Love Liverpool

 I have a little more time on my hands now and so there is a very good chance I will be getting out and about a lot more which can only be a good thing.

Earlier this week as the conditions were pretty good I decided to head into Liverpool for a couple of hours to see whether I could capture anything good. As you can see from the pictures above, the sky was crisp and clear, there was ice on the dock and a definite chill in the air (not quite the coldest day of the year but pretty close to it).

I firstly went down to the waterfront to photograph the architecture around the docks before heading back through town where I captured a few shots of people going about their business in the run up to Christmas, so I have a fair bit to work on and to share.

It is a while since I have been down to the waterfront and I had not realised how popular it has become for people to affix padlocks to the chain link fence around the docks. You can see from the above pictures that it has definitely become "a thing" here in Liverpool as it has in other cities all over. For the effect I think I like the locks in the third image as they go all along the riverside where I think the sheer volume of them has more impact. 

However, although there are currently fewer locks along the dockside fences they do create a fantastic frame for the buildings in the background. In these images the main building is the Museum of Liverpool which is itself a stunning building. I will be sharing some more shots of the museum in the coming days.

Bird Bath

 We have had some pretty cold and wet weather recently, and we are currently in the grip of storm Christoph with strong winds, heavy rain and high flood risk. 

Just a few days ago many parts of the country experienced snow and freezing temperatures and while it might be nice to see a bit of snow I was pleased that we didn't get any. It was still pretty cold though as these pictures show. The water on our bird feeder had frozen and around the edges of the water bowl these amazing patterns had formed. The crystals were growing downwards but turning them upwards they look rather like trees, an icy conifer forest perhaps.

The formation in the first image actually made me think of a slug or some other exotic mollusc but then again maybe I am just a bit weird...

That's Nice!

Today's selection of pictures were taken last week on my trip to Snowdonia. Surrounded by mountains, lakes and big skies you might expect me to focus on the larger landscape but in the ice and frost there is a great deal of beauty in the little things. Like these frozen dewdrops and ice crystals on the grass.

I had to get down on my knees in the frosty grass to get these images and I was glad to have a mat to kneel on.

I love the different shapes of the dewdrops, some even had their own icicles and rather than a smooth surface as I had expected they all had a veined appearance and you can see the individual crystals that make up the frost which from a higher perspective looks like a solid white coating. Simply beautiful.

On The Ice

While most of my colleagues and all of my family had returned to work on January 2nd I was lucky enough to still have a few days off so I headed off to Snowdonia early in the morning for a walk in the mountains and of course to take one or two pictures.

It was a cold morning and I had to scrape ice off my car before setting off, the temperature was showing as -3 celcius, the sky was clear and there were lots of stars on display which to me were all good signs. You may think that sounds odd but it was exactly the conditions I was hoping for.

I arrived at the base of Tryfan just after sunrise with the temperature now showing -4 degrees so I wrapped up and set off up the path to Llyn Ydwal where I was hoping to capture some great reflections of Pen Yr Olwen which was glowing in the early morning sun.

On the way up there are a number of small streams and as the temperature dropped even further  it was unsurprising that the streams had a covering of ice which I couldn't help but photograph for the amazing patterns that had formed.

I had a great day out and I also got the shots I had gone for so look out for those in the coming days but for today enjoy the three icy shots above.