It was March 7th, 2023. We were excited about the arrival of spring. Then it snowed.
The Gower peninsula (south Wales) is not used to snow. The schools had been closed and people were cautiously heading outside to play in the white fields. Most weren’t willing to brave the roads, and so I grabbed my camera (Sony A7 IV with Sigma 24-70mm 2.8) and jumped in my four-wheel-drive car.
Llangennith was dead but for one other pair of brave hikers. The wind was biting and nipped at my skin, finding its way up my jacket and into my gloves.
Rhossili was a little busier, the snow having already turned to slush.
I grew up on Gower and have lived here most of my life. But this is probably only the second time I can ever remember seeing snow like this. The last time would have been around 15 years ago. I think it was either Christmas Eve or Boxing Day and I was in the water surfing, testing out my new wetsuit. Must have been mad.
I’m glad I made the effort. Who knows when Gower will see snow again?
Camera Talk
I shot all of these with my Sony A7 IV with Sigma 24-70mm 2.8. I needed something weather sealed, so this setup made the most sense. I shot everything in jpeg, sent my favourites to my phone and tweaked them a bit there.
More and more I’m finding this is the best way for me to shoot and edit and share quickly. If I shoot RAW, the reality is that the images go onto my hard drive and stay there forever more. And if I’m honest, I can’t see there’s any shift in quality. If anything I prefer my jpegs as I seem to over-edit my RAW images.
Still love shooting with my Fujifilm cameras, so it’s not that I’ve “switched” to Sony full-time. It’s nice having different tools for different jobs.
[…] Back in March I posted a photo journal depicting scenes of Gower smothered in snow. Beautiful, of course, but not exactly inviting. […]