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A storm was brewing up late one afternoon in the summer of 2013, and I was itching to get out and make a time lapse video sequence of clouds streaming towards me over water of some kind.
But where to go?
After consulting with my wife Liz (always a wise move) we decided on a trip to Bala, just inside the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales.
There were two reasons for this, first is that Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid) is a great body of water for photography, and second is that being surounded by mountains, Bala is a great weather trap and there should be some serious cloud action going on for my time lapse video.
So we parked up by the side of the lake, but before we could reach the water we had to cross the Bala Lake Railway, which is a narrow gauge steam powered affair, kept going as a tourist attraction.
I was immediately captivated by the rusting tracks and dilapidated old signals, so before carrying on to the lake to take the stills for my time lapse sequence (watch it on YouTube - link in the menu) I just had to stop and photograph the tracks and signals, with a menacing sky in the background.
Due to the brightness of the sky compared with the foreground I needed three different exposures to capture the entire dynamic range of this scene, with an exposure fusion on Photomatix Pro providing the necessary tonal range across the finished image.
A conversion to monochrome, with a bit of warming and grain added, seemed the most appropriate treatment to bring out the atmosphere of this historic rural scene.
Filename - railway 01.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 28mm
Exposure - various @ f11, ISO100
Location - Llyn Tegid, Bala, North Wales
This image - 569x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Multiple exposures used to cope with dynamic range
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