Daily Blog

Just home after an evening in the mayo Photographic club. In the early part I delivered the last of the six week beginners course and then led the light painting session. We had three different still life set ups in the room and everybody had a go at lighting the different scenes using small torches. I think there was a huge amount of learning and certainly there was great fun had. Next week will be interesting when we will have a club competition on Light Painting. I spent my time going between the different giving "technical support and so did not get a chance myself to take any pictures.
He is another picture from last nights visit to Cill Aodain's church in Kiltimagh.

This evening , the skies cleared and so I decided to try and do some light painting at Cill Aodain Church here in Kiltimagh. The funny thing is that I have tried to photograph it many times during the day and have never really captured and image that I have been pleased with. But night time, a clear sky, moonlight and a strong wind all combine to give a whole new perspective!

Here's another image from the "blue hour" ( after sunset but before it gets really dark) , no stars in this one though.

Turlough Round tower iso500 f8 6seconds

Here's another image from the "blue hour" ( after sunset but before it gets really dark) , no stars in this one though.

Turlough Round tower iso500 f8 6seconds

Had a trip out to Urluar Abbey for some more "in the dark photography". Tonight I thought I would try a very long exposure to get some star trails. I worked out the exposure to be 40 minutes , so I pressed the shutter and waited. The weather was lovely and clear when I started but there were clouds going accross the sky all the time. The gaps in the star trails are caused by the clouds. with about 10 minutes still to go the cloud cover became very thick and there were no stars to be seen at all. With 7 minutes to go it started to rain and I had to call a halt. When you do these long exposures there is a setting in the camera called "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" with this switched on the camera takes as long to write the picture to its memory as it takes to expose the picture. So you cant really wait around to see if the picture has worked. Infact I was able to drive back to Kiltimagh, buy a bottle of wine and arrive home , before the image appeared in the camera!! Still its faster then the old days when you had to wait until the film was processed. I will have to try it again on another clear night.

Something completely different today. I was experimenting with a composite picture yesterday evening. The portrait is of my very patient son Barry, and was made in the kitchen yesterday evening. The portrait is lit by three small flashguns . The two at the side are pointing away from Barry towards large white cards reflecting the light back onto barry, the third is in a softbox directly over the camera .The background is of an old ruined cottage taken on Achill Island earlier in the afternoon, with the portrait in mind The two pictures are then put together in photoshop elements. It took me a couple of hours to complete.

I went to Achill Island today meet a couple about the photographs for their wedding in the summer. I had left Kiltimagh with enough time to get there on time -just ! The fuel warning light was on in the car and I made a mental note to stop for diesel, forgot to do it in Kiltimagh but a few miles out the road I came upon a roadblock. Customs and excise were doing a spot check for illegal diesel. Now if you don't live in Ireland, let me explain, Tax on fuel in this country is VERY high. But farmers get a concession on their diesel so agricultural diesel as it is called is marked with a green dye. While this is good for farmers it also creates opportunities for smugglers to buy cheap agricultural diesel and remove the dye selling it at huge profits because the tax has not been paid, and some individuals might also be tempted to put the agricultural diesel into their cars and also avoid the tax. As so Customs conduct spot checks and syphon fuel out of your car or truck to test. Now remember I am running on empty, and now running late. I join a queue of cars waiting to be tested. I phone ahead explaining I may be late and wait. Its not long before the customs man gets to me, I open the tank and say jokingly " now don't take too much its running on air already" Thankfully he took this in good spirits and proceeded to to put the hose into the fuel tank, nothing came out, so he tried again and again. At this stage I'm thinking this could take a while, when he tried one last time, not a drop of fuel appeared. " It really is running on air " he declared. Thankfully they don't tax air yet!!

On my home from Achill , i stopped and photographed the bridge in Newport, I seem to be doing lots of photography after dark these days

I spent a lovely evening at the Mayo Photographic Club in Castlebar. For the first two hours I was teaching week 5 of the six week beginners class, and then for the club meeting I led an evening on "Light Painting". This included teaching techniques for night time photography, but I also gave a demonstration on using a small torch to paint light onto a still life. This is the picture that I made during the demonstration. The picture is taken in complete darkness with a small single LED torch providing the light.
iso200 f8 30seconds.

