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The last of the sunset catching the rolling clouds atop the hills surrounding Letterfrack, County Galway, Ireland.

Letterfrack Sunset

$350.00
499
499
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149
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29

The last of the sunset catching the rolling clouds atop the hills surrounding Letterfrack, Co Galway, Ireland. Taken from a vantage point on the hills to the southwest of the town.

NookFeatureMural
Dimensions
  • Story
  • Planning
  • Technical

How this shot came about.

Although we had based ourselves in Clifden during our 2019 "Tour of the West" we did strike out across Connemara to take in all the sights. Chief among them was our visit to Kylemore Abbey so as to walk through the grounds and especially the Victorian walled garden where steam heating had been used to grow bananas, of all things!

We passed through Letterfrack* on our way from Clifden heading from the road near where this image was taken and then through the notch in the hills in the distance and on to the abbey a few miles further beyond that.

Even though we passed along the road during the late morning I could see that there might be an opportunity later in the day to take an image from the vantage point of the hills above the village and planned to take the shot on our way back to Clifden.

With 2 families in tow I couldn't ask them all to stand and wait with me so, much like my After Paul Henry shot, I got them to drop me at the side of the road while they went off for afternoon tea.

The road was in a bit of a dip in the landscape so I climbed up onto the moorland to the south of the road and struck out for about 750m to a spot where I could take in the entire scene. At this stage, what with the scramble and a somewhat leisurely departure from Kylemore Abbey I arrived on location with not very much daylight left.

As can be seen from the image the sun is very close to setting but what the image lacks in foreground lighting it makes up for with the dramatic clouds enveloping the hills in the distance. This was a very dynamic scene with the final image capturing one moment in a continuously changing interface between the clouds and the hilltops. I was particularly taken with the clouds spilling down the slopes to the left of the notch and the subtle reflections in the waters of the bay. 

 

*Gaelic: Leitir Fraic - The Speckled Hillside

Shot Location

This Shot

The Photographer's Ephemeris and a topological map were the key elements in the planning of this shot.

Our trip to Kylemore Abbey meant that the only practical time for the shot would be at sunset. I needed a high vantage point to capture the lowering light casting onto the terrain as the sunset so I spent some time in the carpark of the abbey deciding on a rough shot location. There was also a period of “herding cats” in order to get everyone back into the van and leave sufficient time to drive back through Letterfrack and up into the hills above the village.


The Photographer's Ephemeris showing the shot location

The Photographer’s Ephemeris is a trademark of Crookneck Consulting LLC, registered in the United States.
Please visit their website at https://photoephemeris.com for more details
All other trademarks and logos remain the property of their respective owners

Gear

Camera: Canon EOS 7D

Lens: Canon EF 70-210mm f4

Storage: SanDisk Extreme Pro CF UDMA 7 64Gb

Ballhead: Manfrotto 498RC2

Tripod: Manfrotto 055XPROB

Cable Release: Promote

ND Filter: None

Exposures

Count: 49

HDR Count: 7 exposures per shot

Aperture: f11

ISO: 200

Focal Length: 96 mm

EV values: -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3

Shutter: 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15

Filters

ND Filter: Not used

Gradient Filter: false

Polarizer: false

Image

Rows: 1

Shots: 0

HDR Shots: 7

Aspect: Portrait

Arrangement: 1x7

Post Production

Basic Workflow

  • The original image was to be a 15 image mosaic but it became way too wide to be interesting
  • I discarded 8 of the images which left me with the 7 images used in this shot
  • I used Lightroom to stitch the 49 HDR exposures together into a 7 image mosaic
  • I used Photoshop's spot healing tool to remove quite a few sensor artifacts from the image
  • I passed the image through Topaz DeNoiseAI removing CCD noise from the sky, clouds and water 

Image Adjustment

  • There was a contrast and clarity adjustment to the hillside in the foreground
  • I also made a minor adjustment to the brightness of the foreground to help balance the brightness of the clouds
  • The sky was sharpened with Topaz SharpenAI
  • The contrast of the clouds was adjusted to bring out some details
  • I used Photoshop's spot healing tool to remove 847 power and telegraph poles from the image
  • The image was cropped in to tighten the composition

A graphic of the shot's layout structure

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