Daily Blog

After making yesterdays photograph of the waterfalls at Errif this is the view across the valley. The light was not great but its a great view in any light!

This is a section from one of the waterfalls in Errif Woods. This a half second exposure which I think is just enough to show the movement in the water.

It was a really lovely day in Mayo today, I am not a fan on blue skies for my photography. Today I did not have time for photography per say, but as I travelled between Foxford and Kiltimagh in the afternoon Ballylacken Castle looked great, being side lit by the low winter sun, so I had to stop for a photograph. This is taken from the roadside.

This picture was taken from the same location as the one i posted yesterday, and at the same time ! its amazing how different the two images are but I suppose demonstrates how lucky we were to get the dramatic sun that is in yesterdays picture. Apart from camera settings, of course, the difference between these two images is simply my turning about 120degrees from one view to the other! The view is of Killary Harbour with Leenane on the far shore line.

This afternoon I met with Canice for another one to one Landscape session. This is Canice's third visit to me and really at this stage I am not giving him to much instruction but just showing him all the best places to photograph in Mayo. Today we went down towards Leenane and up the Doolough Valley. While it was a lovely day it was overcast for most of it so we decided to visit some waterfalls in Errif Woods. we had intended to visit Aisleigh Falls, Leenane and Doolough, but we spent so much time in Errif woods that we had to re asses our timetable. It was getting late and it did not look like we were going to see any sunshine but we decided to skip Leenane and Aisleigh falls and just continue towards Doolough just in case the sun would break through. Lucky we did because a couple of minutes after we passed Aisliegh falls and travelled along the side of Killary Harbour we turned a corner and saw this.... !!! There was nowhere to park so we just had to stop on the road and would have blocked the traffic if there was any!

Not long back from two busy days in Dublin. Three of our four children live in Dublin so it was great to catch up with them all. We had a lovely meal together last night , it was lovely though we did miss our daughter Aisling who is in Singapore ( a bit far to come for a dinner)
I did not get much chance to use the camera, but I was in the town centre about an hour after sunset and took this photograph of the GPO and the Spire. I deliberately wanted a slow shutter speed to blur the people and the bus. I had no tripod so had to lean against a monument to keep the camera steady for the half a second exposure, but I seemed to be waiting ages for the bus to arrive !

Posting extra early today as I am away for the day and unlikely to be using my camera!

This picture was taken on one of those horrible grey days we have been having recently, the kind of day you think is no good for photography. When there is no colour in a scene the shapes become more important.

This afternoon, I had a one to one photo class with a friend, Liam. Who came for some advice on the set up of his camera and speedlight. It was a nice evening so we decided to take a trip out to photograph the sunset. At the time the sky was very blue and as we drove along I explained to Liam why I would like to see some clouds. Its the clouds that will give us the drama I explained. We stopped at a small lake outside Kilkelly and did some practice on Liam's camera as we waited for the sun to drop, as it dropped the clouds began to move across the sky and we waited, as the clouds covered the sun we got four or five minutes of drama and there was frantic activity as we shouted fstops and shutter speeds to each other!! The next cloud that came was much bigger, and completely blotted out the sun and we did not see a sunset, and as we walked back to the car the cloud opened and the rain poured down, but it was worth it for those few minutes of drama!!

I was at camera club yesterday evening and the drive home from Castlebar was done very carefully because of a severe frost ,making the roads very slippy, so I went to bed expecting a crisp white morning and some interesting photo opportunities, but instead we woke to heavy rain, I am posting this about 13hours later and it is still raining!! I don't think it stopped all day. So no new pictures today, this one was taken a week or so ago in Mulranny, on a sunny but freezing cold afternoon, I remember thinking the sheep were better equipped then me for the cold and also for walking across the boggy hilly ground!

The rain has returned so I won't be going out this morning. This image from the little lake at Woodfield, Kiltimagh was made yesterday morning about half an hour after sunrise, before the sun was high enough to melt the ice you can see forming around the reeds at the bottom . This was the last picture I took because the temperature was rising as can be witnessed by the ripples appearing on the far side of the lake, I knew that in another few minutes those ripples would cross the lake and the lovely reflective conditions would be gone.

