There are some great places on the North Wales coast to watch a sunrise or sunset from, but there are few where you can stay in one place and watch both.
The summit of the Great Orme, by Llandudno, is one such. This highly unusual lump of rock is almost an island (a small rise in sea level and it may well be!) sticking out into the Irish sea with panoramic views all around.
Liz and I spent a couple of hours up there recently, with a view to make a timelapse video of the sunset. In the end the video was a bust, nothing much of interest happened as the sun set early into a bank of cloud on the western horizon.
However, although the conditions for video were poor, it was a beautiful evening for still photography, with the clouds on the horizon glowing orange in the twilight, and the new moon chasing the sun down towards the horizon.
An added bonus was the appearance of Venus (bright) and Jupiter (dim) in the same patch of sky as the moon itself.
My main camera (Canon 5D) was tied up taking stills for what became the abortive timelapse video, so just for fun I decided to include it in a shot showing the main elements of interest in the scene before me. For this I used my secondary camera, a Nikon 3100 that I'd won in a competition a few months back and is proving very handy for all sorts of things.
Of course, I took many other photos of this scene on both cameras, but on reviewing the images later, it was this one, taken just for fun, that had the most impact and meaning.
Filename - camera moon planets 01.jpg
Camera - Nikon D3100
Lens - 18-55mm zoom @ 22mm
Exposure - 1/20sec @ f8, ISO800
Location - Great Orme, Llandudno
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Image stabilisation and high ISO used to prevent camera shake
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