Coedwig Gwyllt
I have visited the ancient oak woodland, known as Coed Ty Canol in the Preseli Hills above Newport, literally hundreds of times, over the last 10 years, or so. It is a magical place.
The woodland sits in a National Nature Reserve and is a SSSI. Many of the stunted oaks are over 800 years old, and over 400 species of lichen, some of them incredibly rare, have been identified. Ty Canol is a fragment of ancient temperate rainforest. In the fabulous book "The Lost Rainforests of Britain" by Guy Shrubsole, there is a definition of a rainforest: "a place where shit grows on shit, growing on more shit". Coed Ty Canol is definitely a rainforest!
For a long time, I found it extremely difficult to make photographs here, the place is just so chaotic. I actually stopped trying for a long time, and just went, walked, and looked. Over time, and with the insight that familiarity brings, I have begun to make photos of this most special of places. Visiting has become an obsession and it is not uncommon for me to go two or three times a week, in the winter. I still find photographing this place a real challenge. But that is good!
Other photographers who have undertaken similar woodland projects have relied heavily, or even exclusively, on mist & fog as a device to simplify the scene and try to add a layer of mystery. In fact this is now done so often that it is, to me, a bit of a cliche and, to be honest, boring. I have never visited Ty Canol in foggy conditions! Partly because it very rarely seems to get foggy there, and partly because I have actively avoided times when fog might be a possibility: I have no interest in producing yet another misty trees image; the world does not need any more!
The project is ongoing, and I reckon that at the time of writing (March 2023), I have about another year to go. I have made some of the images available as prints, but ultimately, the finished product will be a book giving a visual narrative of this amazing rainforest. The title will be "Coedwig Gwyllt" - Wild Wood. This place is uniquely Welsh, and bound up with Welsh folklore and legend as told in the Mabinogion. So, it is very important to me that the title of the book project is Welsh.
A selection of images is shown below, and I hope they give a flavour of this ancient (Ty Canol was already old when the adjacent Pentre Ifan was constructed 5,500 years ago!) and mystical landscape.
The woodland sits in a National Nature Reserve and is a SSSI. Many of the stunted oaks are over 800 years old, and over 400 species of lichen, some of them incredibly rare, have been identified. Ty Canol is a fragment of ancient temperate rainforest. In the fabulous book "The Lost Rainforests of Britain" by Guy Shrubsole, there is a definition of a rainforest: "a place where shit grows on shit, growing on more shit". Coed Ty Canol is definitely a rainforest!
For a long time, I found it extremely difficult to make photographs here, the place is just so chaotic. I actually stopped trying for a long time, and just went, walked, and looked. Over time, and with the insight that familiarity brings, I have begun to make photos of this most special of places. Visiting has become an obsession and it is not uncommon for me to go two or three times a week, in the winter. I still find photographing this place a real challenge. But that is good!
Other photographers who have undertaken similar woodland projects have relied heavily, or even exclusively, on mist & fog as a device to simplify the scene and try to add a layer of mystery. In fact this is now done so often that it is, to me, a bit of a cliche and, to be honest, boring. I have never visited Ty Canol in foggy conditions! Partly because it very rarely seems to get foggy there, and partly because I have actively avoided times when fog might be a possibility: I have no interest in producing yet another misty trees image; the world does not need any more!
The project is ongoing, and I reckon that at the time of writing (March 2023), I have about another year to go. I have made some of the images available as prints, but ultimately, the finished product will be a book giving a visual narrative of this amazing rainforest. The title will be "Coedwig Gwyllt" - Wild Wood. This place is uniquely Welsh, and bound up with Welsh folklore and legend as told in the Mabinogion. So, it is very important to me that the title of the book project is Welsh.
A selection of images is shown below, and I hope they give a flavour of this ancient (Ty Canol was already old when the adjacent Pentre Ifan was constructed 5,500 years ago!) and mystical landscape.
