Daily Blog

I did not get out again today, cabin fever could set in soon! this sunset from Croagh patrick was taken 4 years ago this week!

A horrible evening , pouring rain again so I did not get out, had to raid the archives for a picture.
This was taken a few weeks back on the L1824 heading towards Doolough.

Met Eireann reported that the winter just finished is the wettest on record, I think we already knew that, and Mayo only had 77% of the sunshine hours it would normally have in the winter. Yesterday I was at Castlebourke on Lough Carragh, it was a lot different to the last time I visited. most of the boats had been taken away for the winter, but the little jetty many would be moored to was nowhere to be seen, it is totally submerged and the lake has grown in size so much that a boat that would normally be moored at the waters edge is now moored almost a hundred feet out from the shore. But on the farm next to the lake there is evidence that spring is definitely in the air!!

While taking Yesterdays picture on keen strand I looked up at the sky behind me to see even more stars!! So this is the view from the corner of Keem Strand looking up from the base of the cliff at
iso 6400, 30seconds, f2.8 with 24mm lens on Nikon d600 @ 12.45am .

This has taken six months to make! I planned this image at least six months ago and have made several attempts to create it, last night I finally got almost everything in place to at least make an attempt.
The photograph can only be taken at a very low tide, at night time of course, on a clear night , with no moon! you can imagine getting that combination is not easy . Being night time particular care has to be taken with the tide, I have tried on a number of other occasions when the tide has been low but when I have attempted to walk to the location the water has not been quite as low as I needed, during the day it would be no problem to wade through the water, but at night time its amazing how disoriented you can become very quickly so I abandoned those attempts.

Everything looked like it would be in place, the moon was up during the day, the low tide was exceptionally low at .4 of a meter and it looked like the weather would be clear. Low tide was due at 11.48pm so we decided to go to the cinema in Castlebar on the way there!! Of course the movie finished later then I expected and the journey took longer then it should so we arrived 40 minutes after low tide so the tide was already on the way in, however I got to the spot and set up the camera as quickly as I could, I spent a total of twenty minutes between pressing the shutter for the first test and leaving the scene, and the tide had risen considerably in that time but not enough to cause any concern, but even so I knew I could not afford to hang around. as you can see we got the low tide, the moonless sky, but not quite the clear night I had hoped for , still it was worth the attempt and I may try again sometime !

A grey day today, I had hoped to get our this evening for some night shots, the forecast was for clear skies, but its raining as I write and it looks unlikely that there will be any night photography.

I have just put this panorama picture together of lough Feeagh near Newport. In its "print size' it is more then 45 inches long.

This image is about four years old, but I am sharing it because I was so excited to find the original raw file this evening. I am usually very careful to back up my files and I hardly ever delete, though there are thousands that should be deleted, but I had somehow lost this one, I had searched for it many times and some time ago had given it up as lost.You may wonder why I would worry when I have so many pictures but I remember taking this one on the banks of Lough Corrib in a spot I will probably never visit again, the weather was awful it was really dark (1/10 second at f9 iso200) but there was a kind of magic to the light that I still remember. Anyway I was asked to find another picture this evening so had gone to the 2010 hard drive and found this set of pictures that had been wrongly labeled!!!

Very late posting this evening, but I am not long home from a lovely evening in the presence of woodturner Paul Tante. Paul asked me to help him with some images of his amazing work for a new website he is constructing. So we spent the evening photographing lots of pieces everything from large bowls to the tiniest of little ornaments, he is a very talented man, and as soon as his website is ready I will share it with you. After we had finished photographing all the pieces I asked Paul if I could get a picture for myself, this is it, a simple shot using a single flashgun in a small soft box held by Paul's wife Maria. I know its not the usual kind of posting for "images of Mayo" but I was delighted with how it turned and I am teaching members of the Mayo Camera Club how to operate off camera flash so it was good for me to get a little practice!!

Spent the morning photographing the children in the local playgroup, the time spent with them yesterday paid off as most were happy to have their pictures taken.

