Many Photographers dream of capturing the beauty of far flung places and living the Explorer`s Dream, but the sad fact is that life gets in the way with either health or work constraints with the resulting consequences being less interest in our landscape photography. But, and it`s a big BUT, are we really restricted by our circumstances? Or, are we just rolling over and allowing defeat to reign supreme?
The reason I became a Lazy Photographer was both health and work, add a family to that mix and it was a recipe doomed from the start had I not taken to forcing myself out into the countryside to prove to myself that I wasn`t the worlds laziest photographer, or maybe, I was , and the idea was born for this book.
I`ve had a lot of fun going out and taking pictures to prove that I don`t need to be Sir Edmund or Sir Ranulph to get some decent images, all I needed was a road, some transport and my camera, keeping eyes open for subject matter along the way.
This blog is in no way meant to belittle those hardy souls who can and do, risk life and limb as well as health to capture those landscapes that most of us can only dream about, it is more a humorous look at the easy way of doing things and showing that sometimes, less is more.
Let`s start with the basic equipment needed, and if you have read the 1st 2 blogs then you more than likely already know what the basic equipment needed is but we shall be optimistic and pretend this blog is being read by a complete beginner, who woke up on Christmas morning to find a brand new camera.
Camera: Rather obvious really, although a mobile phone would do the basic job too. Your camera does NOT have to be the latest and greatest bit of kit to hit the High Street, it needs to be comfortable to use as then it will find its way into your hands to take pictures far more often than a camera that is too heavy, or too big, or too small even, so go to a camera shop and pick up every camera you can to feel which one feels at home in your hands. Next on the camera checklist is Ease of Use, having a fan- cy camera that demands a Phd in advanced computer science is not going to accompany you as much as one that has Clunk Click Windy Windy bits that your fingers can find as easy in the pitch darkness or driving rain as they do in a well lit studio.
Lenses: Use what you got basically, yes.. A 10-20mm will give lovely wide angle landscapes, but so will the wide end of your kit lens, you can fine tune your collection as and when funds allow
Tripod: This is important, and a good sturdy tripod will pay off big time in adverse weather, yet a beanbag on a car bonnet/roof can be used too.
Camera Bag: This is needed to stop cameras and lenses flying around the cabin of the car or bouncing round the topbox on your bike, added bonus is you can use it as a pillow while resting from a 50 meter walk from the car to your chosen location.
Transport: Anything from a bus to a moped really, just not a bicycle as those take too much work for any self respecting lazy photographer.
Rubbish Bag: Take Only Photos, Leave Only Footprints
Now that you have your basic needs covered, the rest is purely comfort luxuries, things like decent walking boots, a good flask, a big coat etc will all become worth their weight in gold the moment you need them, I also have a pair of fishing gloves, the kind with fold-back tips on the thumbs and first two fingers, many is the time I have been saved from frostbite and worse in the middle of summer because of such silly items. Plan for the worst, Hope for the best.
Next on the list of accessories is a photography side-kick, these come in all shapes and sizes but need to be carefully chosen as you WILL end up spending long miserable hours in the middle of nowhere, in the rain and cold, waiting for the clouds to clear or light to fall just right, and being able to laugh and joke and put the world to rights means memories are made in the failures as well as successful adventures.
My chosen Side-kick is Hobbit, so called not so much for the fact that he resembles one but more for his ability to disappear from sight whenever a hole is found for him to fall down, we have a 70% success rate, photographically speaking, and 100% success rate of making memories that have us in stitches years after the event. I may use some of his images in this book, if he can garner enough motivation to actually edit his photos, he take`s the concept of Lazy Photographer to a whole other level.
Now, as it is currently 2025, the Big Thing is Carbon Footprint and Being Green… if these subjects are close to your heart, great, if you think a carbon footprint is the marks left by your carbon fibre tripod, well just look at where you were just taking photos from and ensure that you have left it at least as clean as you found it, we don`t need to be eco-warriors to do our bit, but if we all do our little bit every time we venture out, that will have a positive impact, just use your loaf while out and about. Lastly, always notify someone of exactly where you are going, all it takes is a rolled ankle 50 meters from the car with- out mobile phone signal and you find yourself in a world of hurt.
