Across the Valley

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.