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There are so many dramatic and beautiful scenes in the Snowdonia National Park, North Wales, that it's sometimes difficult to know where to explore next.
One important factor to consider is the weather, as some aspects of the landscapes look better with flat, grey lighting (for example, waterfalls and foliage details).
But for the larger landscape which include a slice of sky, the weather, lighting and time of day are crucial to make the scene 'sing' in a photograph.
For instance, this image looking over the waters of Llyn Mymbyr towards the peaks of the Snowdon Horseshoe is one of the most photographed views in Snowdonia, but look at it under a flat, grey overcast sky and this potentially stunning view looks pretty miserable.
But wait for the clouds to part, as my wife Liz and I did during a hike around the lakeshore one stormy evening in July, and you can be rewarded with some really wonderful light.
The shafts of light that form the basis of this composition only lasted a minute or so as the hole in the clouds overhead tracked from south to north (left to right in the picture), so I was glad I had my cmaera set up and ready to go at a moment's notice.
Back home reviewing the chosen RAW file that I'd captured, the original colour rendition of the fleeting light lacked a certain impact, and didn't convey the dramatic mood of the moment in Snowdonia.
But with a conversion to monochrome and a few other tweaks in Adobe Lightroom I was able to release the drama that I felt at the time back into the final rendered image.
Filename - llyn mymbyr 16
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 105mm
Exposure - 1/500 sec @ f8, ISO100
Filters - 2 stop neutral density filter used to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the land.
Location - Llyn Mymbyr, Snowdonia, North Wales
Image enhancements - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Image underexposed slightly to preserve highlight in the clouds.
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