January 2017, and there's a met office warning of snow storms and strong winds over the North Wales coast.
So do my wife Liz and I act like sensible people and stay warm and dry indoors? Of course not!
When it comes to watching and photographing extreme weather there are few better places to do this from the than the West Shore at Llandudno.
Why here exactly?
Well there's so many factors that work together here, such as:
The view is to the west so whatever time of year you visit you can watch the sunset, with winter being the most interesting time as the sun sets to the southwest next to the dramatic headlands of Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan, further along the coast.
The tidal range is huge, up to eight metres, so vast expanses of washed sand become exposed to view twice a day.
The weather is usually very active here, with fronts coming in off the Irish Sea from the west and hitting the mountains just inland causing some dramatic cloudscapes.
And last but not least there's a convenient car park right on the seashore so if things get really bad you can retire to the warmth of your car and watch the show in comfort.
So this particular January afternoon found Liz and I braving the elements on the West Shore at Llandudno, watching in awe as the light of the setting sun lit up the snow storm clouds as they raced by, just offshore, only to hit the coast at Llanfairfechan.
Of course, I couldn't just stay in the car watching, I just had to time lapse this awesome spectacle.
So using the car as a windbreak of sorts, I set my camera up on its tripod, as close to the ground as possible, and set it off recording the stills needed for this timelapse while Liz sensibly stayed in the car with the engine running and the heater on!
After forty minutes of frisky weather, and having been rained on, snowed on and nearly blown off my feet, I had enough images for a decent length of time lapse, and retire gratefully to the car's warmth.
Then it was on to Enoch's at Llandudno Junction for some much needed fish and chips!
A friend of ours who was driving along the A55 coast road past Llanfairfechan to Bangor at the same time later described the conditions she was driving though as 'Snowmageddon', but were we tucking into our fish and chips by then!
Filename - llandudno timelapse 23.mp4
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 50mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 1/60 sec @ f4, ISO100
Exposure (end of sequence) - 1/8 sec @f4, ISO100
Filters - 2 stop neutral density graduated filter used to darken the sky
Shooting interval - 3 seconds
Location - Llandudno, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p 30fps
Clip duration - 22 secs
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