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It's amazing now often there's beauty to be found in the skies over our heads.
Walking along the promenade at Llandudno with my wife Liz, just enjoying the seaside sights and sounds under a relatively sunny sky, I happened to look up and see these waves of high altitude cirrus clouds forming diagonal stripes in the heavens.
Partially obscured by the cirrus, a pale crescent moon shone like a tiny jewel. A solitary point in a sea of movement.
Having spotted this opportunity, and with my Canon 6D slung over my shoulder, it was the work of just a few moments to zoom out, frame the clouds and moon as I wanted, rotate the polariser to darken the blue sky and take this shot.
Fast forward six months and I'm going through my backlog of unlooked at images (it's amazing how quickly these build up!) when I noticed this particular frame as it stood out on my Lightroom light table.
I was entranced by the composition, seeing the potential for a final image that would be rich in ethereal beauty and visual metaphor.
I spent quite some time developing and enhancing this image to bring out the delicate shape and detail in the clouds, converting to monochrome in the process to further emphasise shape and form.
What makes this image special for me is the juxaposition of moon and clouds, a metaphor of the eternal and unchanging (moon) contrasting with the fleeting and transitory (clouds).
Sort of a comparison between our brief lives here on earth and the eternity that awaits us all.
Filename - moon clouds 01.jpg
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 105mm
Exposure - 1/125 sec @ f11, ISO100
Location - Llandudno, North Wales
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom CC
Comments - Polarising filter used to darken sky
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