Heading to Anglesey every Wednesday for Gwydion to have his piano lessons I often set myself the challenge to see what I can take in the 40 minutes or so he is occupied on the ivories.
This Wednesday I managed to get as far as the coast not far from Aberffraw with Llywelyn for company. All these images were taken within 5 minutes of each other as Llywelyn enjoyed a few minutes early spring sunshine on the beach. And we did manage to get back just in time despite a convoy of farm vehicles reminding us that life does not move very fast around here!
I took advantage of the natural vignetting the bright sunshine caused for this image, a little black and white toning with a hint of aqua green helped to highlight the coastal colours and bring out the highlights in the sand.
I took advantage here of the dark sand in the stream to provide contrast between the sand channels. I don't usually crop my images (what you see is what was taken) but here I thought the sun above distracted attention from the darkness at the bottom of the image, instead leaving the highlights on the sand to suggest the presence of the bright sun.
Llywelyn was very patient here as I backed away to take the image. When taking pictures of children I always try to invoke the feeling of childhood rather than a straight forward representation of the child. I will often put the child far back into the image and let the landscape surround them.
This is just pure experimentation. I love digital images which look like badly taken film photographs, soft focus, grain, sun spots etc and this is simply me having an attempt at that, to re-create the sort of images I grew up with in the 70's. Strangely, I found it a challenge to go against ones instincts and to de-focus the shot and encourage the light to bounce all over the place. Watch this space, I'll definitely be having a go at this again.
And Llywelyn had an ice cream after this in recognition of his patience of dad bouncing around him, looking for that perfect sun flare!