Tomorrow I am photographing the children in the local play group, These children are of pre school age, and Mary the playgroup leader asked me to come in today to talk to the children about "being a photographer". Now I am well used to talking to groups about photography and even addressing fellow photographers. I would always be a little nervous before hand, but I was really nervous today. what do you say to a group of four year olds!!!. Anyway I got over my nervousness and got the children to take pictures of each other with my camera, I had asked them" who would like to be a photographer", then they took it in turns to look through the camera talk to the subject and take the picture. All was going well until I noticed one of the boys looking like he was about to start crying, asking him what was wrong he said "I do not want to be a photographer". So he was excused from taking his turn, a few minutes later I caught his eye and he told me he wanted to be a Marine Biologist!!!!! age four!! So I said "Well did you know that marine biologists take pictures all the time", he told me he knew that they" take picture of fish and things", so I asked if he would like to practise being a marine biologist and take a picture with the big camera.....he did!!

I took this picture this evening near Kilkelly

Posting a little early today . I am busy preparing a class for this evening. I am running a photography course in the Mayo Camera Club starting this evening its an improvers course and many of the people attending have already attended my beginners course. By popular demand we are starting this evening with a session on flash photography.

This image from keen Strand was made several weeks ago, I had hoped to get out for some photography before the class tonight, but its raining.....again!!

Lots of wind and rain again today and I did not use my camera!
I found this image, made several weeks ago, and it made me think of summer and sunny days! It was actually taken in the winter time but the low sun behind the water reeds gives a feeling of summer, I think!

t has rained all day here in Mayo, watched the rugby this afternoon. we had such great hopes of an Irish win against the English, but it was not to be. Good game though.

This picture was taken on a foggy morning as the sun tried to break through. fog changes how things look and in this case separates the two trees completely from their background.

When you commit to posting a picture every day, as I have done now for over four years, you place yourself under a certain amount of pressure. I often have to talk myself out of bed early for a sunrise because " I have no picture for the blog" I know it sounds sad really. but even though I may have to talk myself out of bed I am rarely disappointed after experiencing the sun rise. I have come to realise that the main barrier to getting exciting photographs is not the camera you use or even your skill as a photographer but its about "being there" when the magic happens !
This image is taken during those few magic minutes before the sun rose over the bog close to my home , here in Kiltimagh.

Photography is all about "moments". Thats just as true of landscape photography as it is of any other field of photography. Here is another image from Monday evening at Cultrasna. In the ten minutes before this picture we had travelled through the rain watching as the sun disappeared behind the rain clouds, then for just a few minutes everything changed the sun broke through the rainbows came and went and the sky turned golden, a few minutes later it was all over and we were heading home, almost wondering "did that really happen" !!

I described how in yesterdays picture we did not find the crock of gold, but there was plenty of gold about. When you see a picture of a rainbow with dark black skies you know that the sun is behind the photographer. The light was so exciting for those few moments yesterday I almost did not know where to look, the light on the hawthorn with the rainbow behind it was magical, but equally magical was the setting sun that was behind me , lighting the hawthorn and creating the rainbow., and also creating a golden sky over Sleive Cairn. By going up the Bog Road in Cultrasna, I was able to photograph the same hawthorn tree from the other side, beauty all around!

Took this about half an hour ago, driving into Kiltimagh from Knock I saw this rainbow beginning to develop just as we arrived into Kiltimagh, so there was nothing for it but to turn the car around and head back out the road again. Trying to find a base for the rainbow I turned into Cultrasna and spotted this hawthorn bush. The rainbow lasted long enough for the picture, we did not find any Gold, but behind us the sun started to set and the sky turned gold for a few minutes, so once again it was back into the car and up the bog road to capture the golden light, I might show you that picture tomorrow evening!

Here is another "old" picture taken back in 2010 on the Clew bay golf course. you can tell by the shape of this tree that it was a difficult place to play golf on a windy day. But it also had some of the best views in Mayo. Unfortunately it is no longer a golf course.

I had a busy afternoon making some prints that will be travelling to America tomorrow. As I went through the archives looking for the prints that were ordered I noticed many that have travelled to different parts of the world and are now hanging on walls in at least 17 countries, reminding people of Ireland and Mayo.
I came across this image that was taken back in 2010 and thought it was worth another showing.

The stormy weather continues with wet snow and rain today, the winds have died down but the sky is still black. Occasionally the sun does try to make an appearance like in this image were a small break in the massed black clouds gives a feeling of hope!!