Daily Blog

Still in Cork, so here is another picture from my visit to Carrownisky Beach in the storm. Again it does not look like a storm in the picture, the only evidence is the swirl in the last of the clouds!!

I am away in Cork for a couple of days.But I brought a couple of pictures with me!! On Thursday afternoon we had a bit of a storm with 100km winds. I had intended to go to the Cliffs at Dun Briste for a picture or two, but just as I left the house there was a warning on the news on the car readio. The newscaster said that met eireann were advising people to stay away from coastal cliffs!!!! Now I never heard such a warning on Irish news before so I thought I had better heed it, so I decided to try carrowniskey beach instead. I got there just as the sun went down, and the photo does not really do it justice! It was almost impossibe to stand up straight. Photography was very difficult because I could not hold the camera staedy, a tripod would be useless, So I had to turn the iso up high, and use a very wide aperature, both no nos in landscape photography, but on this occasion needed to get a shutter speed fast enough for the windy conditions. As it happens the clouds did clear for a few minutes while I was there and there was nearly a pretty sunset, but there were some lovely colours in the sky.

Yesterday I posted a picture from Mulranny beach, this was the view from the same spot looking over my right shoulder!!

Very early posting today, its just after midnight, but I fancy a "long lie" in the morning!!!

I made a very short trip to Mulranny today, in truth I had intended to go to Achill but got delayed and got to Mulranny as the sun set. This picture is taken looking away from the setting sun.

The rain that disrupted my night time pictures continued all day and I did not get out again. But this picture of Aisleagh Falls was taken between showers early in the week. even then there had been a lot of rainfall, the falls look smaller then usual because the river below the falls is flooded and has halved the drop of the falls. This time last year it was snow we were getting , much better for photography!!

Well here is something a little different! I decided yesterday to try and take some night time pictures. This picture is taken at 10.30 pm , thats 6 hours after sunset. The "light" is provided by that big reflector in the the sky, the moon. This picture was only the test shot the camera shutter was open for over 8 minutes, this has resulted in plenty of movement from the clouds and small streaks from the movement of the stars across the sky . So I was delighted with this test shot and reset the camera for a 45minute exposure which would really show the star trails but it rained approx every 15 minutes, so I never got the picture and at 11.45pm I decided to go home. but I am excited by the knowledge that I can make landscape photographs 24 hours per day !!

Here is another waterfall from Errif. The backlighting makes it look like a lovely day, and it was , only very windy and VERY cold. So cold that I could not feel the ends of my fingers and on a few occasions could not tell if I had pressed the button on the camera or not!

I did not get out with the camera at all yesterday so am posting another picture from Wednesdays visit to Errif bridge. What i really like about this image of the ancient trees is the brown winter colours .

Yesterdays picture "gave itself up" but todays was a little harder got! It is taken just before sunrise yesterday morning. knowing the rain was coming I was out early in the hopes of getting a sunrise picture. There was heavy grey cloud with just a small area of sky low down and away in the distance showing some colour. Not really knowing where I was going I drove towards the orange glow, after ten minutes or so I found this tree with the glow behind it. I took a quick test shot to establish the correct exposure then put up the tripod and shot off three more exposures Suddenly the colour in the sky just disapeared. The sun never made it over the horizon!! As I drove home the rain started, and it poured all day long!!

Its hard to believe we are in December again, I started this blog as a challenge for myself in December two years ago, It was easy for the first month or so after three months it became really hard. now after almost two whole years , the discipline of doing the daily blog has been well established, the problem is getting enough new images that are good enough to post. But sometimes the pictures just give themselves up, todays picture for example just happened in front of me. I was in Westport driving towards Murrisk when the low winter sun lit up the mudflats and the chocolate coloured channel . I grabbed the camera from the car, no time for a tripod, and took a few images before the shower you can see in the distance reached me and I beat a hasty retreat back to the car, knowing that the blog was covered for another day!!

