Daily Blog

Two night ago I posted an image of these three boats at Doolough Co Mayo, the day looks lovely with blue skies and lovely white clouds. Tonights image was taken at the same time, well, within a couple of minutes, just looking in the opposite direction, the weather looks completely different. well it was completely different and it changes that quick in Mayo!!

A beautiful day in Mayo, topped off by Mayo's win over Galway to become Connaught football Champions - could 2014 be the year???

This image was made a week ago at Doolough.

The Pyramidal Orchid is one of my favourite wild flowers . It is a very small flower found on sand dunes during the summer months.

Yesterday's image required a little patience as we had to wait for the weather to clear. But tonights image required no patience at all, apart from finding a suitable place to stop the car. I was attracted by the great sky over Croagh patrick taken from the N5 heading into Westport.

This picture was taken last Saturday while teaching on a one to one photography day with Ann Marie. It is the Doolough Valley which looks good in most weather conditions. But just before this image was made Ann Marie and I spent ten minutes sheltering in the car from the rain waiting for the valley to become visible ! And it was only five minutes later that the light disappeared off the floor of the valley. Landscape photographers spend a lot of time just waiting followed by short periods of frantic "work" to capture the scene in its best light.

I was at Fanore in Co Clare on Sunday afternoon, and went out taking photographs about two hours before sunset. I was very hopeful of a glorious atlantic sunset with lots of clouds to create colour in the sky. This image was made about an hour and twenty minutes before sunset time, and it was the last I saw of the sun, and even then it is only just peeping through. A few minutes later the hole in the cloud filled and it got quite dark.

I often post pictures of Irish Castles. Well I discovered this on Fanore beach , Co Clare, yesterday evening, I think it is a more recent one then some of the others I have posted ! Unfortunatly as I post this I can confirm that its life was very short as the tide came in and washed the beach clean for the next days team of architects, artists, princes and princesses !

This image from Carramore Beach yesterday morning was taken only minutes after a huge downpour of rain. As you can see the sun breaking through the clouds created a very dramatic scene.

I had a lovely day today, teaching one to one with Ann Marie. Ann Marie had been given a voucher for Christmas ! Ann Marie had already done some classes in Dublin so she was not a beginner. We met early in Louisburgh and made our first stop at Carramore Beach, just as we got there the heavens opened and it poured rain, so badly we had to make a dash back to the car and just wait it out. It seemed like not a great start to the day! But after five minutes or so the rain stopped and the light was just so dramatic. I love this kind of weather because it does create dramatic landscapes when the sun breaks through the dark skies.It is often fleeting and can be very challenging to capture, but Ann Marie was certainly up for the challenge and we spent most of the day chasing the light up and down the Doolough valley ! Sitting out the showers in the car, then jumping into action as soon as the rain stopped and before the skies would clear to blue .Ann Marie got some great pictures and was introduced to "lightroom" for the first time in the afternoon, and was amazed at how easy it was to use and what a difference she could make to her images!!
The dramatics continued as I drove home and I just had to stop at the quay in Westport when I saw this scene, the dark sky over the brightly lit mud flats. Within a minute of this image being made the sun had disappeared and everything went dark, and it rained - again !
camera Fuji XE1

I did not get out again today. This image was taken a few weeks ago in the Doolough Valley near Louisburgh. I had stopped the car to photograph the rock, and actually it gave up a number of images from different angles. The real challenge though was including the whole of the fantastic cloud that makes the mountains look small. The image is made with a Fuji XE1 with an 18-55mm lens, set at its widest.

I judged a photographic competition on Monday night in the Mayo Photographic Club. the title was "Street Photography" , I don't do a lot of Street Photography and was only judgeing because the judge who was scheduled could not make it on the night. So it seemed strange this morning when I went up town here in Kiltimagh and saw this "street photograph" outside the post office. There are new footpaths being laid and as you can see the work is being well supervised!!

