Daily Blog

We had a glorious day in Mayo today, it really did not feel like late September. I spent the day in the Ballycastle area photographing old farm buildings as part of a commission . But in the evening just before sunset I got down to the beach at Downpatrick Head. When I arrived it did not look very promising and being tired from the day, I nearly went home. But I am glad I made the decision to stay, because just as the sun set , it dropped from behind the clouds that were hiding it for the previous half an hour.

Here is another picture from last evenings visit to Moore Hall, I love the soft light. It was much darker then it appears in the picture. The camera was open for thirty seconds to let in enough light to create this image.

The day was very grey and dull all day today in Mayo. I have not used my camera for two weeks and decided I really needed to get the creative juices flowing again.So given how dull the day was I decided it might be good for waterfalls or maybe for fungus. So I decided to go fungus hunting and went to Moore Hall Woods this evening. The area I remembered as being really good for fungus is now so overgrown that it was very hard to access. But I did find this lovely "Porcelain Fungus" growing on a beech tree. The lack of any sunlight really helps with a picture like this and the soft even lighting allows us to see the fungus well. the camera details are iso100 f16 30seconds, using a tripod.

Started the Mayo photographic club beginners class this evening, it will run for 8 weeks and is free to members, Membership is only €65!
Tonights picture was taken several weeks ago on Achil Island.

Well it wasn't to be....again. Well done Dublin who won todays football final by one point. So Mayo has finished second, two years running, so disappointing,but still a great achievement. So well done to the team and we look forward to next year.

We should not forget of course that the Mayo minor team ( under eighteens) became All Ireland Minor Champions today. Well done Lads, there is hope for the future!!
This evenings picture shows clouds over Nephin !!

Mayo seems very quiet this evening!! It seems half the population have gone to Dublin to bring home SAM !

Sunday is the All Ireland Gaelic Football Final. the cup is called the Sam Maguire Cup Mayo will play Dublin in the Final and have not won since 1951!! So this really is a big deal. This is their fourth final appearance since 2004 so lets hope they bring SAM home to Mayo this year!

Well its back to the archives again today. For some reason I just have not managed to take any new photos. But I did get a request today for a photo of Moore hall and when looking through some old files I found this one that has not been seen before! I have not been up to Moore Hall for several months now, Its time to make another visit I think.

I was looking through some old files today to find the original file for a print somebody had asked me for. I found this picture taken in 2009,it has never seen the light of day, until today!!

Mayo is such a magic county, with lots of unspoilt places.this strand in Mulranny is one of them. Its a bit of a secret really, most people think of Mulranny Strand as being the beach in front of the Park Hotel. But this beach is not seen from the road, infact you have to drive across the golf course to find it. The golf course in Mulranny is itself quaint, as the greens all have fences around them to keep the sheep off them. And yes driving a car ( AS opposed to a golf ball!)across a golf course can be hazardous . I have never been hit by a golf ball but there are "viewing areas" for car drivers to check there is nobody about to fire a ball at you!

I know its not long since I last posted this picture but it has been awarded a Gold Award in the monochrome section of the SWPP monthly awards for August. The rest of the award winners can be seen here http://www.swpp.co.uk/image_competition-2013/Aug/winnerspg01.htm

Thank you to every body who wrote with messages of support since my last posting on Sept10. After a very sad few days in Cork ,(my Mums funeral was on Friday) I am back in Mayo and decided this evening I should recommence the daily picture.

This picture of water on stones is taken on a cloudy day with no sunshine, this allows a slower shutter speed of 1.6seconds which shows the movement in the water.

A return to the landscapes this evening.I was driving most of today but I took this picture a week ago on Achill Island.

Here is something just a little different!! I am a member of the Mayo Photographic Club and we have resumed meeting on Monday evenings. This evening one of the members had arranged for his pal, Sean to bring in his Harley Davidson Motorcycle, for some photographs. We met in a multistory car park. So this was a real exercise in lighting, using flash the challenge was to light Sean but exclude all the light in the car park and of course the other 20 photographers who were also working. It took me a little while to set up the flashes before Sean got on the bike, I did not get any great pictures of the bike itself, but I was delighted with the result of this portrait.
If you live anywhere near Castlebar and are interested in photography, why not join the Camera club. I will be starting a free eight week nightclass for club members starting on 23rd Sept, its FREE, but you have to be a member. Check out the website www.mayophotographicclub.ie

Yesterdays picture was all about the light. But todays proves you dont always need exciting light to make pictures. This one depends more on shape and contrast.
Keem strand, Achill Island, Co Mayo

This is Mulranny beach, early in the morning. I love taking pictures towards the light, always a bit more difficult to get the exposure right, but I think it produces much more dramatic pictures. I would have liked the water to have reached the rock on the right side of the picture, but the tide was going out and it just would not reach , if I had got there five minutes earlier perhaps.

Can Sheep really walk on water?

One of the really interesting features of Mulranny Co Mayo is the salt marsh, behind the beach. It is made up of lots of little islands, when the tide is out you can walk across it, usually when the tide is in it looks like a big patch work of tiny islands. It is grazed by sheep and sometimes when the tide is coming in they can be seen negotiating their way across the islands and onto the "mainland" Sometimes when the tide is at its highest the islands are completely submerged and a few of the sheep get stranded. But they are very clever and dont panic, they simply stand and wait for the tide to turn! This picture was taken this morning about ten minutes before sunrise.

This is one of my favourite views . Seen from the main road between Mulranny and Newport in Co Mayo. I have lost count how many times I have photographed it. Of course its different every time, but the light was really lovely this afternoon.

I only had a few minutes on Mulranny strand today before the rain started, and when it did it rained all day. but the few minutes I got was at just the right time.

This morning I met Canice for a one to one lesson in Landscape Photography. We met at 6.25am to try and capture a sunrise. We arrived in plenty of time for the sunrise but heavy cloud blocked out the sunrise completely, but we watched as the colours in the sky developed and things slowly developed until this scene confronted us! A few minutes after this picture was taken the colours disappeared and the day became grey again.
The picture was taken from the Great Western Greenway, between Mulranny and Achill

A very grey day in Mulranny today,with lots of mist. I was not fully motivated to take the camera out but thought to myself that when I run my Landscape Photography weekends you don't always get good weather. So I decided to go out anyway. I needed a couple of pictures for a beginners class and decided to visit this little waterfall and took pictures with both a slow and a fast shutter speed to show the different approaches to photographing water. I have always preferred the slow approach! This is a slow shutter speed of 2.5 seconds @f18 iso100. But it does demonstrate , there can be advantages to dull weather!