What I love about Wales are those unique green tones you see on the hills and mountains. And, being such a changeable climate, you can encounter some very dramatic scenery where shadows and light reveal the shapes and colours of the mountains like a painter would do on his canvas.
One of my favourite places to visit in Mid-Wales are the Cregennan Lakes. It is also one of those places where the scenery becomes incredibly dramatic if you are so lucky as to have the right mix of light and shadow. And it just so happened that it was one of those days.
I had with me the Pen E-P5, the M.Zuiko 12mm f/2 and the Lumix 35-100 f/2.8. My niece and I climbed to the top where the most breathtaking view unfolds before you.
After taking various wide angle shots, I mounted the zoom on the way down and tried capturing those unique shapes up close to make them look like paintings. There was a lot of wind and I wanted to close my aperture to have enough sharpness, so I had to be very careful to not slow down the shutter speed too much as I would end up with blurry pictures. Despite the 5-axis stabilisation of the E-P5, even 1/400s can be too slow with a telephoto lens if there is a lot of wind. A tripod would have been of great help in this situation.
Back home, I post-processed the RAW files with Lightroom 5 to increase the contrast and give to the photographs a more dramatic look. I mainly edited contrast, colour vibrancy and clarity. I also added some sharpness to the pictures taken with the 35-100mm.
Below you can enjoy those photographic paintings! If you have taken similar pictures in other places, please feel free to share them on our Facebook page!
