Daily Blog

Lovely sunny day in Mayo. I have not been out with the camera for several days but I had an opportunity this morning. So I paid a visit to Lough Carra. Its the kind of place I go to when I am not sure where to go, or as in today, I am going at the "wrong time". By wrong time I mean , the sun was already too high in the sky for landscape photography, and I knew I would not be going out this evening when the sun would drop again. But Lough Carragh will usually give up some pictures, because there are always a few boats. So having got there today I must admit that I was still lacking any real inspiration. But then I spotted that this boat was moored up against the reeds and they were moving in the gentle breeze. So I decided to go for a slow shutter speed to show the movement. So this was taken at f22 with a six stop ND filter which resulted in an exposure of 8 seconds, just long enough !

I didn't get out again today, tortured myself watching Ireland vs Scotland in the soccer!!
So here is another image from the lovely village of Cong. This is the famous Monks Fishing House.

How quickly we get used to the sunshine! Non today , just clouds and some heavy rain in the morning. I did not get out, but here is a picture from Cong taken last week . This little lane featured in the Quiet Man Film.

I did not have to go very far for today's image, taken just up the road from me here in Kiltimagh. The sunny weather over the last few days has really brought on the flowers on the hawthorn bushes and the countryside is covered.

Here is another image from last evenings stop at Ballycragher Bay near Mulranny. Different tree! Taken from the side of the road, before going into the fired to get to the tree you saw last night.

First off, just to clear up some questions from last night's picture/story. Patricia did not actually purchase anything from her trip into Stephen's Green Shopping Centre. I can here many of you now saying how lucky I am that the credit card was not given a pasting etc etc. Well to be fair to Trish she is not a big spender, not that I would mind if she was. You see its not the spending money that is the issue for me, its the whole shopping process, I go to the shop and make my purchase, I know what I want before I go in, and I generally go to the shop that stocks it and get out. Patricia on the other hand would happily spend several hours going around the shops just looking!!!! a typical conversation might be.
Trish: "would this be nice on me"
Me "sure, do you like it, lets buy it"
Trish " I don't want to buy it ! I just wondered did it suit me"
Me " Aagh"

Today we were in Mulranny for the afternoon, photographing some art work for a friend, we left around 9.45 pm which meant we were just on time for the sunset over Ballycracker Bay.

I am posting early today because I am just heading out the road to Dublin and am not sure I will get the chance to post later on, and at leafs if I post now I won't have to worry about it later!!.
here is another picture from Cong, this is the herb garden at Ashford Castle. I had to walk around this several times to find a composition that "worked", I think this one does.

ts been a very cloudy grey kind of day in Mayo, no sign of the sun. So here is a picture I took yesterday in Cong. The statue of John and Maureen has been in Cong a few years now, and I have attempted to photograph it a couple of times but have never been pleased with the results. yesterday I stood beside the statue and took another look ,and thought , how do you make it into a picture. Suddenly it occurred to me in one of those "DUH" moments, " its just two people, how would you photograph two people"
"Not from here" was my immediate response to myself. So I put the telephoto lens onto the fuji and walked across the street, the long lens and the 200ft distance made for a much better perspective!

I visited cong today to deliver some of my hand made cards to The Lady's Buttery https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ladys-Buttery-Art-and-Craft-gallery/349872688380359?fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser
While there I took a walk and got a few more pictures of Cong. This is the river Cong, and the bridge links the Abbey to the Castle.

Most of today was spent indoors, making cards and small prints , I decided to resist the temptation to "take a break" during the day and continued the work until it was finished.I had decided that I might get out in the evening, but evening came and the cloud got thicker and the sun disapearred , so I settled down in front of the tele for a "night off". Just as the nine O clock news finished I looked outside and could see the sun was just catching the tops of the houses opposite ours, that meant it must have found a gap in the clouds, so I went to the back of the house ,and sure enough there was a gap under the clouds. there might be a picture out there after all.! So I hastily gathered together my things and decided to head to Lough Nambrackagh near Kilkelly, a fifteen minute drive. I got there just on time but a second layer of clouds blocked the sun as it finally set and so the sunset was not at all spectacular like I thought it would be. But I still took a couple of pictures and despite the lac of colour I thought it was still quite dramatic and worth getting off the couch for!

