Relaxation and Photography: Our Time in Portmeirion

Dave and I (my long-suffering partner, now husband) chose to start the new year at a place we visited early in our relationship: Portmeirion, a very unique hotel in North Wales.

Since that first visit with Dave, I had visited 3 times; 2014, 2015, and 2018 for Festival No 6. Those first 2 years of the festival were perhaps my favorite festivals ever; the uniqueness of the photos, the mix of the acts, plus the location made for a wonderful festival (before they made it bigger in the final couple of years).

The 2014 festival was one of the first times I used the Fujifilm cameras as my main tools (I was sure there was a post from that year, but I now realize that was on my previous site). At the 2015 festival, I used & reviewed the original 16-55 lens (see here).

Photos taken during the first two years of that festival remain among my favorite images I have taken and are still in my portfoilo.

Anyway I digress..

This stay was 3 nights of pure relaxing. Minimal use of the phone (an occasional Instagram story – not post), no laptops or iPads. One camera; the X100VI (obviously) with a set of Urth filters. Everything was shot in RAW and edited using PureRAW and Lightroom Classic once back home.

During the editing, I made use of the AI selection tools in some of the images (shock horror!), with the system pulling out various parts of the landscape to create separate masks. TBH, I have used them for portraits and people in the past, but this was the first time using them for landscapes.

This was a very new approach for me; usually, I tackle landscapes with filters on the camera and graduated masks in Lightroom.

Overall it worked reallly well, quick and easy to create the masks, I just hope I have not gone overboard in thier use.

Here is a gallery of images from the 2 and a half days in Portmeirion shot on the Fujifilm X100VI. TBH this feels a little like the physical slideshow we had to endure when we were young, each time my grandfather returned from his holidays (with the inevitable projector magazine jam). At least you do not have to click through them all….

One of the lovely consequences of staying at the hotel is that you get to experience the sunrises, sunsets, and “The Village” at night, something the day visitors miss. That said, it is a wonderful place for photographers, very busy during the day with many people walking around with prosumer cameras looking for details and hidden vistas.

The aim was always to convey how it felt to be there rather than just produce a pictorial essay or reportage of the stay. It was a lovely three days making pictures; photographing and sketching.