24 hours on Anglesey.

[Wayland]

You know how it is when an idea starts nagging at you.

I’ve been thinking that I needed some new challenges and one that I have been looking at for a while is combining astro-photography with landscape.

One place that had impressed me with it’s dark skies in the past was Anglesey with a shoot at Penmon Point sticking in my mind particularly.

So with a new camera to hand but not much free time I set out having researched a few fresh locations for a 24 hour shoot starting with dawn at Treath Dulas.

There are the hulls of couple of old fishing boats stranded on the mud of the estuary here and though I had hoped to photograph both of them, on the morning I could only gain access to the one closest to the shore.
Dawn broke slowly but with not much colour but my day started well enough with this shot.



Parys Mountain is an abandoned copper mine which did much for the prosperity of the island in the past but fell into disuse due to the falling price of metals on the World market.

I had seen footage of the place on a TV documentary and had noted it as being worth a visit on my next trip into the area.

There are a few promising ruins there but it was the extraordinary colours of the rock and spoil that caught my eye on this occasion.



Normally I’m quite clear about the format of my compositions but this shot has me stumped. I really cannot decide which I prefer, the vertical or the horizontal shot.



It seems to be a shot that divides opinions too. I have tested the image amongst friends and colleagues and a poll on here too and the split seems pretty even.

The other thing that seems about even is the number of people that see an animal head in the rock face and those that don’t.

An interesting location that I think I will most likely visit again.

Cutting across the island my next stop was Cribnau in Porth Cwyfan, best known as eglwys bach y mor (the little church in the sea).



The small 13th-century church of St Cwyfan used to stand on the mainland but was slowly cut off by land erosion resulting in the building of the protective wall around it in the nineteenth century.

There is a causeway leading to it at mid to low tide but I wanted to show it’s isolation by the rising waters which seems so central to it’s story.

I used to struggle to find local tidal information for locations but these days computer programs and “apps” have made such information, along with astronomical and meteorological data, so much more straight forward to find. It really does make the life of a landscape photographer so much easier.

I met a local lass on the beach that was diligently picking litter from the shoreline. Much of it comes in on the waves, the product of unthinking disposal at sea at it’s like is the blight of many of out beaches. Some of it is sadly left by visitors who really have no excuse for not taking it home with them.

I have to say that this was one of the tidiest beaches I have seen in a very long time and I suspect mostly due to the hard work of this unsung hero.



Three locations down and the main stop I had planned was another tidal island, Ynys Llanddwyn, just down the coast.

I had arranged to meet on the island with Matt Aspden, another talented landscape photographer that I know from a local photographic society. He had visited the site before but it was all new to me on this trip.

My plan was to stay overnight, shooting as the conditions allowed.

The weather was supposed to be clear but cold. The wind was a little higher than I had hoped for but being on the coast you have to accept these things.

When Matt arrived he had another good friend, Mike Lawrence in tow. They were only staying until sundown but the prospects looked good for all of us. The light clouds that had been with me all day looked to be clearing nicely.



Having hiked in with a pack full of clothing to keep me warm I had to work in a fairly close area while there was still a lot of day trippers on the island but slowly they started to drift off as the light got more interesting.

Eventually it was just us and a couple of other photographers waiting for the World to turn.

More often than not, landscape photographers work around other like minded people, making sure we are not in each others line of shooting.



This co-operation is helped by a friendly greeting and occasionally good conversation. Every now and again you come across the other type.

Usually you can tell the sort, they obstinately stand in the same spot refusing to give ground as if they own the location, scowling at others that have the temerity to want to shoot the same landmark.

Often they try to show their innate superiority by fiddling endlessly with a field camera that should only take a couple of minutes to set up.

I used cameras like that back in the days of film and chemistry. In fact I still have a couple of them buried under my desk in the darkroom that has since been converted to a “lightroom” full of computers.

These days I seem to achieve far more using digital technology than my old 5x4 or medium format film cameras ever could.

It’s also a lot easier to carry around.

