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One of the best investments you can make when visiting a new location is undoubtedly an Ordinance Survey map.
My wife Liz bought such a map of the Pembrokeshire National Park a few days before our mini-holiday there in the autumn of 2016 and we spend a couple of happy hours poring over the detail, deciding which remote, end of the road, places we could visit.
Of particular interest to me from a photography point of view are lighthouses, so I was very pleased to find the Strumble Head lighthouse on our map, set in what looked like a really remote and dramatic location, high on a cliff on the north coast.
It was towards the end of our few days' break when we headed north to explore that area of the National Park, and with the help of the map we found the road to the lighthouse with no bother.
Arriving at the overlook I wasn't disappointed with the view, with the lighthouse set imposingly on top of a dramatic and picturesque island just a few metres away from the coast proper.
This area is a bird watching hotspot, and the RSPB had thoughtfully provided a concrete bunker with views all round, including this view of the lighthouse, so I was able to take shelter from the stiff breeze and indulge in a few long exposure images without the risk of camera shake ruining the shot.
A six stop neutral density filter gave me the extended shutter opening time I needed to render the moving sea and clouds into a pleasing blur, while leaving the lighthouse sharply defined as the focal point of this composition.
Back home in post processing I decided that a conversion to monochrome was the way to bring out the mood of this dramatic but bleak scene, especially as the wan colour of the dying grass in the foreground of this image wasn't pleasing to me at all.
Filename - strumble head lighthouse 01.jpg
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 40mm
Exposure - 90 secs @ f22, ISO100
Filters - Six stop neutral density filter used to lengthen exposure and two stop neutral density filter used to darken the sky.
Location - Strumble Head, Pembrokeshire, Wales
This image - 800x533pxpx JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop
Comments - Tripod, mirror lockup and remote shutter release used to prevent camera movement
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