I couldn’t go for the angle I wanted, so instead I headed out to Snaple Point. There was a smattering of sea thrift around, but not swathes of it unfortunately. I used my wide angle lens to include the beach huts, the sea thrift and the sun.

Langland Bay from Snaple Point

The clouds are actually the edges of a huge fog bank that was both up and down the coast – I had somehow chosen the only place that was fog free! After the sunrise spectacle was over, I headed onto the beach to try my new “thing” of photographing the beach from the sea. As always, I got wellies full of water because I always have to get the little bit further in! The camera was down low to emphasise the wave and I think, for the first time, I have a photo that epitomises Langland Bay!

Langland Bay

Shortly after, I’m ashamed to say that I ran out of batteries! This is the first time this has happened since I’ve had my current camera for three years, but it’s all my fault for not charging it the evening before. I then sat on the sea wall with breakfast and a flask of coffee, enjoying the warm sun and waiting for rush hour to be over before going back home.

Three Cliffs Bay from Pennard

Dan Santillo — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:19:13 +0000

One evening last week, I met up with Emma Jones (who joins me at my exhibitions) at Southgate. When we arrived, it was raining heavily but the sun was out and lighting up the landscape beautifully. The rain stopped and the sun went in for the rest of the evening, but we headed out anyway. Despite the unfavourable weather conditions, I’m still pleased with what I photographed:

Pobbles Beach and Three Cliffs Bay

We then climbed the cliff to overlook the Three Cliffs themselves where we were lucky enough to find some flowers. This was taken around sunset:

Three Cliffs Bay

A Stormy Three Cliffs Bay

Dan Santillo — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:01:10 +0000

With bad weather forecast last week, I picked the only day that looked good for sunrise and headed out to Penmaen Burrows. As usual, the forecast was wrong and I got rained on rather than seeing clear skies. However, this time it worked in my favour. Here is one photo I took whilst getting rained on:

Three Cliffs Bay

And here is another one:

Three Cliffs Bay

Needless to say, the forecast was wrong for the rest of the week too…

Caswell Bay and Mewslade Bay

Dan Santillo — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:32:45 +0000

I haven’t updated this blog for a while, mainly as I haven’t had much news for a while as I’ve been recovering from a chest infection. I’m pleased to say that I have now fully recovered! However, I did manage to get out a couple of times whilst I was unwell, once to Caswell Bay and another to Mewslade Bay. I probably shouldn’t have gone to Caswell when I did as the climb up the steps to the cliff path caused me a great deal of trouble, but I’m never one to take it easy… Here is the moment after the sun had appeared over the horizon:

Caswell Bay, Gower

A couple of weeks later, I went to Mewslade Bay for sunset. I was wearing wellies so I could get in the water, but I still got wet legs as the wave in the photo was a little larger than I had planned for!

Mewslade Bay, Gower

I have a lot more trips planned and am working towards my next exhibition in Mumbles over the double June bank holiday!

Mumbles, Daffodils, Blackpill and Sunrise

Dan Santillo — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:52:02 +0000

On Saturday, I ran a Five Beaches of Gower Workshop and on the way I drove past Blackpill and West Cross. I noticed the daffodils were looking really nice, so yesterday morning I got up at 5:30am and left the house at 6am. I was really after the post-sunrise light, so waited until the sun had risen. Using my newly purchased 24mm tilt/shift lens, I was able to get very close to the daffodils whilst keep everything else in focus and create this image:

Mumbles from Blackpill

Mumbles Pier, Mumbles Lighthouse and Bracelet Bay

Dan Santillo — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:52:14 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I met up with Emma Jones to shoot sunrise at Bracelet Bay. We were lucky enough to be treated to an amazing sunrise! I decided I wanted to look down onto the lighthouse and hopefully capture the crumbling Mumbles Pier in the photo so set up a panorama.

Mumbles Pier, Mumbles Lighthouse and Bracelet Bay

After the delight of the most amazing sunrise I’ve seen in a long time, we headed down onto the beach where I practised some more with my newly acquired 24mm ts-e lens. I particularly liked the seaweed in this photo and the lens helped to make it prominent in the shot. There also turned out to be a partial halo – a rainbow like feature in the cloud!

Mumbles Lighthouse and Bracelet Bay

It was such an amazing morning, it put me in a good mood for the rest of the day!

The Afon Mellte

Dan Santillo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:25:11 +0000

Yesterday, I thought I would take a trip to the waterfalls near Ystradfellte. I arrived just before 9am so had the place to myself, which was nice. I normally walk along the path to get to the waterfalls without stopping, but this time I saw this view and stopped for a while.

Afon Mellte

After a few minutes there, I carried along the path to Sgwd Isaf Clun-gwyn. The path isn’t very nice with large drops off to one side and lots of slippery mud, so I was relieved when I arrived. This waterfall is very heavily photographed so I wanted to try something a little different – I stepped back from the usual viewpoint and used my 24mm tilt/shift lens to focus on the rock whilst keeping the waterfall sharp. I’m not sure whether I achieved anything new, but I like the result.