Seeing this type of ill humoured photographer rather amuses me these days. Personally I have made a number of good friends, both professional and amateur, from meetings in places like this so I don’t really know what they expect to gain by it. Of the two other photographers present on this evening, one turned out to be a freindly chap from greater Manchester and the other, lugged his field camera off into the last light of sunset without saying a word.



Later than that, at about the time the sun dipped below the horizon and twilight was beginning, Matt said that he would normally start packing to leave about now. I hope the pictures he got following that time will convince him to stay a bit longer in future.



The only difficulty I had was picking my way off the rocks in the dark as I had foolishly left my torch in my rucksack which was tucked behind a rock some distance away.



When Mike and Matt left I had the place all to myself and could start experimenting with the sparse light that remained long after the Sun’s influence had finally waned.

Even here there was still light pollution from the mainland to the South, Holyhead to the North and a source I could not quite place out the sea.

In the end there is little you can do about it so you might as well make use of it.



The islands above were rendered entirely by the light from the stars and the light pollution and in the Milky Way shot it provided a useful splash of colour to silhouette the foreground.



Later, as the moon rose over Snowdonia I tried this shot of the beach beneath the lighthouse. Of all the shots I took overnight this is the only one that is let down by noise.

There is a slight banding in the sky that I cannot remove and sadly the shot you see here is probably the largest useful size I can get from it.



To complete my night I was treated to a lovely mellow sunrise with the last quarter moon hanging gently over the far horizon.

All in all a very productive 24 hours.

[Donald]

All in all a very productive 24 hours.

An extremely productive 24 hours!

Excellent text accompanied by an impressive set of images.

[Shadowman]

Very nice, I like the combination of styles.

[Wayland]

Thank you, I don't think much about style, it's just the way I see things.

Matt was saying something about my "style" when we were on Llanddwyn but as far as I could tell it had more to do with where I could actually stand safely on the rocks and what was in front of me.

[Donald]

Gary

I wonder if you could maybe give a sentence or two about the making of each image.

In the course of PMs, I've had comment about how much people are admiring what you've done here. But folks are maybe a bit hesitant about posting up questions. Obviously a number are long exposure. But did you, fro example, use GNDs or apply HDR practice to any of them?

[Wayland]

No problem.

I don't have problems with questions by the way but I'll try to break them down one at a time if that's OK.



This was three exposures, one for the foreground, one for the boat and one for the sky, all on a tripod of course and dropped into PhotoShop as layers.

The foreground and the boat were blended using a luminosity mask which I could then adjust manually to pull out or hold back the best tones according to need.

The sky was a simple layer mask to avoid any ghosting of the moving clouds.

Once I had the blended master layer I gave the mid tone contrast a boost with a high pass layer and followed that with two S curves, one for the foreground (masking out the pool) and one for the sky.

On top of all that there are some soft light graduation layers to adjust overall tonality and give it a slight edge burn.

[Wayland]

The Parys Mountain shots were taken from across the quarry with a teleconverter on my 70 - 200 in a hellish breeze with me standing between the weather and the tripod with my jacket spread to cut the wind.

I should have said above by the way that I always shoot in RAW and process the files in LightRoom before moving to PhotoShop for the final fettling.

On these I used a saturation modification layer to tweak the colours a bit here and there and a dodge and burn layer to adjust the tones slightly followed with a soft light graduation (SLG) to give an edge burn again.

I have most of my custom adjustment layers set up as actions to speed things up and if anyone wants to know more about how they work feel free to ask.

[Wayland]

This one started with my wading out in wellies and standing on a rock while the tide swept in around me.

I used a 6 stop ND to slow the shutter speed but the exposure was handled in a single shot.

LR to PS again followed by some soft light graduation layers to even and then enhance the contrast.

A curve layer to burn in some of the water and another on a spurious bright edge on the building.

I made a stamp layer to flatten that work but preserve the layers if needed then used that to apply a smart shadow/highlight adjustment to pull a bit more detail out of the rocks and clouds.

Tickled it up with a dodge layer to darken the brightest parts of the clouds and job done.

