Daily Blog

Our prevailing winds in Mayo are from the West, but yesterday evening a gale blew in from the North. So I thought Downpatrick Head and Dunbriste would be worth a visit. My neighbour Tony came with me and while it was windy in Kiltimagh it was a whole lot wilder at Downpatrick Head. We hesitated to walk out to the head, and when we did it was like walking with somebody pulling you back on a rope! When we got out to the head we crawled to a point maybe 30 feet from the edge to take out pictures. Normally I would go to the edge but even thirty feet away I felt really vulnerable. As you can see from the picture it was very dark , we did not bring tripods because of the wind. I don't have VR on my lens so I had to put the iso up to 800 to get a shutter speed of 1/100 at f3.5, not my usual landscape settings! The walk back to the car was much quicker as we had the wind at our backs.!

I have just arranged a nightclass for six weeks in Kilalla starting 8th Oct 2012. This class is aimed at beginners or people who want to "take control" of their camera. Times are 7-9pm. If you would like to attend then you can contact me by email.

There was great excitement today as Mayo took on Donegal in the All Ireland Football Final. Even the statues in Kiltimagh were suitably dressed for the occasion.

It is 61 years since Mayo last won the final and I am sorry to report it will be at least another year before that record is broken. But to be fair to Donegal they were worthy winners and the Mayo lads did not let themselves down.

UP MAYO !!!

One of the signs of autumn is the colder mornings. Its about this time every year when we can suddenly see the cobwebs in the ditches. Its only for an hour or two when the sun is low in the sky and the temperature is cold enough to keep the dampness on the webs. I was out this morning and they were all over the place! The remarkable thing is of course that they were all over the place yesterday also but I could not see them, so if I walked through the same area I would be wrecking all these amazing constructions and not even know it! The trck to photographing them is to get the sun behind the cobweb but keep a dark background. Even the spider has been lit up in this picture.

I always think that patience is one of the most important " skills" for a landscape photographer to develop! Here is another image from Sundays trip to Ballycastle and Downpatrick Head. We had hoped to photograph the sunset and in truth it was a little disappointing as the sun was hidden by the low cloud. Still we hung around to see what colours might develop, and as you can see we were not disapointed, in fact we even felt a little smug, as we were the last to leave , our patience had paid off!

Here is another picture from Sundays trip to Downpatrick Head, Ballycastle. In fact this picture was taken from almost the exact same location as yesterday's of Dun Briste and within one and a half minutes ! The pictures are just in opposite directions, It pays to look around you!!

This picture of Dun Briste was taken on Sunday. It was so windy it was almost impossible to hold the camera steady , even on a very low tripod. I lay on the ground to take this picture. It was taken about 50 minutes before sunset and the sun is lighting Dunbriste beautifully. I think it looks like a big slice of cake made up of lots of different layers.

While travelling to Ballycastle yesterday, we traveled through Letterkeane Woods, using the forestry roads, I took more than one wrong turn however (forestry roads are not in my sat/nav ) and the journey was longer then expected. Just when I was beginning to think I was still going around in circles the forestry opened and we exited close to Crossmolina. Not quite where I expected, but in the right direction at least, however I was delighted to see this very colourful area of bog.

What a great day I had today. Today ,Karens second day of one to one . We visited Dunbriste this evening and the place was wild, huge waves and a wind that it was difficult to stand up in, we also got a nice sunset.Our day had started early, having failed to get a sunrise picture yesterday, like the dedicated photographers we are, we decided to try again this morning!. We were set up and waiting half an hour before the sun was due to appear, but like yesterday low cloud seemed to just get thicker and thicker, sunset time came and went but we did not see the sun. Just a little dejected we decided to go back for our breafast when all of a sudden this happened...........

As I explained yesterday , today was spent with Karen on a "One to One " landscape photography training day. We were up early and all set up out on the Greenway above Mulranny waiting for the sunrise, but nobody told the sun and we did not see it at all! So back to the house for breakfast and showers then we headed towards Achill. It was very grey and overcast and on occasions raining, however we stopped several times before reaching our final destination , Keem Strand. And just as we arrived the sun finally broke through and we got a couple of hours of exciting photography. On return to Mulranny we spent several more hours using photoshop. Karen said she learnt a lot , but I think the most important lesson she learnt from me today was NEVER LEAVE YOUR CAMERA UNATTENDED ON A TRIPOD, AS IT IS LIKELY TO FALL OVER !! And just to make sure Karen really remembered this I did it , not once, but twice!! I was very lucky, apart from a filter holder taking a slight bend the camera and lens remained undamaged!

I am in Mulranny for a weekend of photography with Karen who has come from America for a photographic tour of the West of Ireland and is spending a couple of days with myself. I am praying for some good weather with some exciting light, it does not look too promising for tomorrow.This evening we took a trip to Achill to photograph the sunset, unfortunatly there was no sunset , but we were at Cloughmore about half an hour before the sunset and got some exciting light ,like in this picture.

Just arrived home after a long day. I left Cork at 7am this morning and spent the day in Dublin, helping my son Darragh with a job. Left Dublin later then expected and arrived home at 1.30am. No pictures taken!! So here is one from Kiltimagh, this little plantation of birch trees are on the edge of the bog, just down the road from my house here in Kiltimagh.

I am in Cork for a couple of days. The weather is lovely, feels like a summer day! I was doing a job in my Mums garden but got distracted (it's always a problem when I'm doing jobs!) by the butterflies that were taking advantage of the heat from the sun. Here is a Tortoiseshell .

Its hard to believe its that time of year again. A whole generation of people will always remember where they were on Sept 11th 2001. And of course we cant but think of all those who were and are still directly effected by that terrible event.
I am posting early today because I am traveling to Cork. So I got up early to photograph the sunrise, so here it is fresh out of the camera! "Sunrise Sept 11th Kiltimagh Co Mayo"

More rain this evening and once again I did not get any new pictures. I am beginning to run out of reserves!!
Here is another of Clew Bay and Croagh Patrick with some lovely light on the islands of Clew Bay.

No new pictures today, lots of rain.
Here is a picture of a very old church at Burrishoole. Burrishoole is famous for it "Abbey", which I have recently learnt is technically a Friary not an Abbey. Anyway this church is located a couple of hundred yards away and predates the Friary. There are two churches in the picture! There is the obvious ruin but if you look carefully you can also see the church on the summit of Croagh patrick in the background.

Congratulations to our next door neighbour , Mark, and his beautiful Sonia, married this afternoon.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Jennings.

When taking landscape photographs, a lot of time is spent just waiting around. Like when this picture of Carrigeen Lough near Kiltimagh. I was there for the sunset but waiting for 40 minutes after the sun set meant a whole change in colour. I don't mind the waiting because I enjoy watching to see what might develop, but evening time beside water does mean an occasional attack by the dreaded midges, this was one of those occasions, and that despite using lots of anti midge preparations, they can always find the spot on your skin that you missed!

Thanks to everybody re yesterdays comments about copyright. I had to move the copyright in todays picture to avoid it hiding Clare Island, photographed from Achill island.