Click on the image for licensing terms
Late spring on the cliffs of Anglesey, and the wild flowers are blooming like crazy, trying to make up for time lost to an unseasonal cold snap.
It's not only the flowers that are going crazy. The cliffs around South Stack are packed with thousands of guillemots, all screaming their heads off at each other as they wheel and dive around their precarious nest sites.
I'm suffering sensory overload as I try and make sense of all this visual and auditory stimulation in a simple photo.
Well I hope I've captured some of the visual treats, but the sound of the birds I'll have to leave to your imagination.
This is one of my favoutite spots to visit and photograph, standing by Ellin's Tower RSPB lookout and facing the always impressive South Stack lighthouse.
The cliffs form a wonderful 'V' shape, framing the lighthouse in a wedge of sea, and on this occasion I've got those wonderful wild flowers at the bottom of the frame as well.
The only problem is that I'm facing the setting sun. Great for shooting sillhouettes, but that's not what I want on this occasion.
No, this time I want exquisite detail in all parts of the scene I'm trying to capture, especially those wonderful flowers.
Fortunately, in this digitial age, I can take multiple exposures of the scene, covering the contrast range right from the bright sky down to the deep shadows, knowing that I can blend them together back home on the computer.
So that's just what I did, with my camera firmly bolted down on my tripod to make sure the framing didn't move between shots, and a cable release fitted to avoid any contact with the camera.
In the end I was very pleased with the result, especially how those wild flowers turned out.
Filename - lighthouse 46.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 22mm
Exposure - Multiple @ f16, ISO100
Location - South Stack, Anglesey, North Wales
This image - 640x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Multiple exposures used to cope with high contrast scene
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2026 unless otherwise stated.