THREE WELSH CHOPPERS

I'm not often "ready" when it comes to the unexpected photo opportunity. Because I'm not a professional, but merely an "enthusiastic snapper" and I have virtually no knowledge of the technical aspects of taking photographs, I seldom walk around with a camera dangling from my neck (despite the many photographs - usually taken when I'm on holiday - taken of me which seem to prove the opposite) and so, when the moment comes I'm either fumbling around in my pocket looking for a telephone to take a disappointing snapshot with or, even if I am "properly equipped" I either haven't got the right lens on or I'm holding the wrong camera and I get the automatic focus confused or I've got the dial set to a ridiculously inappropriate setting.

So, when I was on holiday recently, it was something of a miracle that on each of the three occasions when the distinctive mechanical sound of an approaching helicopter could be heard, I actually managed to fumble around and point my lens in vaguely the right direction and get a half-decent snapshot of all three.

The first was at South Stack lighthouse where I was busily taking what I imagine will be my only chance of photographing the heck out of the old place having bitten the bullet and trudged the 400 plus steps down to the old place for the first and, presumably, given the way my knees were protesting on the way back up, only time.

From somewhere over the mainland there came that distinctive mechanical rattle and, because I was already busily using the telephoto to grab a few close-ups of the herring gulls, I thought to myself that it would be very nice if the helicopter flew into a position where it might be in the same frame as the lighthouse itself and, as you can see, such a happy event did indeed come to pass.

Later on that same afternoon, on the opposite side of the island, we were photographing the living daylights out of the Penmon Lighthouse for yet another year, presumably so I could store them away with the almost identical set I took the previous year, and the year before that and so on.

Lighthouses are not, actually, an obsession of mine, although I do quite like them, but they do add a lot of "foreground interest" to landscape shots, so it's quite nice to make the most of one if you've got one.

Anyway, the familiar sound of a helicopter engine came spluttering around the headland and, well, once again I found myself thinking that very same thought from the morning, "Wouldn't it be nice if..." and happily, it was obviously my lucky day.

At least as far as helicopters putting themselves into reasonably photogenic proximity to a lighthouse anyway.

The third happened a couple of days later as we were walking through the woods at Newborough. this time we heard the helicopter long before we saw it and I was busily taking far too many of the kind of pictures of trees which always seem like a good idea when I'm taking them, but which can seem utterly pointless a couple of months down the line.

Anyway, I could hear the helicopter and, more in hope rather than expectation, I quietly but swiftly swapped the lenses over on my camera and hoped for the best, raising the viewfinder to my eye just as the helicopter appeared between the treetops and there you go...

Three Welsh Choppers...