A trip to the north Wales coast is always a photographic adventure, as you never know what the weather is going to do next, despite what the forecast says!
On this particular evening in the middle of June 2024 the skies were supposed to be clear, in-between two weather fronts sweeping in over the Irish Sea from the west.
So I reckoned it was game on for some great time lapse photography featuring a sunset over the huge turbines of the Gwynt-y-Môr offshore windfarm out in Colwyn Bay.
My chosen spot for this expedition was the promenade at Rhyl, one of the closest locations to the turbines and with easy parking so I didn't have to lug my heavy camera bag too far - I must be getting feeble in my old age!
But as sunset approached, the usual bank of cloud formed over the horizon, forcing me to re-think my original intention of zooming in as close as possible to the turbines.
So instead I took in a wider field of view, catching the play of light though the clouds over the horizon and the turbines as the sun slowly sank towards a small gap between two banks of clouds.
But then my attention was drawn to a huge and menacing bank of much stormier clouds sweeping slowly across the whole sky from the east as the next weather front arrived.
So another rethink was called for and I changed lenses to a super wide angle to take in as much of this bank of cloud as I could, which made for a very dramatic second half to this time lapse video.
The sun even obliged with a brief appearance on the horizon, adding a dash of warm light to the otherwise deep blue tones of the storm front.
All in all, quite an evening, even though it wasn't how I'd planned it!
Filename - rhyl sunset timelapse 09
Camera - Canon EOS 6DMK2
Lens (Clip #1) - 24-105mm zoom @ 105mm
Lens (Clip #2) - 17-40mm zoom @ 21mm
Exposure (Start of sequence) - 1/550 sec @ f/4, ISO100
Exposure (End of sequence) - 1/400 sec @ f/5.6, ISO100
Exposure (Clip #3) - 1/13 sec @ f/4, ISO100
Filters - 2 stop neutral density filter used to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the foreground.
Location - Rhyl promenade, North Wales
Music - C Major Prelude - Bach
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 40 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.