May has been a very busy month in all aspects! I finished my final two presentations and an exam for university, had a fleeting visit back home to the Lake District, squeezed in some work experience and even managed a walk or two! I won't bore you with all the details for uni but I only have one essay and my dissertation left to do! This month has been great as I have been able to relax somewhat and I've started having more time free to do whatever I want! The weather has unfortunately had other ideas… but I made sure I did plenty of work when it was raining so I had time to get out with my camera!
I climbed Pen Y Fan, the tallest mountain in the Brecon Beacons, this month and I only complained a little bit! It was lovely to get out and explore an area of Wales I didn't really know, I even enjoyed the 45 minute bus journey there and back for the views out of the window! I haven't climbed a mountain in a looooong time but me and my friends knew we had to take advantage of living so close to the Brecon Beacons that we had to do it before we left! We even made a friend along the way which was really nice to enjoy such beautiful surroundings with someone else for the first time! The weather wasn't the nicest, but in all honesty I'd still be climbing it now if was any hotter! We had a picnic at the top despite being windy, got our tourist pictures at the top and then headed back down before we got mixed in a charity group who were walking up AND down the mountain 10 times!
I also had another visit back home to the Lakes - it was my mum's birthday so I went up for the weekend to help her celebrate! It was lovely to see her and other family members and we went on some lovely walks around our local area again and found even more geocaches! It was nice to have a weekend away when there was some sunshine so we could go out and explore! It was nice going around familiar places, particularly a walk around Half Penny as last time was later in the summer so everything was starting to bloom rather than embracing the last of the better weather.
When the weather was nice I managed to get out on a few walks exploring around the Treforest and Pontypridd area! It's been nice to be able to take a break from studying and finally wander through woodlands, fields and public footpaths which I've seen from train journeys! A lot of the time I would visit one place and then go again a few days later but go down trails which I had an idea of where they led to! I even found a Highland Cow up on the common behind my house! I know you see them outside of Scotland as there many back in Cumbria, but I was extremely surprised to walk upon one in a random town in Wales of all places!
A good thing about having the nicer weather and slowly being freed of my university work is that I've been able to experiment and understand my camera better. In all honesty I usually just fluke a photograph and majority of my gallery is taken on a simple point and shoot. I've found with my DLSR I work a lot better in understanding settings and using the zoom/lenses with more flare when I am out in nature. It was also great to use my camera at home in settings which were familiar to me as to understand how my DLSR compares to my old camera. I really need to invest in some new lenses but I feel I should know the basics of my camera in and out beforehand - I have noticed if I have a break away from photography sometimes I have to take a few extra seconds to figure out the settings when a photo isn't quite right because sometimes I revert to some point and shoot habits of the past.
I can't wait for summer so I can share so many more photographs of the places I love with you guys! Hopefully you guys are excited too!
