Daily Blog

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

It was on new years eve 4 years ago that I started doing my "daily blog" I had resolved to do it for one year! Four years later over 4,000 of you have taken the time to "like" my page. I put the same blog up on my website every day and it also gets a huge amount of traffic.

So thank you to all who have "liked," "shared" and especially "commented" on the page or the website it is the feedback that keeps us "bloggers" going. So thanks again and Happy new year to you all.

Today was the perfect finish to 2013.
I spent the day teaching a One to One Photography workshop to Darragh, from Cork. Darragh arrived early so that we could try and get a sunrise on the beach here in Mulranny. The forecast for the day was pretty poor with wind and rain and yesterday we briefly considered postponing the day. But we decided to go ahead, the forecasters were accurate the day was wet and windy but for a few minutes at sunrise it was glorious! The rest morning was spent teaching Darragh how to process his pictures in "Lightroom". Then in the evening we went to Achill in the hopes of getting a sunset, once again the weather cleared just long enough to allow us to do some photography and Achill was spectacular with huge waves, but it was very cold and of course windy, then back to the house where Darragh practiced the lightroom skills he had learnt earlier and left here with some great images from both this morning and this evening.

Here is my image from the beach this morning.

Today is a beautiful day here in Mayo. I was out for the sunrise which was disapointing due to low cloud, but I could see that if I waited around for a while the low sun would begin to appear above the clouds. As the sun rose the clouds actually began to break up, and for a while it was too bright to photograph with the sun in the picture. I could see that there was cloud moving across the sky and I just had to wait, sure enough it came into just the right position ! It did not stay long and I had a very frantic couple of minutes!!

The morning started promising but it is raining now with with the wind picking up again, I think we are due several more days of wind and rain.

This is a small beach called Bolinglanna ,I think, near Mulranny, I often stop here for photographs, it is sandy when the tide is out, on this occasion the tide is on its way in and there is no sand, but the lines of rocks make for an interesting composition. This is a 13 second exposure which has kept the water smooth.

This picture was taken yesterday morning, I was a little late for the sunrise. What I really liked was the ripples on the water in the foreground , the sun was very bright so I had to wait for that little cloud to at least partially cover the sun.

Just back from a walk by the beach with patricia, the wind has calmed a little but it is much better to have it at your back rather then have to walk into it! Here is a picture of the beach. As you can see its pretty dark and we had to dodge a couple of very heavy showers.

Well the Electricity was returned late on Chritmas eve, not until after the Turkey and Ham had been farmed out to other ovens to be cooked for Christmas day. christmas day was lovely and at least with heat returned to the house we had a wonderful day together.
This picture of Croagh Patrick was taken from close to Mulranny this morning, shortly after sunrise this morning. The morning was really lovely, especially after all the rain we have been having, but was only the calm before the storm, we are on red alert again for a storm during the night. Though I think the worst of it has probably passed.

The Drama of Christmas 2013 continues, after all the car troubes came the thunder, a huge clap of thunder at 10am on Christmas Eve has left us without electricity since. By evening the mobile phones, ipads and computers were all dead and we... were forced to sit and talk to each other by candle light ! The kind of stuff Christmas memories are made of!

Happy Christmas.

Very stressful day today spent most of the day traveling between limerick and Kiltimagh in a very sick car! Broke down in Bunratty, got to a garage in Ennis , despite the fix in Ennis it stopped again in Gort, threatened to break down several other times, came to a halt again between Claremorris and Kiltimagh , each time we managed to get it going, it eventually died on main street Kiltimagh , but at least we got home !

There is a storm in full swing outside so I expect the seas are wild again tonight, I would not like to trying to get home on a ferry.