Now that we have gathered up all the clutter needed to head off on our photography adventures, we ideally need some sort of a plan, this is vitally important as it stops us wandering aimlessly round the country lanes wondering what the hell we`re supposed to be doing, it gives us a direction, a very loose direction by my experience, but a direction nonetheless.
What, Where, When are the three starting points, makes no nevermind in which order you start as long as you have all three covered, an example would be “ Saturday early I`m off to Durdle Door for sunrise” there you have all three covered, in a concise manner. The rest is easy, well it would be if you could just carry the motivation through at 3am to get on location, now, the astute amongst you will be scratching your heads at the mention of Durdle Door Sunrise as no genuine Lazy Photographer would go through the agony of that much exercise before lunch, let alone Dawn but it was only an example.
The one way that you can use when deciding on locations is the internet maps feature… Little Walkie Man… when you click`n`drag his little figure over the map, it highlights only roads, so you can choose how adventurous you want to be by how close you can get your vehicle to the location (Durdle Door is 500 meters but feels like 136 miles). I will often spend hours researching a location in this very manner (remember carbon footprint?)
Next on the list of things to do is to phone up your chosen side-kick and convince them that your hair-brained scheme will make you both legends in photography circles (hardly likely this will happen but don`t ever let the side-kick find out).
Now the quest is set in stone, no backing out now short of donating organs to use as an excuse for not being able to go on your own adventure (The Hobbit has actually tried this, unsuccessfully) all that is left is to make sure all batteries are fully charged AND in the bag, nothing like flat batteries for creating the wrong type of memory, and spare SD cards are in the bag too, takes 2 minutes but there isn`t more than a dozen photographers world-wide that have never forgotten SD cards or Batteries at home.
Here are a few of My Misadventures in my quest to become the Worlds Laziest Photographer, that actually came about when I was diagnosed with a tumour on my kidney ,which explained the thumping pain I suppose, and I was struggling with motivation due to pain and reduced ability to walk up and down hills looking for that shot. Enter Hobbit as photography
side-kick, as opposed to my biking brother, it was he that kept pushing to go out with the camera, and so a partnership was formed that would have us both in fits of giggles every time we ventured out.
Our first adventure was a mid-winter trip to the seaside in Wales, more to take my mind off the impending surgery than any real urge to go out and freeze for the sake of a few blurry images, The Hobbit was newly loved up and I possessed one of those worry pot wifey items that fret way too much and we decided to drag the girls along for the ride. Our first stop was Elan Valley in the early morning to see if anything caught our eye photographically speaking and a gentle walk around the quaint little Nantgwyllt church next to Garreg Ddu Dam, all was going great, that was until Hobbit almost went for a dip, you see, in winter things get cold, and get icy, and if the thing you are standing on is made of steel then it can have hilarious results. Hobbit decides that the overflow pumping mosque shaped thingy would make a nice image and duly takes off in the direction of waters edge… when the morning peace was shattered with a shrill scream followed by wildly flailing arms, clutching tripod with camera attached, and legs going every which way, one of those moments you wished you had a camera handy, oh wait… I had one in my hand.. Just was more concerned about Hobbit than I was about capturing his sorry ass going in the drink, besides, I was laughing so much that any form of image, let alone rescue, was out of the question. I was given a few nicknames that day, none of which would be allowed in print. All of this and the clocks had barely struck 8am.
We eventually managed to coax the Hobbit away from danger, for the time being, but he was to prove a constant source of amusement throughout the day with his ability to fall into every hole in the area.
