Daily Blog

A very cloudy but dry day today in Mayo. This afternoon Patricia and myself took a drive as far as Carramore Strand near Louisburgh, the low light made it ideal for long exposures to show the movement in the water.

This evening Patricia and I decided to travel to Westport to have a picnic on a beach and for me to get my "blog picture".

It was a lovely afternoon but as we left the house the sky darkened and the idea of a picnic seemed like not such a great idea. As we drove towards Castlebar on the N5 the sky got darker and my pre conceived sunset on Carramore strand seemed a distant possibility . The dark sky made an interesting composition for this little group of whitethorn bushes though. I suspect this is a fairy fort but I am not sure.
A funny thing happened though, as I took this picture, a car pulled up on the other side of the busy N5 road and the driver got out and crossed the road, I assumed he needed directions and greeted him. Can you imagine my surprise when he asked me was my name McCarthy! He knew me from the Images of Mayo page ! His name is Frank and he lives in London though originally from Mayo. When I asked how he knew it was me he said he could not imagine anybody else stopping to photograph that field!!!! It was a lovely encounter all the same. I should add, we ate our picnic at the kitchen table, there was not sunset!

Yesterday evening I was asked to take some pictures at the local G.A.A. club. The G.A.A. President Liam O’Neill was visiting Kiltimagh for the day and was presenting the awards at the annual underage events. Mayo is a great Gealic Football county ( though an All Ireland win is long overdue) but it is fair to say that when you see the determination in the young players, like Cormac O'Mahony in this shot you have to feel the future of Mayo football is good!!

I took my camera for a spin in the car this morning all the way to County Roscommon but it lashed rain and the camera would not get out of the car!
During the middle of the day I spent some time making prints for a local artist, he brought a couple of pictures to me a few days ago which I photographed and printed them today, using "artist" paper it was hard to tell the difference between the originals and the prints!!!
Then this evening I went shopping to Claremorris and knowing that I would probably not get another chance for a picture I called into St Mary's Carmelite Abbey on the road between Claremorris and Knock. The Abbey was built in 1288 so it has stood for sometime. But it is not as picturesque as other abbeys and I have always found it a challenge to "find" any pictures in it. So here is my effort from today.

Plenty of rain today, and I think for the next few days also. But I suppose there will be plenty of water in the streams and waterfalls!!

Very late posting this evening and again despite it being such a lovely day here in Mayo I did not get any pictures taken today. so here is a sunset picture of Clew bay taken a month ago.

Stuck in the house today, this picture was taken on the coast road between Mulranny and Achill Island, the low buildings are now sheds but would have been the original farmhouse. What made me stop though was the lovely backlighting
.

Here is yet another picture of Ballylahan Castle, apologies if you are getting bored of seeing it, but it seems I cannot pass it without stopping to take a picture !

I did not get out with the camera today, though it was a lovely day. This image showing the tide out at Mulranny was taken a few weeks ago.

You never know where your pictures are going to come from, I visited Downpatrick Head and Dunbriste a couple of days ago, and would have expected the exciting pictures to be of the cliffs themselves but in fact the most spectacular scene was the sky and not the cliffs at all!!

I was passing through Killala yesterday and called in to see Liz at the Joe Keane Creative Art Centre , I am planning to run a couple of one day photography courses at the centre on Saturdays during the summer, if you would like to know more just email me.
Just outside the centre is the wonderful Killala Round tower.

As you know I don't usually have people in my landscape shots but today is different!
I was at Downpatrick Head, photographing Dun Briste(again!) and was sat close to the edge of the cliff just enjoying the experience, it was calm, and sunny and I was not likely to get any exciting pictures but I was enjoying the environment and contemplating how lucky I was to be alive in this wonderful place, all alone with nobody to disturb me. I don't know why but for some reason I looked up and behind me and it took my brain a couple of seconds to fully interpret what my eyes were seeing. A troop of unformed people were walking towards me, still a hundred metres away it took me a moment to realise they were only school boys, it still seemed just a little surreal. I wondered would they be brought all the way to the edge ! and decided if they were it would make a good picture, so I picked up the camera bag and tripod and moved around the headland so that I would be able to photograph them. They only stayed a few minutes before their , I am sure ,relieved teachers marched them back down the hill again. so I did not meet them to ask which school they were from or what subject they were studying. it could have been geography or history, or any other subject for that matter, but hats off to the teachers, I am sure that the location made a great classroom.