Posting early today as I am away all day and may not get a chance later.
This picture was taken on Mulranny strand, there was very little light so once again it is a high iso shot.
The waves on the beach were fantastic. Those of you who know me or have been out on photographic trips with me will know it is not unusual for me to get my feet wet in these kind of situations. I normally wear ankle length walking boots, but to protect my feet from getting wet I have taken to wearing wellingtons on the beach. I was standing thirty or forty feet away from the waters edge taking these pictures, every so often a wave would come up the beach and just reach me, but with wellies on, I paid little attention. But on one occasion I took my eye away from the camera and saw a wave racing up the beach that was just bigger then the others. My first instinct was to run, but experience has taught me that you are more likely to fall so I just stood and braced myself, sure enough this wave came in at just over knee height. I had four thoughts
1) Crumbs thats cold!
2) Keep the camera up whatever
3) I hope nobody's watching !
4) I need longer boots!

Today being the winter solstice I got up to photograph the sunrise, but the sun was hidden behind heavy cloud and did not make an appearance ,and that a very short one until 2.30 in the afternoon !. I did wonder at the official sunrise time, however ,about what would have been the significance of a sun no show to the pagans of the Newgrange era ? Anyway the sun did appear at about 2.30pm but by the time I got out at 3.30 it had disappeared again ! I had decided to travel to Cloughmore on Achill , but the drive up was not at all promising and I nearly turned the car around on several occasions. I was rewarded however by the shortest of glimpses of the setting sun as it finally dropped from behind the clouds, as you can tell from the waves it was very windy, too windy even for a tripod so this is a hand held image that needed a high 1000iso to make it possible, not the best settings for high quality pictures but it was all so dramatic I just had to try and capture it. And that dark cloud you see dropped at least some of its load of hailstones on me just minutes later, on the drive home there was thunder and lightening , but i enjoyed every minute of it!!

Well the storm blew over last night and I was allowed out with the camera this afternoon. It was still very cold and windy and as I drove out from Mulranny . I was amazed to see 10 or 12 people surfing!! It really was cold and there were hail showers and a wind that would cut you in two. So of course I headed down to the shore to capture the surfers, a very different approach was required to my usual "Landscape mode" This needed fast shutter speeds so I set my iso to 1000 , I took loads of pictures close up of the surfers but had not completely taken my Landscape cap off, so I watched and waited until I could get a surfer and the whole of Croagh Patrick in the frame, with the snow on the mountain, you can tell its not Hawaii !! For this image the settings were; iso1000, f5, 1/1250sec. Once I had this one in the bag I was glad to get back to the car and throw the heater on!!!! These surfers are hard men !! (and women!)

Its blowing up a real storm here in Mayo. With very heavy rain forecast I went down to the beach just before the rain started to get a picture for today, it was very dark and not very inspiring but I made a picture anyway. since then things have really deteriorated huge wind, trees falling and power cuts, it has just come back on here a few minutes ago so I thought I would post while I could. They even adviced on the news this evening that people should stay away from the shore and not be trying to see the high waves... So I have been grounded!!!

A wild wet and windy day in Mayo today, I did not get out. I was looking through some old photographs yesterday evening and found this one of a sunset at Croagh Patrick taken three years ago. The birds in the picture are crows.

I remember as a small child being given a book full of interesting places around the world. There were pictures from Easter Island even the name was interesting especially when as a child you associate Easter with chocolate. But I was really amazed by the huge statues that appeared to me to be just big heads. Well this rock on Achil reminded me of those Moai Heads . It is only when it is seen in silhouette that it takes the shape of a head, lying facing out to the west.

On Monday afternoon I was driving to Achill and as I drove towards Newport this was the view of Croagh Patrick I could see from the road. It was very difficult to find a place to photograph it without telegraph wires and poles between me and Croagh Patrick, on my third time stopping I got this picture, I was hoping to get another chance a little further up the road but the light changed so I was glad I stopped when I did!

The forecast for the morning was not great and I did not expect to get a sunrise, but I was awake early and seeing it was dry outside I decided to have a go anyway. As is often the case the time before the sunrise was much nicer then the sunrise itself as it was completely hidden behind low clouds. the sky was at its most colourful a full half an hour before sunrise. Lough Cullen, co Mayo.

A miserable day in Mayo today, wind and rain, still I cant complain its been a very good winter so far, this picture was made during the week at the top of the Sheefrey Pass, this was the last we saw of the sun because as we dropped down into the pass it just got darker and darker.

Very dull and cloudy today, so here is another image taken on Wednesday evening.