Daily Blog

Back in Mayo after the weekend in Cork. This is an image of the four trees I was telling you about last week!

Spent a lot of time driving today, came from Limerick to Cork, then to Cashel in Tipperary and back to Cork! The weather was atrocious rain all day with horrible featureless grey skies. But as I was in Cashel I was determined to get a picture of the Rock of Cashel but the weather really was terrible and their is scaffolding all around the building. anyway having driven around looking for any possible views of the rock i took a walk in the rain into Hore Abbey and photographed from there. the rain was so bad however that with the camera hidden in my jacket I would raise it too my eye, take a picture quickly then clean the water off the lens with my shirt and repeat several times. So this will not be the best picture you will ever see of this famous landmark, but given the day we had its the best I could do.

There is a group of four trees on the crest of a hill near Kilkelly. I first photographed them about three years ago. I had originally found them on one of my many explorations of the area, seeking out all the minor roads to see what photographic treasures I might find. well this set of trees are certainly one of those treasures ,in fact I won an award for the picture I took the day I found them. Whenever I find such treasures I put them into my sat/nav so to be sure of finding my way back. For some reason I failed on this occasion and even though they are only six or seven miles from my home I was unable to find them again. Many an afternoon I went out to find them but would come back frustrated. Then one day last month I was going to somebody's house to take some photographs when on following the direction to their house I came upon a corner that looked familiar, a quick detour proved to be very beneficial , there were "my" trees!
Yesterday knowing the sun should be setting behind them I took a trip out and was not disappointed.

I had an interesting job this morning. I had been asked by the local Credit Union to photograph the handover of a sponsorship cheque to the local National School, St Aidans. I was told that the children would be in the photograph but did not realise until I got there that ALL the children would be in the photo, all 250 of them. I had a problem! How was I going to get high enough to photograph such a large group so that their faces would be seen? I always bring a step ladder for such occasions and I am 6ft4 tall, but that was still not going to be tall enough. Then I had a brainwave . i had my tripod in the car and my remote control, so I put the camera on the tripod, stood on the stepladder and held the tripod above my head at its full length and used the remote control to fire the shutter. needless to say the picture needed straightening afterwards!!

I have been doing a few night shots recently.On Monday evening at the Mayo Photographic club, Brian of Images of Erris, who does a lot of this kind of stuff, suggested that the best time to view the milky way was between 2.30 and 4.30 am ! Last night I woke at 2.30 am and I must have been thinking of what Brian told me, so I looked out the window and seeing a clear sky I snuck out of the house and went to Urlaur Abbey. It was a really lovely night, so clear and so many stars! I was back in bed at 4.45am and nobody missed me !!

I travelled over to Westport this evening hoping to photograph the sunset. The sunset was very disapointing with a real lack of colour as low cloud blocked it out. but the clouds a half an hour before sunset gave a very dramatic sky over Clare Island.

I am a little late posting this evening. I have just returned from the Mayo Photographic club meeting, where I taught lesson four in my series of classes for "improvers"
The weather was and still is horrible today but I took this picture of Nephin yesterday, notice the cut bog in the foreground.

After a couple of cold days I noticed that Nephin had a small covering of snow this morning so I headed out to try and get a picture. the difficulty was trying to find a foreground to make a picture. I stopped by Lough Cullin and was lucky to find this boat moored in almost the perfect spot.

I took this image last week at Castleburke ,Lough Carragh. I had travelled there to photograph the sunset. As you can see however low cloud blocked the sunset, but as the cloud began to block out the sun there was a very dramatic sky for just a few minutes.

Here is another image from the weekend in Cork/Kerry. I need a little help to identify the mountain in the picture. I am sure there are many people out there who will identify it much quicker then me. The phot is taken from the main road heading towards Bantry, with Bantry bay in the foreground
It is always interesting to see how weather effects the pictures we take. Earlier the same day we had "lovely" blue skies and while the Ring of Kerry was very pretty I took very few pictures because I thought they would be boring. Then as we headed towards Cork the cloud cover moved in and now there was no light at all, so I assumed there would be no more pictures taken. But suddenly the sun found a little gap and provided a scene that was both beautiful and dramatic !

I always keep an eye out for lonely trees, especially in the winter . but its the sky behind that made me stop the car to photograph this one.

I hope you all had a great St Patricks day, we arrived back in Kiltimagh late yesterday evening, Kiltimagh held its parade yesterday so we missed it.
Here is another image from our weekend down South. This is Torc waterfall in Co Kerry the falls drop over 60ft. There was not a huge volume of water when we visited, I would love to see them after a few days of heavy rain.

While travelling through Kerry yesterday afternoon I saw this sign painted on a rock at the roadside...... I was afraid to get out of the car!!

Have a great St Patrick's day.

Spent a lovely day with family in Cork today, we watched the rugby from France in the afternoon. What a win!!! We were all exhausted just watching it!!
Here is a picture from Cork, this is the 12 arch bridge in Ballydehob. it is about forty years since I was there but I have very happy memories. My uncle Fr Casey was the local parish priest and we spent a summer with him. I would serve mass for my Uncle and would often walk across this bridge. I remember watching what I thought was a huge trout and decided that I would catch the trout. So one day after mass my uncle left me at the bridge with my fishing rod and a jar of worms. I went under the bridge to where I knew the trout was, putting the worm on the hook I cast my line out and before I had time to engage the reel, the fish took the bait but I missed it.! I fished for the rest of the day but that trout could not be fooled into taking another worm. I remember being very impressed that the fish was so clever. I imagine he is still there!!!

I am in Cork for the weekend, On our drive down today we took a little detour into Co Kerry. We stopped at Muckross Abbey where I made this image of part of the cloister.

I don't want to sound like I am complaining ...again. But there was no sign of the sun at all in Mayo today just an overcast grey sky all day, on a positive note though there was no rain and it wasn't cold, but I was not inspired to take the camera out. So this image from Achill is a couple of weeks old.

Here is a somewhat surreal view of Croagh Patrick, taken from the same location as yesterdays sunset, this was a morning view taken while the countryside was covered in a thick blanket of fog. By going up to Sleive Cairn I was able to get above the fog . I imagined that if all the predictions for global warming come to pass that at some point in the future we might have a scene like this only the fog will be replaced by water!

Once again its raining and I did not venture out. Today is my Dad, Eugene's anniversary ,its hard to believe that four years have passed, feels like yesterday. He was a sailor and loved the sea . I miss him.

Did a one to one photography class with Padraig this morning, Padraig is a beginner to DSLR photography, but a couple of hours this morning seemed to set him up well.
Here is another picture from yesterdays brief visit to the garden. having got down on the ground to photograph the daffodil , I put my hand on the ground to push myself up and nearly put my hand down on this little fella!

Well I can't complain about the weather today as it was a lovely spring day, but I was stuck at home for the day, however I relieved the photographic frustration a little by spending a few minutes in the garden where the miniature daffodils where enjoying the morning sunshine. Its funny how we often think we have to travel distances to get to locations to photograph, this was taken about fifteen feet from my back door!