[scriveyn]

Excellent work, Gary! I'm always on the lookout for somewhere in the UK to travel to, and where I haven't been already. You have just convinced me that Anglesey should be near the top of my list.

As for the Parys Mountain shots: have you considered a square format? Would work for me, I think.

[Wayland]

Fairly straight forward this one.

6 stop ND filter again.

Into PS as a smart object them a shadow/highlight adjustment to pull detail out of the darkest rocks and brightest water.

A flattish S curve held back on the left hand rocks to give it some zing and a SLG layer to give it an edge burn.

[Wayland]

Excellent work, Gary! I'm always on the lookout for somewhere in the UK to travel to, and where I haven't been already. You have just convinced me that Anglesey should be near the top of my list.

As for the Parys Mountain shots: have you considered a square format? Would work for me, I think.

I looked at it square but if I cropped in I felt it lost too much and a wider shot added too many distracting details.

[Wayland]

Long shot across a small bay, 200mm end of the zoom.

The background brought down with a SLG layer, masked off the navigation point, an S curve to give it some pop and a slight burn to the foreground to enhance the separation.

[Wayland]

Two frames, one with best foreground the other best lighthouse and clouds.

Shadow/highlight adjustment to bring out the clouds and rocks on the lighthouse frame and then blended together with a simple graduated layer mask.

A very slight saturation modification to tone down a bright yellow patch of lichen at the edge of the frame and then a SLG layer to give an edge burn.

[Wayland]

6 stop ND, 13 second exposure as the light was falling.

Into PS as a Smart Object and given a S/H adjustment to pull some tone out of the rocks and calm down the last light of the sun.

An S curve for the foreground rocks and a bit of sculpting with an overlay layer too.

A colour modification layer to locally improve the light balance and a saturation adjustment layer to bring the bright reds and oranges back into gamut.

Two SLG layers to even the tones and then edge burn.

[Wayland]

8 second exposure, no ND required.

Into PS as Smart Object S/H again to lift out some of the subtle tones.

The rest is all done with SLG layers to balance the tones and burn the edges.

[Wayland]

20 minute exposure, f4, 800 iso. Long exposure reduction on.

Into PS as a Smart Object, S/H adjustment to lift the shadows and midtone contrast.

Spotting layer to remove hot pixels here and there and the rest done with SLG layers to balance tones.

[Wayland]

8 minute exposure at f5.6 800 iso. Moonlight.

This is a LightRoom conversion only as the noise banding didn't make it worth too much work in PS.

Pretty straight apart from a graduated exposure adjustment in the sky region.

[Wayland]

This bit must be sounding familiar by now.

Into PS as Smart Object S/H again to lift out some of the subtle tones.

S curve overall to give it pop and a second S curve in the foreground grass for a bit more zing.

Sight gravitational adjustment to the moon to bring it closer to the horizon and a SLG layer to even the tones.

I think that's everything but if I've forgotten to mention something or there is something you'd like more detail about please ask.

[Wayland]

Gary

I wonder if you could maybe give a sentence or two about the making of each image.

In the course of PMs, I've had comment about how much people are admiring what you've done here. But folks are maybe a bit hesitant about posting up questions. Obviously a number are long exposure. But did you, fro example, use GNDs or apply HDR practice to any of them?

To answer your specific questions, I tend to apply graduations in PhotShop rather than in camera. My usual method is setting up a new layer, set the blend mode to Soft Light and then applying a black to clear graduation. Once that is done I can adjust the opacity to fine tune it or add a layer mask to remove it's effect from specific areas. I find this much more flexible than camera filtering.

As for HDR I'm not a great fan as I often see examples of "Spinal Tap" landscapes where everything is turned up to "11".

If I need to blend two or more frames I usually use a simple layer mask to selectively burn areas from one layer to another or occasionally make a luminosity mask which I can edit manually where needed.

[moopy goops]

Wayland,
loving your shots, your descriptions of the day and your thorough explanations, though I must admit I don't know what half the editing processes you talk about are !
Still so much to learn. . .
Thanks for sharing