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Twilight, a clear sky to the west, and a North Wales beach - surely a recipe for visual delights and the chance for some graphic photography.
This is the beach at Llanfairfechan, a vast expanse of sand that is washed twice a day by a tidal range of up to 8 metres, leaving behind smooth sand and extensive tidal pools.
I was intrigued by the shapes of the wavelets in this run off stream, emanating from one of those tidal pools, as they caught the last of the light from the darkening sky, and decided to make an image that featured the play of light and dark on the textured surface of the water, framed as it was by sandbanks on either side.
After playing with various shutter speeds, I eventually ended up at four seconds, which gave me the combination of smoothing and shape retention that I was after.
Another juxtaposition I wanted to acheive in this picture was the contrast in colour temperature between the warm orange of the sky on the western horizon, still directly lit from the set sun, and the cool blue tones that that water and sand were picking up from the dark sky overhead.
Although this colour contrast wasn't immediately apparent to my naked eye, with it's auto white balance, the camera's sensor had no trouble in picking up the vibrant tones which so characterise this time of the day.
All in all, a lovely evening at a lovely location.
Filename - llanfairfechan beach 02.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 28mm
Exposure - 4 secs @ f16, ISO200
Location - Llanfairfechan, North Wales
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS6
Comments - 3 stop ND grad filter used to reduce brightness of the sky.
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