Prestatyn, on the North Wales coast, has been enjoying a bit of a renaissance recently, with revamped promenade and leisure facilities amongst other improvements.
And with easy parking right on the promenade, Prestatyn has become a favourite place for my wife Liz and I to spend a couple of hours when the fancy takes us, as it's just half an hour's drive from our home.
As well as the promenade, Prestatyn has a huge sandy beach, with groynes and breakwaters to enjoy photographing when the tide is out.
Being north facing, this part of the coast is also great for sunset photography during the summer months, with those handy bits of beach architecture being ideally placed to set against the glowing skies.
And such was my intention this evening in early June 2023, as I set my camera up on the sea wall, hoping to catch a sunset over the beach.
But with a layer of cloud hovering over the horizon, too thick for the sun to penetrate, I thought this time lapse video shoot was going to be a bust.
I was just on the point of packing my gear away when a point of sunlight appeared in a small gap in the clouds, so I rushed to re-frame my composition, concentrating on placing the post at the end of a breakwater in just the right spot relative to the sun, and started shooting the few hundred frames needed to create just these few seconds of video.
The sun didn't stay visible for long, and I was just about to stop shooting when this incredible mauve glow started to spread across the bank of cloud, so I left the camera firing away to see what would happen.
And I'm so glad I did, as we were treated to a most beautiful and subtle display of light and colour in the clouds above the horizon.
So it just goes to show that you never quite know what's in store when you don't give up!
Filename - prestatyn sunset timelapse 06
Camera - Canon EOS 6DMK2
Lens - 100-400mm zoom @ 220mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 1/6 sec @ f/5, ISO100
Exposure (end of sequence) - 1/6 sec @ f/5, ISO100
Filters - None.
Shooting interval - 2 seconds
Music - Kiss the Sky - Aakash Gandhi
Location - Prestatyn, North Wales
Video processing - Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Premiere Pro
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 14 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2023 unless otherwise stated.