Decided not to go out with the camera today. thought I should stay home a watch Ireland beat England at the rugby. Should have gone out!!! still there's always next year.

Misty rain all day today so I did not get out with the camera. This picture was taken last week at Cloughmore on Achill Island

Not taken today, but I came across it going through some files. Its a particularly clear view of Croagh Patrick.

This Blog can also be followed on my facebook page [url=http://www.facebook.com/pages/Images-of-Mayo/154843233438facebook Today we reached 2000 "likes "

Here is another "after dark" image from Urluar Abbey near Kilkelly Co Mayo

Landscape photography is often a slow and meticulous process, many images are planned, great care is taken with exposures, tripods etc. During the recent windy weather i went to CloughMore on Achill to get some wave shots. On arrival I quickly realized that the tripod was a waste of time, it was just too windy. I put up the iso to give me higher shutter speeds and battled to stand still against the wind. I spent longer there then I had intended just because I was enjoying the scene so much. A couple of other photographers arrived in a car and started to unload their gear. Cameras were put on tripods, raincovers were put on to the cameras, I was really tempted to go over and say the tripds wont work its too windy, and the camera covers are just going to blow away. However I thought I should not say anything, anyway I was watching the cloud coming towards the sun and knew there was a picture about to happen, if I stopped to talk I might miss it! Anyway while I watched the clouds, the two lads completed their preparations, came from behind their car and placed there tripods on the ground, almost immediately they seemed to realize it was not going to work, so put there tripods and cameras back in the car and drove away! As they did the clouds covered the sun and I got the picture!!

Here is another "afterdark" image from Killala. I was photographing the boats on the quay using a torch to "paint" by light . When I looked over my shoulder, this was the view!
iso200 f8 8seconds + graduated ND filter


I am running an evening class in Foxford starting this Friday 6.30pm -8.30pm. Cost is €65 The course is a beginners class in Digital photography. If you would like to attend you can send me a message through the contact page.

Just back from Cork, it rained for most of the journey which made for a very unpleasant trip.
here is a picture made in the dark on Friday evening. Well it was not completely dark as there is a street light to the right of the boats on the pier in Kilalla. You can see flare from the street light in the top right hand corner of the picture, the front of the boats is lit using a torch. Dont things look different in the dark.
iso 200 30 seconds f8 + torch!!!!!

Look blue skies!!!!
I am in Cork this evening and despite the lovely weather I was driving for most of the day so struggled to get any pictures. But I took a ten minute break just outside Buttevant at Ballybeg Abbey, where I took a couple of pictures and had coffee from a flask and listened to the commentary at the end of the rugby match between Ireland and Wales.

For the first time in days the skies cleared this evening . I went first to Downpatrick head were it was still cloudy and I left just after sunset. First stopping at Kilalla, I did a little "light-painting" on the pier, then on to Ballylahan Castle for some more light-painting. It was so unusual in recent times at least to have a clear sky , that despite it now being over two and a half hours after sunset I decided to also visit Urlaur Abbey. By the time I made this image I was beginning to feel the cold, so headed for home and a nice warm fire.

The windy weather continues.
This is Roonagh pier a few days ago.
If you saw somebody in the water, would YOU fetch the life buoy ??

Back home in Kiltimagh after a lovely few days with the family in Westport. Precious time, and know we have started to go our separate ways. Our eldest son left for Dublin this evening. And tomorrow morning Aisling our eldest daughter who has lived in Scotland for the last six years is moving to Singapore ! So its hard to know when we will all be together again.

Here is another picture from Cloughmore on Achill

am in westport for a couple of days with the family. we are "celebrating Christmas", as we were not all able to get together at christmas, so we booked time together in a hotel in Westport. This afternoon nobody wanted to come to Achill so i took a little time on my own ! Glad I did! I went to Cloughmore to see the waves, I think the rest of the family missed out. I only stayed about 40 minutes because I did want to get back to the family, but that 40 minutes was incredible. I left Westport in the rain, when I got to Cloughmore the rain had stopped , but during my time there the sun came out! We have not seen the sun here for several days. The wind was incredible and a tripod was a waste of time because of it. I switched to high iso so that I would have a shutter speed high enough to "freeze" the waves. Here is one of the many pictures i took today. I am now heading down to the dining room in the Plaza hotel in Westport for our family "Christmas Dinner"