This was a commission for a military charity, working alongside the film production company Version 1.02, tasked with creating a remembrance film. The brief called for a remembrance service on the summit of Pen y Fan, an 882m mountain in the Brecon Beacons National Park, South Wales. My role was to take the stills.
We travelled down to South Wales the evening before, in early October, staying in a local youth hostel rather than a hotel. With a 0430 start planned, a hotel seemed an unnecessary expense. Sunrise promised the best light and the fewest members of the public, so we aimed to reach the summit around dawn.
I met the charity representative, two veterans and two army padres in the car park at the foot of Pen y Fan, in the dark and the rain. We reached the summit shortly before sunrise, and with strong winds and driving rain, sheltered in the lee of some rocks.
Sunrise never appeared, and the light barely improved. The padres had flasks of tea and biscuits, shared round, and once refreshed, we moved on to the service.
The wind and rain hadn’t let up. Wreaths needed weighing down with rocks to stop them blowing away, and the service had to be read by head torch. Despite the conditions, the occasion remained deeply moving.
Photography and filming were difficult in the weather, especially for the film crew managing sound. I used a small video light rather than flash, in case a flash was mistaken for a distress signal, and managed a handful of images. My compact camera earned its place that morning, since changing lenses in the wind and rain wasn’t an option. The photograph above captures the moment despite the conditions and low light, better than no photograph at all.
In an ideal world, we’d have rearranged the shoot for better weather, but everyone involved had other commitments, and this date was the only one available.
Rain continued as we descended, and we went our separate ways at the cars. True to Wales, the clouds cleared and the sun came out about an hour later, while I ate breakfast in Brecon.