The 1st June is the considered by many to be the first day of summer in Ireland, but today it felt more like an October day. It POURED rain all day, until late in the afternoon when it changed from rain to showers ! As I ate my tea this evening I looked out of the window and noticed how fast the clouds were moving in the high winds. So decided it might be a good exercise to show the wind by showing the movement in the sky. So I needed to find a solid tall structure that would not move, to show the clouds as they passed by. I was driving to Meelick round tower when it occurred to me that the castle at Ballylacken might be interesting also. so thats where I went. the picture is taken with my fuji XE1 with a six stop ND filter to slow the shutter speed to 30seconds. As you can see the clouds really were "flying" by.

This view of Turlough round tower always catches my attention.It is taken with the fuji XE1 and a 50- 230mm zoom lens, with the lens at 230mm. The picture has then been cropped.So that gives you an idea of how far away I am from the tower. But i just like the way the tower seems to be peeking over the hill, with no other building around it. I can remember as a small boy being told the Round Towers were meant to be space rockets and my imagination for a while accepted that as a possibility. When I see the tower from this angle I am reminded of that innocence, and think "yeah it could be a rocket" ....couldn't it ?

Just back from a great day in Mulranny, where I taught a photography class before the participants were set free to go and photograph the local area and enter the photography competition. The group were lovely with people from Mulranny, Dublin, England and even a visitor from Honduras!! Everybody seemed to enjoy themselves and despite the dull weather all came back with good photographs! Even though it was dull, we were still blessed with the weather, the rain did not start until we were all back and the judging had started!
Of course I had to take a little stroll down the beach myself where I found the tide was just reaching this stone which I thought mirrored the shape of Croagh Patrick across the Bay.

I said i would feature the Mulranny Old Irish goats for a few days, well here is one of the kids, Cute isn't he !
find out more at www.oldirishgoatsociety.com

A couple of weeks ago i was asked to photograph some Old Irish Goats ! These wild goats roam the hills around Mulranny and a study has shown that the Mulranny goats are of a very old Irish strain and so an attempt is being made to recognise and protect the breed. If you want to know more you could contact the Old Irish goat Society through their website http://www.oldirishgoatsociety.com
In this picture you see John, one of the volunteers with the Old Irish Goat Society, John is rapidly getting a reputation for "being good with the kids"!! I might feature one or two more of the goats over the next few days.

I was searching a hard drive today looking for a picture from North Mayo, that a customer had requested for a website,when I came across this one from Downpatrick Head. Just for a moment I thought it looks as if Dun Briste has just broken away from the mainland and is steaming away out to sea!

I did not go out today, took the day off as I'm exhausted after all the driving this weekend. So here is an image of Killala tower made during the week.

Very late posting again this evening, I have just arrived back from our trip to Cork, a long journey driving in the rain all the way!. But Yesterday evening on my way to Cork the weather was much nicer and I stopped at Ballybeg Priory just outside Buttevant, the Board of Works are doing work on the Abbey so there were very few angles it could be photographed from without scaffolding etc, but the evening sun was lighting this particular area very nicely.

Sorry for being so late this evening. Technically , as its after midnight I suppose I have missed a day!. I am writing this from Cork. Patricia and I travelled down from Mayo today but stopped for our lunch at Coole Park in County Galway. Coole Estate was the home of Lady Gregory and it is well worth a visit, after lunch, the weather was so nice that instead of continuing our journey we took a stroll through the woods to the lake and also into the walled garden. In the walled garden there is a human sun dial. There is a stone on the ground and if you stand on the spot marked for the different months of the year, (so today i stood on the mark for the month of may,) your shadow will point to the time of the day! As you can see I stood on the dial at 3.30 today, yes it really is accurate. The only problem is of course it does not work at night time! And today I was stood for a few minutes with no shadow as the sun was behind clouds, but the sun broke through long enough for me to take this picture. Then when I had thought about it I had thought of maybe a different way to take the picture, but the sun was hidden again and even though we waited several minutes it was not clear when the shadow would appear again, and we had a journey to complete. But photography is all about ,light and time, so I am calling this picture "Time Exposure"

So I promised I would post a more considered photograph of the Rock from last nights picture.While the cows were very curious about the camera, once I started talking to them about apertures and shutter speeds they quickly became bored and wandered away ! So I had a good look at the rock and photographed it from a number of angles. this one was the most difficult because it was towards the sun, which was above that big black cloud, but while it was the most challenging it was also the most interesting, partly because of the light, but also because it places the rock squarely in Killala , you can see the Killala round tower in the distance.