Above my Expectations with Gareth Mon

Gareth Mon is a semi-professional photographer and a commercial heating engineer from Anglesey, North Wales. He loves his job as an engineer and is not ready to make the leap to professional photographer status. He spends most of his spare time photographing Snowdonia and Anglesey, day or night and he was last years winner of Weather Photographer of the Year with The Royal Meteorological Society.

"Above my Expectations" by Gareth Mon. Winner of the Weather Photographer of the Year 2019

CameraWorld has spent some time getting to know Gareth and his photographic journey this week!

Behind the Camera with Gareth Mon

"My first camera was a Fujifilm Finepix S4500 bridge camera - it was very basic and easy to use but I soon found it to be very restrictive to what I wanted to achieve. It was the perfect introduction to photography, I guess I owe a lot to this little camera!

I got into photography by accident in 2014, to be honest, whilst on a hangover 'recovery walk' on the coastal path of Anglesey.  I borrowed the Fujifilm Finepix to try and capture shots of our daughter that turned out great but it was the shots of the landscape and the stormy seas made me look twice.

To me photography is an escapism from day to day life, I love the solitude you can have and the adventure it can provide whilst looking for new locations. It really helps with my anxiety as it lets me forget the stresses and strains of life.

At the moment I have a Nikon Z6 with an ftz adapter so that I can use my f mount lenses.
Up until recently I had a D810, which was my pride and joy, but I unfortunately dropped it off the cliffs at Proth Naven in Cornwall whilst trying to capture an Astro shot. A really bad time but luckily I was insured!

My favourite lens was the 14-24mm f2.8 by Nikon... but that was attached to my D810.  Although, the new 20mm f1.8s lens on my Nikon Z6 is really changing my mind!

I definitely plan most of my shots. There is nothing worse to me than to be unprepared for a location.
I often scout locations without a camera to see the lay of the land and look at where light interacts with the location. Planning is very important as it can put me in the optimum spot at the right times however I mostly rely on the weather and the landscapes to inspire me and give me the motivation to go out and capture nature at its best... and at its worst!

My most memorable shot has to be of the temperature inversion I took to win World Weather Photographer of the year. A night of star gazing above the clouds was only something I had dreamed about but to watch the Milky Way rise followed by the moon and then the sunrise - wow - it was like a private viewing of nature that only I was witnessing and invited.

My one piece of advice would be to be patience, the perfect shot rarely happens the first time. Being patient is sometimes the difference between a flat boring image to an image full of dramatic light and atmosphere."

Find out more

To follow Gareth's adventures and find out more about his photography he is connected on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and Twitter