A brief break in the snow and cold of an early morning in February 2019 gave me the opportunity I needed to get out for a bit of a climb and photography session before work.
So I was up and away at 4am, heading for my local hill, Moel Famau, the highest point in the Clwydian Range Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
My initial thought was to climb to the top of Moel Famau, but just attempting to scramble a few metres up the path, slipping and sliding on the ice covered stones in the sub-zero conditions, put paid to that idea!
So instead I decided to use the two hour climbing time to shoot this time lapse sequence instead, looking back towards the slopes of Foel Fenlli on the other side of the saddle valley.
The night sky was quite brightly lit with moving clouds sweeping overhead, glowing in the reflected streetlights of the towns and villages below, while stars peeped out from the blackness between the clouds.
And this juxtaposition of elements provided me with all the action I needed for a somewhat mesmerising video, with the yellow of the clouds constrasting with the deep blue of the night sky above, and the clouds themselves moving fast in the opposite direction to the much slower moving stars.
I kept on filming as, first of all, we hit astronomical twilight, and then on into nautical twilight, only stopping when the light in the sky started to blow the highlights on my camera's preset exposure level.
So although I didn't manage to climb very far, I certainly had a wonderful couple of hours in the mountains.
I even saw a couple of shooting stars!
Filename - clwydians night timelapse 01.mp4
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 23mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 6 secs @ f4, ISO6400
Exposure (end of sequence) - 6 secs @ f4, ISO6400
Filters - None.
Shooting interval - 6 seconds
Location - Clwydian Range AONB, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps
Clip duration - 32 seconds
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