Myself and my partner visited
Caernarfon in March 2016 with plans to visit as many of the
local castles and other places of interest as we could fit
into our week long break. This included romping up Mount
Snowdon but alas the weather was not kind - it did show
promise when we arrived but very quickly reverted to low
cloud, rain and high winds :( sigh....
'Across
the Valley' was actually shot on our drive home along the A5
about 20 minutes outside Caernarfon so isn't in fact Mount
Snowdon. We kep an eye out for interesting locations and
managed to pull into a lay-by on the A5 a mile or so before
the dramatic Llyn Ogwen Lake, which according to legend is the
resting place of King Arthur's sword 'Excalibur'.
A search
on Google maps has let me to the conclusion that the mountain
in this print is 'Mynydd Perfedd' and as you can see the peak
was obscured by fairly low clouds. According to Wikipedia this
peak stands at 812 meters and has a shelter cain at the top
offering good views of Foel Goch and the Carneddau - I didn't
get to find out for myself but it sure is pretty from the
ground.
This print
as with all of my HDR photographs was processed in Photomatix
Pro, and was tone mapped using 3 separate images... 1
underexposed, 1 overexposed and 1 in between, each with a full
stop exposure separation from it's neighbour.
The sun was breaking through the
clouds and lit up the valley floor beautifully so the
resulting tone mapped image was tweaked to give this more
prominence. The clouds were given a slight tinge of blue and
darkened just a touch in order to produce a moody sky which
contrasts against the foreground and the centre of the valley.
Finally the foliage in the front was emphasized by increasing
the saturation given foreground interest and helping lead the
eye through the shot to the sunlight valley.
I still
have several photos taken in Snowdonia to work on, but do plan
to return early next year to shoot more of the Snowdonia
mountains. If you're a photographer and want to capture some
of these remarkable landscapes then can wholeheartedly
recommend a visit. Take a monopod with you in case of low
light which will assist with steadying the camera at low
shutter speeds and also double up as a walking stick. |