This road below the carpark at Nantgwyllt leads to an amazing waterfall, you`ll find a bridge over a cascade, cross the bridge and look for the trail that leads into the trees, the falls are about 30 meters along
Once we had taken a few images and explored the old church, to keep the ladies happy, we were on our way again, and as our final destination was Aberystwyth by the Sea, we had two choices of route, route one was left at the end of the dam and meander round the lakes to join the old mountain road to Devil`s bridge, or turn right, back the way we came and turn left just before the village of Rhayader onto the start of the Old Mountain Rd, which is the route I chose, as Side-kick and his romantic interest, had not travelled it before. For anyone else at a loss for somewhere to spend a day, or indeed a weekend, with a camera, this road will deliver, and continue to deliver. About a mile or so from the start you enter into a tunnel of trees that are all twisted, and vaguely reminiscent of The Game of Thrones Tree Tunnel - The Dark Hedges along Bregagh Road in Northern Ireland (Authors note: Storm Arwen severely damages these iconic trees in N.I). A few miles further along the road starts to climb and on your left you will see a farmhouse (Fron Cottage) and beyond a little lake. This lake is fed by a stream that cascades down a series of falls, not large, but well worth the short walk from the road, Unless, of course, you happen to be Hobbit, who was gleefully laughing and taking the mickey out of me missing my footing and going calf deep into a boggy mudhole, leaving me contemplating just cutting off my foot to keep the inevitable frostbite at bay, I do tend to go all
Sir Ranulph when out exploring. We managed to get to the stream and set up to take some images on rather slippery rocks and all went surprisingly well for about 5 minutes… a blood curdling scream echoed off the surrounding crags, leading me to start believing in Welsh Dragons and evil Faeries (you will understand if you ever visit this area) …. But Hobbit had vanished. Now, he`s not the fastest of creatures, even when his life depends on it, but upon hearing that scream, he had vanished, so I glanced up the hill to the car, about 70 meters away but no sign of him, so I scanned the area in the vicinity of his last known location before he was abducted by the dragon, or faeries… and all that remained was his woolly hat. As I approached said hat, trying to think of how I was going to break the news to his ladyfriend, the woolly hat started a torrent of expletives that would make a sailor blush… you guessed it… the Hobbit had found a hole and promptly fell in it, and once again I was unable to fire off a shot or six to capture the moment, partly out of concern for my car seats but mostly because I was laughing that much I almost ended up in the hole next to him.
After checking that he hadn`t broken his camera or tripod, I extricated him from his hole and stood laughing as he tried his best to clean himself up and resemble a human being again. More abuse was hurled from under the woolly hat, this time directed squarely at me, now ordinarily this wouldn`t bother me as I usually deserve every bit of abuse I get, but I was innocent of all wrong- doing in this fiasco. I decided to make him wait without moving a muscle, while I scouted the area for solid footing so we could at least get some photos of the cascades as all requests for Hobbit to re-enter his hole for photographic purposes seemed to fall on deaf ears. Yes, it turns out that Hobbits have extremely poor hearing which is another reason they are on the endangered list, too blind to see where they are walking, and too deaf to hear danger coming. With me resembling a walking question mark through pain we must have looked a right pair.
Once we had dragged ourselves back up Wales` answer to Mt Kilimanjaro ( really just a gentle slope for anyone of reasonable fitness) we brushed as much mud from our clothes as was possible and climbed back into the car to continue along the Mountain Rd and our next stop was a picnic spot where the Elan Valley Rd joins (the road I mentioned earlier) and the river Elan, or Afon Elan as the locals call it. This is a popular spot in summer months so parking is an issue, not so much in the Middle of January because not even the locals venture out. The Hobbit was still sulking because of the constant chuckling at his expense by the rest of us, and he decided to head upriver to scout a suitable spot to photograph, while I ventured downstream, but only after checking his chosen location thoroughly… a large flat rocky outcrop next to the river which I deemed safe even for a Hobbit. Downstream I had an idea to set up IN the river to take a photo of the bridge, and the trek began, after many detours I reached my chosen spot, only to find that the river was a helluva lot deeper that it looked from the bridge, the Ladies duly posed atop the bridge while I fiddled and faffed and tried my best to look at least like I knew what I was doing, image taken ,I started to turn away when I had that sinking feeling, literally… my chosen spot was a frozen bog and not a solid part of the riverbank and the weight of me standing there was enough to break any adhesive qualities that were present when I first stepped onto it. Well the Ladies were positively howling at my efforts to extricate myself from the bog without ending up in the neck deep river, Hobbit, upstream had turned to look at what the noise was about and scowled as only a Hobbit can scowl at missing the opportunity to capitalise on my misfortune, so being already cold and wet, I fired off a couple of frames of him steadfastly refusing to come to my rescue, and dragged myself to safety with all the grace of a fish crossing the road.