It was a beautiful morning in Mayo, severe frost with ice on the roads but still lovely. I went out to Woodfield to photograph the sunrise by a small lough there. It meant walking through bog and will all the rain we have it was very wet, I did not have welllies in the car so my feet quickly got wet and very cold! By the time I got back to the car, I was not sure if I would be able to feel the pedals. Anyway I got home and after a some porridge and tea I am feeling much better. As I walked across the bog I noticed this tree and and thought it would make a good silhouette . It seemed to take an age to cross the bog to where it was and when I got there the only way I could get a good composition was to lie down , so it was more than my feet that got wet!!

Its pouring rain again here in Mayo this morning. We have had so much rain over the last few weeks there is water everywhere ! Its also interesting to see how pictures can tell stories. Yesterday as I drove between Balla and Claremorris I passed a this lovely scene,


the sun was shining and I noticed the reflection of the wall in the water. So I did a U turn in the car and went back to get the picture, I am sure you will agree its a pretty sight. it could pass as a beautiful lake in the West of Ireland, if you look carefully you can see the patterns in the field caused by the "lazy beds" or potatoe ridges dating back to famine times, and of course the stone wall is also characteristic. But if you take a wider view you can see that really, it is far from the the idyllic scene as depicted in the first picture.

I went out to photograph the sunrise this morning, I did not really have a plan, but just went down to the local bog looking for a suitable view for the sunrise. Usually I plan these things, the sunrise only lasts a few moments so it is always better to plan. Just before the sun rose, I met this little pony, I loved the backlighting , so I photographed him instead.

Sunny all day today in Mayo, but I did not get out with the camera. I took this image of the strand in mulranny last week . A neutral Density filter has helped me achieve a slow shutter speed of 30 seconds resulting in the water and the clouds appearing as a blur. It was windy at the time and despite using a tripod this was the only one of three shots that did not have camera shake as well.

After all the storms a little calm ! Lets hope we can keep it!

After a day or two of near calm, the stormy weather has returned to the West Coast of Ireland. This image is from Achill Island.

You will be glad to hear I managed to salvage a tripod, removing broken parts from one and replacing with working parts from the second tripod has saved me a couple of hundred euros! Using a tripod for landscape photography is really essential but its amazing with modern digital cameras and lenses what can be achieved. This photograph from Mulranny Beach was taken yesterday evening 25 minutes after sunset, so it was getting dark. I was able to increase the iso to 400 and switch on the VR (Vibration reduction) on the lens and then by sitting on a rock and resting my elbows on my knees take a picture at1/10 of a second and have no visible camera shake in the image. I was very pleased with the resulting image.

Yesterday I posted a picture of rough sees and told you how I had cancelled a night time trip to the beach for a night shot ,just as well because during the night the beach was moved! Yes moved ! In this picture you can see a road that disappears under tonnes and tonnes of rocks. That road was perfectly clear yesterday morning and is actually the road to the pier in Mulranny, all those rocks were thrown up by the sea during the night, and the shape of the beach has changed!. The life guard hut was also blown from its concrete moorings and indeed the concrete plateform it was moored to was also cracked and moved. Never doubt the power of the sea!!

After a couple of days of reasonably good weather it seems we are due another storm. Met Eireann issued an amber warning for tonight. We were on Achill Island a couple of hours ago and as you can see the ocean is already building up to it !
I had intended to try some more night shots on Keem strand later , but have decided to heed the warnings and leave it for another night!

Knowing that some of you (Caitlin!) were expecting to see a picture the first sunrise of 2014 I checked the weather forecast before going to bed and seeing how bad it looked for the morning , it seemed unlikely that there would be any sun visible , but there was a clear sky at 1A.M. so I thought , lets go and get my first picture of 2014 !! So I went down to the beach here in Mulranny the stars were amazing and I wish I had a wider lens to capture more of them! The rocks and water are lit with a torch and the orange light on the horizon is from a small group of three houses.

There was no sunrise this morning!

iso6400 30 seconds f3.5