A stunning sunny day in mayo today, I had planned to go out this evening, but the sun disappeared a couple of hours before sunset and it became dull and cloudy so I did not go out with the camera . Instead I am post in an image of Dunguire Castle Kinvara, Co Galway taken about a week ago.

Just in from a lovely evening at the Mayo Photographic club , of which I am a member. This evening I was asked to judge the monthly photographic competition. tonights composition was "Street Photography " There were some very interesting images !! As we finished the sun was just setting and as I drove home I wondered was there anywhere I could go for a picture. I decided that the tower at turlough might be good but when I got there it was not very exciting, but with the lovely twilight colours developing in the sky I just could not go home, having no idea where I was going I turned off the N5 and drove towards the light, just passed the village of Parke I spotted a sign for Derrhick Lough, I don't think I have every been there before,. The lough itself is not the most picturesque but it did give me a good view point for the twilight sky !!

We all like to trace our roots and many people can trace their roots back to Ireland and even to Mayo. The roots in this image are about five thousand years old!! This was taken at Lough N'altora a lake with a whole forest of ancient roots from a forrest that lived five thousand years ago. The roots are quite visible when the water levels drop in the summer time. I suspect they won't be there in another five thousand years because they are now quite brittle.

I know its only a few days ago that I posted a water lily picture. But they are usually so hard to get to that I don't get many opportunities to get one not alone two!!
This one was taken in a little pond on Achill Island, the picture I posted last week was very difficult to get, and my friend Vincent and I were deep in the boggy mud photographing it. This time the flower was tantalisingly close to the waters edge so I strode towards it only to find myself crossing the bog. I was quickly forced to slow my pace however as the ground beneath me became very boggy. With every step I took the earth moved it felt like I was walking across a bowl of custard with a thick skin on it which could break and swallow me up at any time!!! Of course that was never going to happen but it was a ver eerie feeling! Anyway I was able to get close enough to photograph this Water Lily.

Yesterday I posted an image from the deserted village on Achill, a visit there will always conjure feelings about the people who lived there , the hard lives they must have lived and the wonder about where they went to and what became of them. But I also wondered did they have time to enjoy where they lived? This is the view from one of the ruined cottages !

A cloudy and wet day today here in Mayo, so here is another image from Tuesday evenings visit to the desserted village on Achill Island. I had to run up the hill to photograph this cottage on time before the last of the evening sunlight which is just hitting some of the rocks disappeared. Behind the cottage you can see Sleive Mor and you can see the remains of three cottages, also if you look to the right lower part of the image you can see the "lazy Beds" or potato ridges, further evidence of the lives lived!

Yesterday evening after our visit to the Famine Village on Achill we visited Lough Accrorrymore on the road to Keen Strand. The sun had already set behind the mountain but I had a photographer friend with me who had never visited Accroymore so we went anyway. Again it is a difficult place to photograph, for two reasons, firstly the scale of the mountain that drops into the lake makes it difficult without a very wide angle lens, but secondly the geography of the place seems to create its own mini weather system making it always very very windy. Last night was an exception however it was so still and SO silent, and so beautiful!!

Just back from a lovely evening on Achill Island. About an hour before sunset we visited the deserted village ( of course there was nobody there!!) . I have often visited the village and have always struggled to get a good photograph of it. But tonight we got there just as the sun disappeared behind Slieve Mor and the last few rays were just lighting the row of ruined houses, and there was a lovely sky above. The light in the valley only lasted minutes.

Late again this evening! This picture was taken earlier today at Lough Nahaltora just off the road to Doolough from Louisburgh. One of the features of the lough are the many tree stumps from an ancient forest over four thousand years old that can be seen when the water levels are low. Today I visited with a friend Vincent and we were attracted by the many water lily we could see around the lough. This was the only one we could reach however as the lake is in bogland which makes if very difficult to walk on what appears like dry ground because it is really soft bog and you very quickly get stuck in it. I did find my way to reach this particular flower, but I needed Vincent to guide me back out however!!