Click on the image for licensing terms
Early afternoon on the beach at Porth Dafarch on the wonderful island of Anglesey just off the North Wales coast, and the sun is beating down on a fine Autumn day.
Fine for getting a tan you might think, but not so good for photography, with high contrast and washed out colours rendering the 'big' scene pretty awful in terms of lighting.
Normally I wouldn't consider attempting landscape photography under such conditions, preferring instead to wait for the softer light of the golden hour just before sunset, but the patterns left by a tidal pool draining out to sea were catching the direct light in a most attractive way, so I decided to try and make something of the situation.
There was no point in trying anything other than an abstract composition, comprising the light and dark patterns formed by the direct sunlight reflecting off the sand, so that's what I did, and I was rather glad I did as the outcome, especially once I'd reduced the exposure to preserve the highlights, was most attractive and enignmatic.
This could be the surface of another planet photographed from space, rather than a Welsh holiday beach.
Filename - sand ripples 05.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 98mm
Exposure - 1/160sec @ f11, ISO100
Location - Porth Dafarch, Anglesey, North Wales
This image - 800x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - -0.7ev exposure compensation used to preserve highlights.
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.