The last gasp of sunlight finds its way through a crack in the clouds on the western horizon as I stand by my tripod in the semi-darkness on the beach at Church Bay on the beautiful island of Anglesey.
I'd come here in the spring of 2014 after a day touring Snowdonia shooting thousands of stills for various timelapse videos I was making, and was hoping to repeat the exercise with a nice sunset.
However, it was not to be, with full on cloud cover and a light drizzle over my scene.
It was semi-dark when a sliver of red light appeared right on the horizon as the sun was dipping into the sea, and things suddenly got very busy camera-wise.
I knew I only had seconds to take a meaningful photo before the light disappeared, so I quickly selected a rock of interesting shape and texture to place in the foreground of my composition.
Fortunately for me Church Bay is strewn with interesting rocks so finding this example wasn't hard.
With hardly any light, shutter speed was a lengthy twenty seconds, ideal for producing that lovely blurred appearance to the sea that lent a tranquil ambiance to the scene.
I only managed a couple of exposures before the sun dipped below the horizon and that red streak of light faded to grey.
Filename - rock sea 07.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 67mm
Exposure - 20secs @ f22, ISO100
Location - Church Bay, Anglesey, North Wales
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Tripod, mirror lock up and cable release used to prevent camera movement
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