By now it was almost 10am and time to get a move on if we wanted lunch at the seaside, as by this time we had only ventured about six or seven miles up the Mountain Rd, so in the car we piled and headed on our way, making mental notes along the way of possible future locations for our next trip out… until we reached some ruins called Cwmystwyth ( I think the pronunciation is akin to spitting a hair out of your mouth) Lead Mine Workings and an ancient Roman Forge, it also boasts a really tall waterfall. Ladies decided to explore the lower workings, while Hobbit and I, being made of much sterner stuff, decided to climb up and check out the waterfall. Here Hobbit discovered his Nirvana, the place is littered with old mine entrances, into which he duly disappeared like a rat up a drainpipe without telling me so when I turned around and couldn`t see him, well you can guess what my thought process was, but these holes he intentionally entered, for a change. There are pathways going in all directions through the workings and hillside and no clear route to the base of the waterfall, Hobbit chose a meandering route to a spot we deemed to be the base, while
I looked at all options and promptly decided that no lazy photographer worth his salt would walk 200 meters when a short sharp climb of 20 meters would get me to the same point. So up I scrambles, which I immediately regretted but was too stubborn to go back and follow Hobbit. This climb had also not gone unnoticed by Mrs Fretful down below because I heard a faint shout of “ I`m going to kill you when you come down”, I was not overly concerned because at this point I was doing my best to go up and had the distinct feeling that I was going to die before I got back down any- way.
The exploration of Cwmystwyth had just about finished me off, my back was thumping, my legs felt like they were made from the product of the mines and my stomach sent an email to my brain asking if my throat had been cut, so we once again set off up the road promising that we weren`t going to stop till the seaside and all went to plan for about 10 miles.
There is an Archway across the road, it looks like the remnants of some great estate wall but sadly, as far as I can ascertain, is only a Folly. We pulled over yet again to take some quick photos for future reference, and the Hobbit`s ladyfriend decided to explore a bit, she walked over to the grass bank to get a better view of the archway, and her legs went out from under her on the wet grass, I knew at that very moment, that they were a match made in heaven, accidents looking for a place to happen the pair of them. We have plans to return to this spot to take some astro photos in the hopefully not too distant future, as the area is a designated Dark Skies Reserve.
We were soon back on the road for an uneventful trip straight past Devil`s Bridge and on to Aberystwyth for a ,by now very late, lunch, only trouble being, where would we find an establishment that would allow what looked like two homeless men being chaperoned by their carers to eat, only one fitted the bill, the infamous home of drunks and cheapskates, a Wetherspoons, were our appearances didn`t even raise an eyebrow and neither did the howls of laughter erupting from our table during our meal.
All that remained was to allow our companions to walk along the promenade and onto the beach before ending our day with a visit to the castle and the long drive back to the Midlands.
The events that should have spoilt a trip and forestalled any further adventures ended up being the catalyst that cemented the sidekick relationship and the starting point for many more misadventures.
All this being said, we have actually had a few trips to this locale since, some even without notable incidents although I struggle to understand how.
After my recovery from surgery we thought it would be a good idea to do Elan on the bikes, and a great day was had by all, barring an incident with a wasp that almost had one rider slapping himself straight into the front of an oncoming Ford Transit. Highlight of that trip was coming across an ad- venture bike rider, all kitted out in the clobber that would have looked the part in the middle of Outer Mongolia as did his fully World Crosser kit on his bike. Now, it may not seem apparent, but both Hobbit and myself possess a strange sense of humour, bordering on the wicked, so we asked the rider to park his adventure bike in the base of the little waterfall so we could get a really good shot of his bike in its designed habitat. His reply could be translated as Go Away I`m not doing that, so chuckling amongst ourselves, and in full view of Mr Adventure, we grabbed Hobbits Harley and put that in place, made a good image but the adventure bike would have been better, which by the end of the impromptu shoot, was the only motorcycle in the entire area that didn`t get its wheels wet. Some folk just don`t see the funny side of things.
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