Looking for an outdoor photography location that has everything?
You need look no further than the iconic lighthouse, nestled on a small island at the base of the magnificent sea cliffs at South Stack on the beautiful Isle of Anglesey, just off the North Wales coast.
Not only does this amazing place boast stunning scenery, it's also home to thousands of sea bird which nest on the cliffs and send up an amazing racket during the spring breeding season.
An RSPB center at Ellin's Tower, just a short walk from the lighthouse, provides excellent viewing facilities and knowledgeable volunteers if bird watching is your thing.
Bird photography isn't my thing (at least not yet - I haven't the patience for it!), but filming changeable skies over stunning scenery certainly is, which is why I'm drawn to the cliffs of South Stack right throughout the year.
You see, at a latitude of 53ºN the sunset position swings through an arc of 84º between the winter and summer solstices, and all of these sunset angles are visible from the cliffs at South Stack, so you can turn up any time of year here and get a different sunset view.
Couple that with the extremely changeable weather blowing over the Irish Sea and you'll never see the same scene twice.
On this occasion in early May 2023, my wife Liz and I had enjoyed a lovely day out exploring some of our favourite beauty spots on Anglesey, and decided to wind up at South Stack for me to film this time lapse video of the sunset.
Conditions were 'interesting', with a chilly breeze blowing over the cliffs and light clouds partially masking the light of the sun as it made its way downwards over the lighthouse towards the western horizon.
However, as the sun sank lower, a bank of thicker cloud moved in and completely hid the sun so I called it a day, chilled to the bone after two hours filming the nearly 2,000 still images required to create just these few seconds of time lapse video.
I was very glad of the hot cup of coffee from Liz's flask before we headed back down from South Stack to begin the drive home, but well worth the time and effort to capture such a beautiful few moments.
Filename - south stack sunset timelapse 04
Camera - Canon EOS 6DMK2
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 26mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 1/1000 sec @ f/4, ISO100
Exposure (end of sequence) - 1/40 sec @ f/4, ISO100
Filters - 2 stop neutral density graduated filter used to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the foreground.
Shooting interval - 4 seconds
Music - The Closing Of Summer - Asher Fulero
Location - South Stack, Anglesey, North Wales
Video processing - Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Premiere Pro
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 33 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2023 unless otherwise stated.