Sgwd Isaf Clun-gwyn

Not wanting to walk back the way I came, I headed down to the river and walked along the path to Sgwd y Pannwr. I haven’t really got a decent photo of this, so I composed a shot using the rocks and trees to frame the waterfall.

Sgwd y Pannwr

I was about to leave when I spotted some rather nice rocks so I used my 24mm ts-e again to emphasise them.

Sgwd y Pannwr

I left the river, using the Waterfall Link path, and headed up the hill into the forest. I had recently seen an Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) done by Nick Jenkins and wanted to try it myself. After several goes, I ended up with this

Ystradfellte Forest

I’m particularly pleased with this and especially like the way the path is still, just about, distinguishable as the path. It was almost lunch time now so I headed back to the car, having really enjoyed my morning out.

Landscape Photography Workshops

Dan Santillo — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:34:30 +0000

It has been a very busy time for me over the past few weeks. I am delighted to announce that I am now running Landscape Photography Workshops on Gower and in the Brecon Beacons – see here. In addition to group outings, I am also able to provide one to one tuition where we work out an itinerary to suit you. If you want to learn how to take photos like me, then be sure to book a session!

I have just added an email subscription to the right of this blog – enter your email address to receive an update when I add a new post to this blog. This email is used for nothing else whatsoever, just new blog posts.

I have been a little slack in writing blog posts recently, but I have been busy taking new photos – here is a taster from an amazing day out with Neil Mansfield. We trekked up to Corn Du for sunrise and were presented with this lovely view:

Pen y Fan from Corn Du, Brecon Beacons National Park

Bracelet Bay

Dan Santillo — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:45:18 +0000

Last weekend, I took the family to Bracelet Bay to have a play on the beach – it was absolutely freezing and, contrary to the Met Office forecast who said clear skies, it was rather cloudy. However, the sky look stunning especially for mid-morning. I had my camera with me, of course, and took a few photos.

Bracelet Bay, Mumbles

Weather Forecasts

Dan Santillo — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:55:28 +0000

As a photographer, I need to have a good idea of what the weather will be like tomorrow or even over the next few hours. The Met Office are the government funded weather forecaster, so it would seem sensible to use them. However, I’ve noticed on several occasions that I check the weather at 6am and make a decision on what to do that day only to find out that the forecast has changed by 7am. On one day when I was at home, I decided to keep a record of what the forecasts were doing – they are updated every hour.

The Met Office's ever changing forecast

The left hand column with 6am, 7am, etc. is the time at which the forecast was updated. The row across the top is the time at which the weather was supposed to be doing what was forecast. I shall use the forecast for 12pm as an example. At 6am, midday was forecast to be thick cloud. At 7am, midday was forecast to be medium level cloud, and so on. Over the 6 hours leading up to midday, the forecast changed no less than 4 times! I shall let you draw your own conclusions to all that, but it certainly makes my job very, very difficult and costs me a lot in wasted fuel for journeys when the forecast says one thing and the reality is something completely different.

The Met Office also have a detailed mountain forecast which, I believe, is subsidised by the Welsh Assembly. Before a recent trip out, I checked this forecast, which told me “Hill fog: None” and also that the visibility would be “moderate to good”, which I read as hazy conditions. It also said hill fog would become persistent later in the day. To me, that seems like ideal conditions for some photos during the morning. I was rather surprised when I drove for an hour and walked to the summit of Pen y Fan to spend most of my time in the fog from 8:30 in the morning. I mentioned this on Twitter – here is the conversation in it’s entirety:

Me: Met Office mountain forecast wrong again. Am now in thick cloud in the Brecons. Another wasted trip @metoffice
Met Office: We did state there would be cloud and vis would be moderate to poor
The link they sent me was to their mountain forecast that explicitly said visibility would be moderate to good
Me: Actually, your forecast says “Visibility moderate or good” and “hill fog: None at first.” not mod to poor according to your link.
Met Office: It says “Moderate or good, becoming locally poor later. Very poor in hill fog”
Note that they’ve just changed their mind on what their forecast says
Me: Yep it says “Very poor in hill fog” also “Hill fog: None at first. Persistent … by early afternoon”. I was there at 8:30am. :-)

What annoyed me in particular wasn’t that the forecast was wrong, but that they refused to admit it. It might seem like I’m being petty here, but this cost me 65 miles in diesel (£29.24 at the HMRC business rate of 45p per mile) and around 4 hours of not being at my desk and potentially earning money by writing magazine articles, keywording images, etc.

When I started freelancing in 2005, I used the forecast regularly and 9 times out of 10 it would be accurate and I would be in the weather I wanted to be. Something seems to have changed recently, maybe after they spent £33m on a new super computer (that’s what I’ve read anyway), and now their forecasts change hourly – sometimes dramatically from sunny spells to heavy rain and back again. It isn’t just me who has noticed this – several fellow photographers have had wasted and costly trips out. I’m not a forecaster and I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that this is costing me a fortune in wasted diesel and time.