People are generally mistaken when they say that no crops grow on the high ground in the Brecon Beacons. There are three: Sheep for mutton and wool, Welsh Ponies often bred into the horse stock to keep the gene pool broader, and lumber. And in sheltered areas, lumber can grow very tall.

This was taken on the road to Merthyr, just near the Storey Arms. The forest had been cleared next to the road, and all of a sudden the boundary between managed commercial woodland and the rest of the world wasn't dense foliage, but a sharp delination, like this.

I confess that I did use some digital manipulation. The trees were tall (about 80') and I was unable to get back far enough, nor did I have a long enough lens for the trees to be vertical, like this - they always keystoned as I was, by neccesity, looking up at them. The image has been tweaked to make them all vertical.

A 50' foot zip-up tower would have helped to make them vertical in-camera, but A) I didn't have one, and B) building one on the main road to Cardiff probably wouldn't have made me very popular.

Mamiya 7, Tmax 400, 150mm lens


Selected pictures can also be viewed on my Instagram feed