That heading is a mouthful! But it was a day of so much photography, on a dull and dreary Welsh winter day. We explored areas we knew, and discovered areas we had not been to, and because of that, the photos are quite varied today!
Armed with the Fujifilm X-T3 and XF18-135mm, we walked along the canal at Neath Abbey where we seen some great countryside, as well as a couple of herons! We stopped at Neath Abbey Monastery, which we have visited a number of times, and had our sandwiches. We then moved onto the Iron Works, which was only a short walk away where we also went on a little urban exploration that culminated in an amazing waterfall.
Today I had some amazing photographs straight out of camera, but I decided to edit the raw files in Darktable 3.7. Although for a lot of them I emulated a similar colour palette to what I usually use, I did edit a few in more muted tones, plus in monochrome. There is also a lot more contrast in these than they would have straight from camera.
It was a great day, and I am more than happy with the photographs, especially the waterfall which ended our visit. It was great to see so much, in such a close proximity to each other. I have plenty of images to do some more arty edits too. Let me know what you think of these edits, versus the straight from camera shots I usually put up.
If you liked what you’ve seen, please like, comment and subscribe! Thank you, Mark.
I am a semi-professional photographer who runs a weekly meeting photography group as well as numerous Facebook groups (Great Photography Walks South Wales and Fujifilm Lovers Worldwide Group). I also have a brand-new blog website dedicated to various other things which I like to call The Ramblings Of A Welshman. I hope you can join me there; you might find it interesting!
One Camera One Lens 
lovely images, great contrast in your selection. Would be interesting to know how far you walk in these groups, too. Look forward to more from this corner of Wales.
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Thank you Martin, much appreciated. Was good to get out!
All this was done in around 10,000 steps, and just of that was asking the canal and back to start with. Everything here was within a mile radius at most. And even better, only a 15 minute drive from the house, and the place I grew up in
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Beautiful, I love the waterfall. Maggie
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Thank you very much 🙏
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Lovely. I’ve had the same XF18-135mm lens and truly appreciate its versatility… I pretty much leave it on all the time wherever I go. Your photos are a great showcase for it.
BTW what camera settings do you recall using on the waterfall shots? They’re wonderful.
Ray
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Thank you very much, all the waterfall shots were handheld at various speeds from around 1/8 to around 1/2 plus I did take them up to 1″. All the EXIF is available in the images for each photo to give you the exact settings.
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Hey Mark, the comments say it all, great pictures!
A bit jealous that I don’t live in such a beautiful environment either 🙂
Top shots!
Marc.
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Thank you Marc. Sometimes I don’t appreciate what we have here, because it’s always been here. Hopefully this website and blog will remind in years to come when I look back at it.
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Great images. You’ve shown the depth of the countryside beautifully. Love that waterfall.
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Thank you very much 🙏
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I’m a Councillor for this area and I’ve just discovered your fantastic photos of the waterfall in the Cwm and other locations.
I think your waterfall photos in particular are absolutely fantastic, and probably the best photos taken in this area I’ve ever seen. Excellent work.
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Thank you very much, I appreciate that very much. Growing up in Longford, it was nice to get back to that area!
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