Daily Blog

Taking pictures all day today! Or at least helping my friend Ann-Marie who was photographing all kinds of shellfish for a website so it was all studio work. I had hoped to get out in the evening for a sunset, but once again the weather did not allow it. So here is another picture I "prepared earlier" This picture of Clew bay was taken on a very cold evening about a year ago!

The weather was much brighter today, but my daylight hours were taken up printing and framing pictures. This sunrise picture was taken a couple of weeks ago about half a mile from my home here in Kiltimagh.

Back to that thick cloud cover again today, and watching the forecast there really is no sign of a change coming. Here is another picture of Nephin taken on Saturday, with some of last years turf in the foreground.

Yesterday was such a nice day that I thought it must be the start of something ie Spring! But today we awoke to more misty rain.
This picture of Lough Conn was taken yesterday evening at Pontoon.

Well, finally, the sun came out!! We had a lovely day here in Mayo today. It was such a lovely day I thought a day at the beach was called for, so early afternoon I arranged to meet my friend Michael in Westport. But the West was actually very cloudy with the sun only occasionally comming through, so we decided to head back towards the east of the county. We were rewarded with some lovely sunshine and a few decent pictures.
This picture of Nephin (Neifin) was taken near Bofeenaun.

I got "photo of the day " on locofoto ! click to follow link locofoto

Well the sun finally came out after being missing for weeks!! But as luck would have it I still was not able to get out with the camera as I had to go to Dublin for the day! Still I am hopeful for tomorrow ! So here is a sunrise picture taken in Kiltimagh, a good sunrise always gives hope!

More rain again today. I had a one to one class today with somebody who had just bought a new Nikon D7000, so that was fun. when we started the lesson the weather began to brighten up and I was sure I might get out in the afternoon, but no, the weather closed in again and it rained and rained, still without it we would not have the lovely green land we do. So back to the archives again. this picture like yesterdays was taken three years ago, almost to the day. It shows the lighthouse in Clew Bay photographed from Bertra Strand after dark.

The weather forcasters are telling us that we are having the mildest weather in Europe. the price we have to pay however is more and more rain ! I got an email from my friend Rose , in malta today who told me that it had rained ALL day in Malta, it seems to have rained ALL MONTH here! So I am posting a picture taken in February 2010 to show what February should look like! The picture shows a reek of turf with nephin in the background

Again I did not get out with the camera today.But i spent a little time this evening going through an old hard drive.I think I have explained before that often after a photo session I pick my favourite image, work on it and then all the others become also rans are left unprocessed. So sometimes they are worth another look!. This picture was taken three years ago, but I "saw" it for the first time this evening.

It rained all day today. So am posting another picture from yesterday. This picture shows a small section of the flock of starlings as they flew directly over me. They say a bird in the hand is worth two in a bush. I'm not sure how many birds in this frame!! If anybody has the time to count them, feel free to post the answer!!

Returned from Cork today , so again spent a lot of time on the road. I arrived back in Mayo just after sunset and about fifteen miles from home I noticed a flock of starlings high in the sky . So I stopped the car and watched as they flew forward and back throwing all kinds of shapes! It was quite dark as the sun had already set, so I set the camera to iso2500 aperature priority and +1 exposure, with an 80 - 200 mm lens and took a number of pictures. Given those settings and the lack of light I was never going to get top quality pictures but I was happy with the results all the same. And I was entertained by them for about fifteen minutes.

The rain and mist has stopped! Unfortunatly I was driving most of the day , as I travelled from Mayo to Cork to see my Mum. I did have to go via Salthill in Galway city and because it is wintertime there was parking on the sea front,(it would be much busier in the summer) so I stopped for a few minutes to photograph the beach. The construction you can see are the famous diving boards, and yes, it is February and that is a women swimmer climbing out of the water!! Despite the lovely winter sun this was the only picture I took today.

More misty rain today.. I had to take my little Van for its DOE test today and while waiting I met a man who was giving out about the weather. "We have had this *^**ing misty rain since the week before Christmas" He said. "Give me a proper winter with a bit of cold and some decent rain you can shelter from not this *^**ing misty rain , its no good to anyone!"
I had to agree with him!
So heres another picture from the archives, the archives are becoming a little bare, lets hope for some better weather soon!

Drizzled rain all day today, you know that "soft day thank god" kind of day!! No weather for a camera so I am posting another oldie, a sunset over Croagh Patrick, just to reassure myself that the sun does shine in Mayo!!

Yet another grey day, it really has been a bad couple of weeks for photography! However I must admit that having woken early and looked out the window before sunrise I realizing there was not going to be one and was very glad to get back under the covers!! I then had a one to one photo class before heading to Cong to deliver pictures to "The Lady's Buttery" who stock a small selection of my pictures for sale. Then in the afternoon I got an email from worldirish.com to ask if they could use one of my images for their "picture of the day" !! I was thrilled! Todays picture of Keem stand was taken a couple of weeks ago... I got a few pictures that morning!




here is a link to [urlhttp://worldirish.com/listening-post/view/image-of-the-day-sheep-on-a-hill-at-sunset-524]World Irish

Another grey day in Mayo, we did not see the sun at all today. still there's more to photography then just taking picture!! I spent much of the day preparing images for print and making cards ! I also processed a couple of pictures taken some time ago that had never been looked at since ! The picture I am posting this evening was taken in Crossmolina a year ago! It is a panorama , made up of eight individual pictures stitched together to make the one image, printed to its "normal size" it would be nearly one and a half metres long! And shows Nephin Mountain.

I took no pictures today, but spent a lovely evening on Achill helping to judge a photographic competition. this is my third year involved as a judge. the competition is run to raise funds for St Colmans care centre on the Island and the winning pictures are made into a calendar . I took this picture of Croagh Patrick yesterday evening.

It seems like ages since the sun put in a proper appearance here in Mayo! It was a cloudy day but just at sunset time the clouds cleared and a good sunset started developing, and so I rushed out to get a picture. I had left it a bit late and did not really know where I was going when I suddenly noticed these sheep who also seemed to be enjoying the sunset. They were stood in a line on the brow of the hill all facing the sun! I had time to park the car and dash back to get the picture but they never moved!!

Here is an interesting picture taken at Murrisk, at the foot of Croagh Patrick a couple of months ago. The picture is of a rainbow, well ,there was actually a double rainbow you can only see part of the second one, but what I thing is interesting, given the symbolism of rainbows, is the way it looks like the rainbow is holding off the bad weather!! under the rainbow the sky is still blue!!