While pursuing the waterfalls yesterday, I had to keep an eye on what was going on behind me! The view across the valley is one of my favourites and the wind was so strong that the scene kept changing, with the sun only occasionally breaking through the clouds. To get to this location take the N59( from Westport to Leenane, stop just after the Errif Bridge there is the ruin of an old R.I.C. station (looks like a ruined cottage) Climb up the hill for great waterfalls, great ancient woods and superb views. Its like a little secret spot, well worth visiting.

The rain did eventually stop and we had a lovely afternoon. I went to Errif woods to photograph some waterfalls, it was very cold with a biting wind, which made slow shutter speeds a little difficult, but I did get a few images, here is one of them.

Well the forecasters got it right! After yesterday's sunrise pictures I thought I could still beat the weather and drove to Errif Woods to photograph some waterfalls, my plan was to visit a number of small waterfalls in the area. But both the wind and the rain beat me to it and work was just impossible so I was forced to head home, as I write this it is still raining! Still if it does stop later today there will be plenty of water in the waterfalls!! So I am posting another picture from yesterday morning, this was taken 15 minutes before sunrise at Garyduff , near Claremorris.

Dont you just love when a plan comes together? The forecast for the next few days is very poor it seems we are due a lot of rain, but its due to arrive late morning and last at least 24hours. assuming the forecast to be correct decided last night that I should get out early and attempt to photograph the sunrise , and I was very fortunate with the display of the sun and the clouds , here is one of the pictures taken in Kiltimagh this morning.

Well I did it AGAIN!! Yesterday evening I had to take my daughter Aisling to Westport , so i decided to visit Carronisky strand, early in the day I thought I might get a sunset but by evening it was clear I wouldn't as there was no sun, but there was a great storm brewing and the beach was really really wild. So I decided It was too windy and wet for a tripod and camera bag and just stuck the camera with a wide angle lens under my jacket and braved the elements walking to a spot where I thought I might get a good photograph. I made all the necessary adjustments to the camera before putting it to my eye to capture the wild scene only to discover, have you guessed yet?.... yes I had no memory card in the camera!!! I left three of them on the kitchen table!! So that meant having no picture for today I had to get up early for the sunrise, it was disappointing but as I drove away thinking where am I going to go to get today's picture I spotted this tree and thought if I can place the sun behind it...

Yesterday was a lovely day here in Mayo. I was busy in the morning preparing some photographs that I had to deliver to Castlebar, so I decided to time my delivery so that I could nip to the coast for a sunset afterwards.But as I drove to Castlebar the weather closed in and we had rain, there was however a bright spot over to the west so I headed toward Westport anyway, but the sunset was very disapointing and the best picture I could get was this one...

I spent the day in Dublin yesterday, it was a very early start, leaving Mayo at 4am to meet a 8am ferry, then spent the rest of the day in the city, I did manage to collect a few things from Conns cameras , but apart from that brief highlight , time in the city was as usual stressful!! It took a full hour to cross the city by car in the evening. Only for my sat nav I think I would have gone mad all together!!! , It was great to get back onto the empty Mayo roads.
Needless to say I took no photographs so here is one from the "Archives" This picture of Croagh Patrick is taken from Bertra Beach.

It poured rain this morning, I had intended to revisit Cong Abbey today, instead I spent the whole day, from 7.30am through till 6pm with hardly any break processing all the pictures from the "tour of the abbeys" Mayo has such a heritage . I photographed in the last couple of weeks 21 Abbeys and round towers, all in the one county!! Anyway I am posting a picture of some trees this morning!! ( some people are fed up of abbeys!!)

I visited another couple of abbeys yesterday, but decided to share a picture of Croagh Patrick instead!! This was taken on Monday, I was at Murrisk Abbey ! I thought the sky over Croagh Patrick looked really good.

My "tour" of the abbeys of Mayo continues. yesterday I was in Burriscarra near Ballintubber, I liked this decorative little detail.