light (warm) vs dark (cold)

Just last week I ventured down to Mumbles, and in particular Bracelet Bay.  I'd not been there for a few weeks and, just like Craig y Nos Country Park, I get withdrawal symptoms and start pining for the place when it's been too long.

Anyway, the purpose of the trip was to grab some video footage (which you can watch below as usual), but after that, and the image I needed to accompany it was in the bag, I turned my attention to capturing some longish exposures.  Now, this was not that easy as the mid-afternoon light was pretty, well, light!

I wanted an exposure of less than 5 seconds to capture the waves as they gently retreated around the central rock.  I also needed to reduce the glare from the sun hitting the wet rocks, and so employed a 10-stop neutral density filter and circular polariser respectively.

I also had to firmly dig my tripod's feet into the wet sand to prevent it from sinking during the exposure.

After a short while though I settled on a small formation of three rock outcrops and set up on some sand just in front of them.  I'd spotted the light and shadows cast by the sun over to my right (the west) and how it was affecting the outcrops in an interesting way.  Well, I thought so at least!

Here's the image:

Fujifilm X-H2, Fujinon XF 10-24mm f4 at 20mm
2.5 seconds at f8, ISO 125
tripod, remote shutter release, Kase Wolverine circular polarising and 10-stop neutral density filters

I really like the contrast between the warmer and colder tones in the image, and while a bigger wave would have been nice the tide was going out and this was the best I got.

I also shot the lighthouse while I was there, because it's the law right!

Fujifilm X-H2, Fujinon XF 10-24mm f4 at 10mm
1/250th of a second at f8, ISO 125
tripod, self-timer release

For this image I chose to set up with some vibrant sea thrift in the foreground, with the green grass picking out its counterpart on the hill behind.

And here's that video, revealing more images and looking at whether an old camera is still good enough for landscape photography:

By the way, this will be the last video until 1st December, when I plan to do my daily advent videos up to Christmas again.  A man's gotta have a goal!!