The photograph I've selected for this month was made just last week. We spent a few days in Anglesey over Easter and were blessed with some wonderful weather; very cold but bright and sunny - hardly a cloud in the sky. Of course, that's not always what I am looking for when it comes to landscape photography (much to J's annoyance) but it does make for a good few days away.
On this evening I set out with the intention of reproducing an image I made of Ynys y Fydlyn a couple of years back. Then, the setting sun had bathed the cliffs in a beautiful, rich glow but a very strong wind and spitting rain made for very difficult conditions and I was frustrated to find an otherwise very nice image spoiled by rain drops on the filter. A bit of judicious cloning was called for but the picture was just not as good as it might have been.
So, with that in mind, we made the short drive to the west coast of the island only to discover that the sun was clearly going to sink into a veil of cloud that seemed to have settled on just that bit of the horizon. Undeterred, we made our way down to the shore but I never quite made it. When I looked across to the Skerries from the path I realised this was the spot I wanted to be. The framing is very deliberate but I have retained more detail in the cliffs than originally envisaged; I had visualised them being in silhouette but when I tried that in post production, they became too black and dominant.
I ended up making only half a dozen exposures from two positions, one a few feet lower on the path than the other. The light changed quite a bit during that 45 minute period but was never better than this, only the second exposure I made. Not at all what I had planned but I'm very happy with the result.
Prints available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk
