Daily Blog

It POURED rain all day today and the camera remained in its bag. So here is another from the collection, you will recognise this view on the Atlantic drive om Achill as I have posted pictures from this spot taken in all kinds od weather. even though I have a bag full of images from here, it is a spot I find it almost impossible to drive past without stopping for a picture and to just breath in the glorious atlantic air!

I am very late posting this evening. I did not get out with the camera today so once again I had to raid the "archives". Photography is a little like fishing, you go out for the day , you may catch many fish, but one will have given you the best fight, or will be the biggest fish. but we are never happy for long even if we got the best fish, we know there could be a bigger one still in the water and sure we might catch him the next day, and so obsession begins ! When I come back from a photographic session there will be one photo in the bunch that is better then all the others and it becomes my picture of the day, the others get forgotten and tomorrow I head out looking for the next best picture. Then on days like today i think "I have no picture for today" and so search looking for a picture thinking none are good enough. Then I select one, process it and think "Its not that bad after all!" So here is a picture that has laid on my computer, rejected many months ago .

It is funny how we associate pictures with emotion. I have had this image ready for posting for nearly a month now. But every time I go to post it I shy away, because of the feelings I feel when I look at it. It is of a little harbour close to Corraun Village between Mulranny and Achill.I don't know the name of the harbour, but somebody might tell us. My hesitation in posting it though , is that while it is, I think, a nice picture it does not hold great memories for me !! It was, as you can see, a beautiful morning as Patricia and I drove past , and seeing the harbour from the main road I took Patricia on yet another detour. To get the water so smooth I used a Lee Big Stopper Filter in front of the lens ,to give a long 30 second exposure. The filter is just a piece of very dark glass that blocks out light, but they currently cost €127 in Ireland. Well, delighted with my efforts on taking the picture I removed the filter from the filter holder and inexplicably let it slip from my fingers, and watched as it shattered on the pebbles below!!! I have not been able to replace it yet! And of course almost every time I take my camera out since I see pictures that would work a treat if I had my big stopper!!!

It was very cold this morning and the roads around this part of Mayo were just like ice rinks but by this evening the thaw is well on the way, most of the snow has disappeared , so maybe our brush with a Canadian winter is over!

Yesterday's snow quickly turned to slush and melted away but we had more during the night. I was in Knock this morning early , I thought the light on the Apparition Chapel was lovely and the snow made it a little different to usual. As you can see there was more snow approaching, but I don't think it will stay around past tomorrow.

Yesterday was the first day of spring, but look what we woke up to this morning, came all the way from Canada we were told!!
Thanks Canada.

Well its officially the first day of spring according to the Irish Meteorological Service. It rained very heavily this morning, so I did not get out in the morning, then in the afternoon I had a date with the television to watch Ireland beat England in the rugby, so I planned a sunset, but the weather this evening was just like the morning so I decided to photograph these small daffodils that were blooming in the garden. So I dug them up , put them in a pot and photographed them in the kitchen.

I dragged myself out of the bed this morning in the hopes of capturing the sunrise. The frustration of not being beside the sea continued though because the sunrise was fairly disappointing and I had great difficulty finding a view that would work. I had given up on the sunrise and found myself very close to Urluar Abbey, so I visited the abbey, but just behind the Abbey the sun finally put in an appearance. A little higher in the sky then I would have liked but , an hour or so later it disappeared again, only this time it was gone for the whole day.

Lots of rain again today so once again I did not go out with the camera, i spent the morning processing more of the shots from yesterday evenings photoshoot with the staff from Itsu Hair, Castlebar then this evening I had a night class in Kiltimagh, the class was great fun as the "students" were photographing each other.
This picture of Croagh Patrick was taken about a week ago in Westport.

Lots of rain this morning, and I did not get out with the camera. Today I move back to Kiltimagh having completed my winter migration to Mulranny! I had great intentions when I moved to Mulranny before Christmas to use it as an opportunity to photograph all around the area, up to North Mayo, Achil island , Furnace etc etc, you see Mulranny is perfectly placed to reach all of these places. But in a sense I failed in my quest because Mulranny just would not let me go!!! Most of the images you have seen this winter, like the one I am posting now, have been taken with a 5 mile radius of Mulranny. It was just so hard to leave the place because the ever changing, light, tides and weather meant it was just throwing pictures up at me almost every day.

I will be back in Mulranny for a weekend of landscape photography as I am running a workshop in April check out the website for details or message me if you would like to attendhttp://mayo.photium.com/page17528.html.

Well my declaration of spring taking hold yesterday may have been just a little premature, the temperature is minus 2 outside at the moment and we have had lots of sleet today.
I took this picture last week on the road between Newport and Furnace.

A lovely sunny day today, it feels like spring is really taken hold. Now that i have said that i think I can hear hailstones on the window!!
Here is a picture of Mulranny Beach with the tide in and the sun rising. This is taken with the fuji x100 camera while I was out for a walk with the dog. the dog was not too impressed though when I sat for ten or fifteen minutes just watching the sea!

I think I am right in saying that today is the Chinese New Year, why is it just the Chinese New year and not new year for all of us?
I remember as a child thinking the Chinese must be a funny lot to have a different New Year, did they not know its on the 1st January? But of course the Chinese have been celebrating their New Year a lot longer then we have ours.
Its the year of the Goat so to celebrate here is a picture of a, young, Ancient Irish Mulranny Goat.
Happy New Year !!!!

It has rained all day today, so no new pictures, but this one is only a few weeks old and you have not seen it before, not my usual colourful style!
There is a parcel of land just outside Claremorris where some serious tree felling has occurred, I often think as I drive by that its a terrible mess and wonder how long before something is done with it. But I drove by on a foggy morning in January and thought it looked really interesting in the fog, so I stopped off for a while. The fog helps us to concentrate on the shapes of the small trees left behind, rather then the mess on the ground, they still look sad though!

Its blowing a gale and raining outside at the moment, so there was no sunset visible this evening, but here is a picture of the sun setting over Clare Island a few days ago

Another lovely spring day in Mayo, mind you the winter is doing its best to hang on, between long spells of sunshine there were sudden heavy showers of hail and sleet . It was also windy which helped to lift the tops off these waves on Mulranny strand this afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon I stopped on the coast road between Mulranny and Achill to photograph some sheep.I was a little concerned when the sheep dog who was in the garden opposite came pounding down to see what I was at. But I need not have been concerned, he was the friendliest, and what amazing blue eyes!!!

Exhausted after watching Ireland beat France at the rugby...Bring on England !! It did occur to me that I should have gone out for a sunset picture instead as we had a lovely day here in Mayo, but I went out yesterday evening and had a lovely time photographing the sunset, looking towards Clare island. This particular picture was taken about 40 minutes after sunset.

For several days now we have had cloudy overcast mornings, i have got up for the sunrise but we haven't had one. This morning I did not get up, but woke about twenty minutes after sunrise and even then it was beautiful, clearly I had missed a good sunrise! So I decided I should get the sunset instead , but the lovely morning gave way to a very cloudy afternoon with now sign of the sun in the evening, but I had committed to get a new photo this evening , so even though it was very dull with no attractive light, I headed out to make the most of what was there. here is my attempt, taken twenty minutes or so after sunset time, so dark that even without filters it needed 25seconds exposure at f11 and iso200

Another very cloudy and dull day, so I did not go far with the camera, but then I did not have to, because this little robin visited the garden and stayed long enough for a portrait!