The Head of Pitt

Suddenly it wasn't raining anymore. There were even areas of blue sky so I jumped in the car and drove to Rhyd Ddu in time to catch the 12:20 train to Port. Most of the shots that are still outstanding from the WHR postcard are views from the train so this was an opportunity to get at least half of them in the bag.

Having arrived in plenty of time I set up at the Port end of the platform so that I would catch the arriving train from Port and also the Caernarfon train. The clouds were moving about very quickly making the light levels change all the time so getting the exposure right was going to be a bit hit and miss, you can see the cloud shadows running along the platform in the shot of 143 coming in from Porthmadog.

Anyway, once the trains pulled into the platform I climbed aboard and found a space in the open coach where I could set up the tripod on the road side of the train and I also had room to get to the doors to get shots looking forward and backwards going hand held. The sky was blue and off we went. I've put the bits I got into the postcard and they fit nicely, Now I need to do the same thing from Caernarfon to Rhyd Ddu and add in a few more lineside shots and it will be done.

Here is a package of the shots I took from Rhyd Ddu to Pitts Head road bridge. You can clearly see the silhouette of his face as the road rises up to pass over the railway, I've pointed it out in the video. Apparently it isn't Pitt anyway but a much older representation of a local poet... or so I've heard, looks like a bloke with a pointy nose anyway!

Only a few seconds of this footage will make it onto the postcard but it never harms to have too much footage to cut the best bits from.

Big grey clouds  looming overhead but carefully framed out of the video