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The welsh coast in January can be a forbidding and gloomy place, and so it proved to be during our family get together in a farmhouse near to Abersoch on the Llyn Peninsula.
In a brief respite from the rain, the more outdoorsy of us headed along the coast a little way to Porth Ysgo, with the teenagers wanting to explore the caves there, and me wanting to finally photograph the waterfall that cascades down the cliff face and empties out onto the beach.
And that's where all that gloom and overcast came into its own, as the perfect flat dull lighting required to photograph moving water free from the problem of blown highlights that you get on a sunny day.
Another advantage to the wet weather was that the waterfall was pretty full and energetic, with little side rills adding to the overall effect of falling water and providing much needed streaks of highlight through the mass of dark rock either side of the main body of the falls.
Yet another advantage of the dull conditions was that I was able to use a longish shutter speed to blur the water, but not too much to obscure details in the flow.
All in all, a horrible day for a family trip to the seaside, but a great day for photographing these picturesque falls.
Back home, sat in front of my computer screen contemplating this image, I didn't like the small patches of mangy yellow scrub grass clinging to the rocks around the base of the falls.
So a conversion to monochrome was the order of the day, which added to, and clarified, the beauty of the falls by removing the distracting patches of yellow and heightening the contrast between water and rock.
Filename - waterfall porth ysgo 01.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 73mm
Exposure - 2 secs @ f22, ISO100
Location - Porth Ysgo, Llyn Peninsula, Wales
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Tripod, mirror lockup and cable release used to prevent camera movement
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