Daily Blog

Oh for a blue sky!! The wet and dull weather continues, it seems like days and days of not seeing the sun and missing a blue sky I thought I would post this recent picture from Achill, and look its a blue sky!!

Back to the archives again today, more rain and misty weather, so I am posting a sunrise from Keem Strand on Achill Island taken a couple of weeks ago . Achill really is one of my favourite places, maybe this picture may give a feeling of why!

Another grey and dreary day in Mayo! No sign of the sun today and plenty of rain. Still we have the highest temperatures in Europe at the moment!! I took todays picture a couple of days ago at twilight, just out the Kiltimagh to Knock road. I was actually heading home from a photo shoot when I spotted this little hawthorn tree silhouetted against the twilight sky. It's on a dangerous piece of road, but I found a place to pull in and walked to a spot where I could photograph it, at that time of the evening its amazing how quickly it gets dark and so once I had the picture I got off the road as quickly as I could!!

The grey weather continues, its hard to get motivated to get out with the camera in this weather! While not taken today, this long exposure picture of Carramore Strand was also taken on a "grey day"

The day started wet and grey. One of the advantages of living in Ireland is our mild winters so we have not suffered like the rest of Europe! todays picture was taken on Achil, and is the view from cloughmore, looking towards Clare Island, in our camera club mayo photographic club] we call the lighting in this picture "Godbeams

I got back from Cork late this evening, the journey up was miserable, it rained most of the way and the forecast is for more of the same tomorrow. So to cheer myself up I am posting a sunrise picture taken on the morning of 2nd Feb.

Still in Cork, and as predicted I did not get any photography done, as it happens in rained all afternoon, so here is another picture from Mayo ,taken two nights ago. These three trees are very photogenic and I have photographed them many times, its amazing how by walking around your subject and looking at it from different angles you can see many different pictures!. The tree on the left of this picture is the same one that featured in last nights sunset picture.

I am in Cork for a couple of days,dont know if I''ll get any time for photography. I took this sunset picture last night just outside Kiltimagh, it was very cold at the time and really amazing how quickly the temperature dropped even furtheronce the sun actually set.

I was up early this morning to get the sunrise, I almost missed it because I had to spend so long clearing the ice from the windscreen of the car ! as I drove away from the house it froze up a second time! Anyway I got into position just on time,but was distracted by these two little ponies who also seemed very pleased to see the sun peeping over the horizon and began engaging in a little "horseplay" It was quite dark as the sun was just appearing so I quickly put the iso up to 800 and opened the aperture to f3.2 which gave me enough shutter speed to use the camera handheld.
After a very few minutes and knowing I had a picture for the day I retreated back to the now warm car and came home for breakfast, it remained very cold all day, in some places the frost remained on the ground all day.

Blue skies in Mayo today!!

Had a lazy day today, recovering from all the traveling, and acclimatizing of course to the sudden drop in temperature.I am posting a picture from Achill taken the morning before I went away.

Just arrived home from Malta, its really cold here in Mayo!! We did get rain in malta this morning, but we managed to avoid it, at least until we were on the bus to the airport when it lashed! in the morning we walked the front at Sliema and I photographed this dramatic sky just before my third and final camera battery gave up exhausted ( I had left the charger at home in Mayo)

I am very late posting today as the wi-fi in the hotel is broken! So I am now sitting by the coast in Sliema using one of the many free Wi Fi hotspots the government of malta provide. Yesterday was our last full day in Malta, we awoke to heavy rain, but it soon cleared up and we took a trip to Marsaxlokk, a small fishing village in the south of the island, there is a colourfull market held on a Sunday morning. Marsaxlokk has a harbour full of Maltese fishing boats called Luzzu, they are brightly coloured and all feature a “Maltese Eye” on the bow.

The week in Malta is flying by! It was a little cooler today , but still double the temperature in Mayo, it also attempted to rain several times, but did not actually rain until we sat down for dinner in the evening. My friend Paul and his lovely wife Rose took Patricia and me to the island of Gozo for the day, and we visited most of the island. One of the highlights was the Citadel at Victoria, the Knights of Malta certainly knew how to build fortresses! The Maltese Islands are also famous for all the cats you see around, I met this one on the steps of the citadel

Still in Malta, the week is flying by! Spent most of the day touring the Island , but the highlight was visiting Mdina (the silent city} with my friend Paul who got us into position for this photograph at just the right time !

I was up early for the sunrise this morning. The sun comes up at least an hour earlier then in Ireland. I had no tripod, due to the weight restrictions on Ryanair, however all along the promenade outside our hotel there is a small wall with a pillar every few yards. The pillar makes a great monopod. I was up for half an hour before the sunrise, waiting for things to develop , apart from along the horizon there was not a cloud in the sky and it was looking very uninteresting, I was about to pack up and go back to the hotel when suddenly a couple of clouds appeared and changed everything! In the afternoon I had a private "masterclass" with multi award winning Maltese photographer Christopher Azzopardi,. I have admired Christophers work for many years. Christopher was very generous in sharing with me some of his techniques, in both photography and photoshop . you can see Christopher's work at www.christazzopardi.com

Those of you who have visited Malta in the past will remember the busses ! Well in July this year all the old colourful busses were decomissioned and replaced with a new fleet of modern busses and a national bus company. In the past the busses were all old and privately owned, and riding the busses was part of the "Malta Experience" The new busses are great and the service seems really good and great value, though we were caught out today,. having waited for one hour for a bus that was supposed to run every half hour, we decided to change our plans, and so crossed the road to get a bus going in the opposite direction, as soon as we crossed the busy road however the bus we had been waiting for arrived....and left without us. Yesterday in Valetta I spotted one of the old busses .

Its official " Images of Mayo" has gone international! This picture is of a street corner in Valetta, Malta. I was lucky that the red car came along when it did. I had already taken a couple of pictures when I spotted the red car approaching, I think it adds to the picture. The weather is good, a bit like a summer day in Ireland, we had about ten minutes of rain but plenty of sunshine.

We arrived in malta after dark, and are now sitting on the balcony overlooking the bay and sipping wine ah the life! No pictures from Malta - yet! So here is another picture from yesterdays trip to Keem strand on Achill Island.

I spent a most of the day on Achill today. And was joined by Sinead a photographer friend. We arrived at Keem Strand about 15 minutes before sunrise, when things looked very dull and overcast. We left Keem over two hours later! The tide was on its way out as we arrived, and as the sun rose behind the clouds the sky became more colourful and began to clear. The light on Achill was amazing, for moments it was clear, at other times we had to shelter from the rain, and at other times the contrast levels were just too high. Even though there was a lot of colour around my favourite picture of the morning was this Black and White one.

Patricia's 50 year celebrations continue... we are heading to Malta in the morning for a weeks holidays, I hope to be able to post a picture every day while away but we will have to wait and see.