In Pictures: Remembering and Recording Caernarfon

A photographer has returned to Caernarfon to help young people record characters and scenes in the town, 21 years after a similar project.

The first Remembering and Recording Caernarfon project in 1984 saw Marian Delyth taking many images herself.

For the 2005 project she involved local school pupils.

The work from both projects is being shown at the Dafydd Hardy gallery as part of Gwynedd Arts Week.

Delyth, from Blaenplwyf, Aberystwyth, answered an advert to take part in the community project in 1984.

"I worked in Caernarfon for a month, setting up a dark room underneath the library," she recalled.

Taking photographs gives many children confidence Marian Delyth, photographer

"The first time round I took many photographs myself, and visited the local camera club, the local pensioners and also young people in the town.

"As the final collection had never been shown I contacted the library and enquired about setting up something similar 20 years later," she said.

This time Delyth visited local primary schools, Ysgol Pendalar special school and Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen secondary school.

Marian Delyth first took photographs of characters and scenes around Caernarfon in 1984. In pictures

She was also joined by poet Iwan Llwyd who worked with the children on verse to accompany their photos.

"The children produced many very good photographs, I though they were fantastic," said Delyth.

"Taking photographs gives many children confidence - they would be more shy of expressing themselves through paint or ink."

Bitter sweet

The experience of coming back to Caernarfon was a bitter-sweet one for the photographer as many of her original subjects had passed away.

"I have been touched by comments made by people who visit the exhibition and see relatives who have died," she said.

"One woman saw an image of her husband when he was young, and told me it was so alive it was almost as if he could walk out of the picture."

"It surprised me more what had not changed though, rather than what had changed," she added.

"The area around the quay looks the same but of course the docs have changed immensely with the Galeri building. The buzz has gone from the Maes area too."