Click on the image for licensing terms
For a few days in early May 2016, a brief wave of summer weather washed over our home patch of North Wales.
Determined to make the most of this all too rare opportunity, my wife Liz and I headed over to the beautiful Isle of Anglesey to walk on a few of our favourite beaches.
We started off at Aberffraw on the west coast, strolling on the sand under a blazing afternoon sun.
Great for a paddle but rubbish for any sort of 'grand landscape' photography, although I did manage to snap the odd sand dune and patch of marram grass.
After tea at another of our favourite spots, Porth Trwyn, we headed over to one of the nicest spots to watch a sunset that I know of - Church Bay (or Porth Swtan in welsh).
Church Bay is one of the best spots I know of to watch and photograph a sunset from.
With its west facing position, golden cliffs and beach littered with rocks and pools there's no shortage of lovely views and foreground interest to include in a photographic composition.
I took this particular shot right on the cusp of sunset, with waves rapidly rising around my tripod legs as I waited for the 30 second exposure to finish.
I was quite suprised at how much the tide can move, even in just half a minute!
But why such a long exposure?
Well, I wanted to achieve a feeling of surreal calm in this image, and the long exposure removed most of the wave texture from the surface of the sea, allowing the reflected colours to be seen much more prominently that would have been the case with a 'normal' shutter speed.
To achieve this long exposure I fitted a 6 stop neutral density filter over the lens, together with a 3 stop neutral density graduated filter to darken the sky relative to the sea and rocks.
The sky was really lighting up nicely by now, giving a lovely colour contrast between the orange at the horizon and the reflected cyan in the sea below.
All in all an uplifting experience just to be there and witness such beauty.
Being able to photograph it as well was just a bonus really.
Filename - church bay sunset 02.jpg
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 24mm
Exposure - 30 secs @ f16, ISO100
Location - Church Bay, Anglesey, North Wales
This image - 800x450px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CC
Comments - Tripod, mirror lock up and cable release used to prevent camera movement
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.