I did not get out for any serious photography today, but Trish and myself were out in the car a couple of miles from home and found another couple out for Sunday afternoon. We were left with that age old question, Why DID the chicken cross the road?

Had a busy day today, i was photographing the First holy communion Children in Beken parish. So I got up early to clean the sensor in the camera.Have you ever done it? It can be so frustrating, it seemed the more I cleaned it the dirtier it got!!! Any way after about an hour the job was done. I always come away from communions exhausted, there is so much going on, and constant changes to camera lights and settings, but they are also usually a lot of fun to do. Then this afternoon i was helping a young photographer to prepare her portfolio for admission to college, so I did not get out to take any personal pictures today.

This image is taken a few miles outside Mulranny on the N59 at a place called Claggan, I always think its a great piece of road, it looks like wilderness.

Spent a lovely day out with Tricia today, we visited Kinvara in Co Galway, spending some time and a little cash at the farmers market, then we drove into Co Clare and spent some time exploring the coast. The weather was not great for pictures as the light was by and large flat, but it was still a lovely day. Here is a picture taken today, I spotted this cow lying in a field which was higher then the road, the poor cow got a bit of a surprise when my head and camera appeared under the fence!

I did not get out with the camera today, but I spent the day helping two different photographers to select, prepare and print their portfolios. it was a really interesting day, one of the two was preparing a portfolio for submission to an awarding body, and the other for application for a college course, in total we printed forty prints so you can imagine that took most of the day.
It seems many people were pleased to see Meelick round Tower feature on yesterday's blog, so i thought I should post Meelick again. this image was taken several years ago but shows the tower in more flattering light!!

I struggled to get a picture today ! we had lots of rain, I was looking out my window this morning at 5.30 am and was secretly delighted to see such a bad morning, I would not be going out for the sunrise, back to bed for a few more hour!. It did clear up later but of course I had other things to do but on my way back from Castlebar this evening there was some lovely light and interesting clouds so instead of turning off at Bohola to come home to Kiltimagh I continued to Meelick and the round tower. I had hoped to get some interesting clouds behind the tower. Well I certainly got clouds, I had only time to take a couple of images. more as test shots then a final shot, when the grey cloud you can see on the right side of the picture decided to deposit what felt like its full loud right onto me! So I made a dash for the car, and resolved to come back nearer to sunset time, and while things looked very promising as I ate my dinner, the sky closed in completely before I left the house. When i did I walked as far as the car and decided it really would be a waste of time and I returned to the house. So this will have to do as the picture for the day!

Another one of those lovely wind bent trees that are so common on the west coast of Mayo! This was taken on a beautiful calm evening with the sun setting, but the shape of the tree is testament that there are probably more windy evenings then calm ones!!

Whenever i go out to take photographs, especially in mayo, where the weather changes so much, it can be very hard to predict the results, and in truth if I waited for the weather to be "right" I would spend a lot of time indoors!. This picture was made on a trip to Bellacragher Bay to photograph the sunset, in my mind I was hoping for the lovely golden colours of sunset. As you can see however the low clouds rolled in and I did not see the sun set, but just look at that sky!!! It was worth the trip out and once again I was glad I had not stayed home cursing the weather!

Not strictly a Landscape today.This morning I was in Knock. There was a great sky and I thought the green hedges around the stations of the cross made an interesting composition. Knock is Ireland,s national shrine to OurLady, and given that today is the first of May, the month of Our Lady I thought it an appropriate "picture of the day"