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Located at a latitude of 53 degrees north, Llandudno, on the North Wales coast, enjoys a huge seasonal change in the direction of sunrise and sunset.
In the winter months the sun sets to the southwest, and in the summer months the sunset swings around to the northwest.
The great thing about Llandudno's West Shore, where this photo was taken, is that you can see the sunset all through the year and get a different experience as the seasons roll by.
This particular sunset was pictured close to midsummer, with the sun setting behind the Great Orme limestone headland, about as far to the northwest as it gets.
Couple the sunset with a receding tide and there's a large expanse of fresh wet sand available to reflect those rich twilight colours as the sun dips below the horizon for another day.
To make the most of this scene, with its lovely colours and reflections, I went right down to the water's edge and plonked my tripod firmly into the sand to allow for a long exposure to blur the waves and allow the sea as well as the sand to pick up on the warmth of the hues now lighting up the clouds on the horizon.
Due to the high level of ambient light I used a 10 stop neutral density filter to slow the exposure right down, but that still left me with the problem of excessive brightness in the sky compared to the beach.
Normally I would also use a neutral density graduated filter to darken the sky, but as I also wanted to retain some shadow detail on the side of the Great Orme, that wasn't really an option.
So I ended up taking five separate exposures, each one stop apart, to make sure I captured the full tonal range of the scene before me.
These exposures where then put through an HDR (high dynamic range) blend in Adobe Lightroom, which resulted in an image file that had detail in the brightest and darkest parts of the frame.
A few more tweaks in Lightroom to enhance contrast and colour palette and there was a final image that expressed the beauty and drama of that midsummer sunset by the sea.
Filename - llandudno west shore 12.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 28mm
Exposure - Various @ f11, ISO100
Location - Llandudno West Shore, North Wales
This image - 800x450px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Multiple HDR exposure blend
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