With weather systems battling it out overhead, the North Wales coast is a fantastic place to watch and experience some great cloud action.
One of the best spots, with its west facing aspect, is the West Shore beach at Llandudno, where you can catch the sunset all year round.
My wife Liz and I often end up here at the end of a day spend exploring the beauties of the Snowdonia National Park, to enjoy a takeaway coffee and watch the sunset.
On this occasion however, my hopes of seeing and photographing the sunset were dashed by a bank of heavy cloud covering the western horizon, and with a chilly stiff breeze blowing I wasn't that keen on setting up my camera to record a time lapse sequence.
But with half an hour to spare while drinking coffee, I thought I might as well make some sort of effort, so spurred on by Liz I set the camera up for a time lapse shoot, fitting a 10 stop neutral density filter to really slow the exposure down and blur the movement of the waves which were rather vigorous.
Nothing much happened for the first fifteen minutes, and I was on the verge of packing everything away when I noticed some colour starting to appear on the underside of the clouds streaming by overhead as the setting sun found a gap in the clag just below the horizon.
So I left the camera clicking away just to see what would happen when all of a sudden the sky caught fire in a coruscating display of orange red and gold.
Liz and I watched amazed at the show of light and colour, which lasted for quite some time before gradually fading away to the greys and blues of twilight.
It just goes to show that it's always worth making an effort, as you never know what might happen in the skies over North Wales!
Filename - clouds timelapse 15.mp4
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 17mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 2 secs @ f4, ISO400
Exposure (end of sequence) - 2 secs @ f4, ISO3200
Filters - 10 stop neutral density filter used to slow the exposure time and blur the wave movement. 2 stop neutral density graduated filter used to balance the light levels between sky and land.
Shooting interval - 3 seconds
Location - Llandudno West Shore, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p 30fps
Clip duration - 18 secs
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