Daily Blog

I often drive past this old now unoccupied cottage near Ballyvary. It is typical of so many old cottages , isolated and lying low in the landscape, sheltered by the small hill behind it. I often wonder about the lives of the people who lived in these locations, which can look so idealic to the photographer, I bet life was hard.
On this occasion I thought the cottage looked particularly well due to the delicate blue sky behind it.

Another cloudy and at times rainy day today. I had no chance to go out with the camera, so I am posting a picture of yesterday's sunrise near Kiltimagh.

There is heavy rain this afternoon and evening in Mayo, I think it is forecset bad for a couple of days. The morning was lovely, this picture was made this morning fifteen minutes or so before sunrise, the pattern in the sky was lovely. I looked for something in the foreground to set it off like a tall tree but could not find anything in the few minutes I had before the colours would fade so I just had to stop and take the picture.

Today was a very misty and wet day so I am posting another picture from that wonderful sunset I witnessed a few nights ago.

Yesterday I posted a picture taken at Roigh Bay beside Rockfleet Castle near Mulranny. Todays picture was taken at the same location and at the same time! They demonstrate the importance of looking around you when on location. They are very different pictures but both feature the same boat. This picture shows the sun rising over one of the islands of Clew bay. The difference between these two pictures is approximatly 10 minutes and 30 feet !

I spent today in the gallery so am posting a picture taken yesterday morning. This is Roigh Bay just next to Rockfleet castle. It is only when the tide is fully in that this boat is afloat, in fact I had never seen it afloat before and in the twenty minutes or so I was there was enough time for the tide to go out far enough to leave it on dry land!

Today was a good day photographically. It started with my journeying towards mulranny to photograph the sunrise over Clew Bay. It was a very cold night and the roads were slippy in places. I got stuck behind an overly cautious driver and knowing that sunrise was at exactly 8.54 it became clear that I was going to miss it by several minutes so I took a quick detour by Rockfleet Castle a few miles short of Mulranny. I could see a fantastic pink sky that would be above and behind the castle and was very disappointed when I reached the castle to find it was still surrounded in scaffolding . So I drove past the castle and took a few pictures in the little bay . Happy with what I got I headed back to Westport to open the Gallery at 10.30.

I was in the gallery all day and went out to the car at 4.30 to get the camera to download the picture for tonight’s blog. As I looked towards Croagh Patrick , I could see lovely colours in the sky and decided to close the gallery and quickly made my way up Slaughar Hill which is only two or three minutes in the car. The sun had already set and it was freezing cold but the display of colour was only amazing, half an hour later I had the gallery open again ( I don’t expect anybody noticed it closed!!) But that twenty minutes more then made up for the disappointment of missing the sunrise this morning and all the other sunrises I had missed recently due to cloudy weather. It was a real privilege to be standing out in the cold and experiencing such beauty in person and capturing it on camera is like the icing on the cake.!

I spent much of this morning in the Studio. I was helping my fellow photographer Sinead to take some studio portraits of her nephew, Simon. When we finished in the studio we went to a local underground carpark and photographed Simon using of camera flash, this resulted in some really interesting "modern " portraits. i had hoped to go out in the afternoon as it was a lovely day. The forecast was for sunny spells, but the sunny spells only happened when i was in doors! As soon as I went out this evening in the hopes of getting a good sunset it just clouded over completely and there was no colour at all. I took this picture of clare Island from Bertra.

I still have no car since mine died before christmas, so am limited in were I can go!. patricia needed her car today and drove me to Wesport to open the gallery we stopped at islandeady Lough and took this picture on the way

It was with much anticipation that I set the alarm last night. At surise this morning there was a partial eclipse of the moon, I had arranged to meet up with my friend Monica in Crossmoloina to photograph the sunrise and eclipse over Lough Conn. its a forty five minute drive , and it was clear to me even in the dark as I set off that it would be too cloudy for us to see anything but I just hoped it would clear if only for a few moments. It didnt, so we sat in Monica's car and drank coffee, (thanks Monica)there were just a few moments when a tiny piece of pink colour appeared in the clouds and we jumped into action. even that tiny bit of colour only lasted a few seconds. It will be several years before we get to try that again!!

Well at last a sunrise! I was beginning to think we would never see one!! After all the dull weatherit was great to get out this morning to a frosty morning and a wonferful sunrise. This photograph was taken about two minutes walk away from the one of the donkey posted yesterday.

Out early again for the sunrise and once again it didn't happen. The weather remains very cloudy and quite dark. Patricia and I went out for a walk on the bog road this afternoon and met this little donkey, he looked pretty miserable poor thing.

2011 has made a slow start ! I went out early this morning full of hope , sure I would get the first sunrise of the new year but instead the cloud cover remained thick and low without even the smallest break to allow in a chink of the rising sun light. Things did improve later in the day but I was unable to get out then. I am posting a sunrise taken last month near Claremorris and will just have to hope the sun'll come up tomorrow !

This time last year I made a new years resolution .. To post a new picture and blog every day. It is probably the only such resolution I have managed to complete for a whole year. I must admit it has not been easy , but all the great feedback from the website and from people on facebook has certainly kept me focused (to use a photographic term)and motivated. So thank you. I have also benefitted of course because the discipline of always looking for new pictures that were good enough was of itself a challenge meant I deleoped a discipline around my photography. So Photographically 2010 has been a good year, but my lasting memory of 2010 is the passing of my great Dad, Eugene., who passed away in March. His passing has had a huge effect on us all and it is still hard to fathom.

We dont know what 2011 will bring to any of us but lets hope its a good year. !






Happy New Year.

Posting very late today. Spent all day at Ainne and Stephen's wedding. The weather was at least dry, but it started foggy and remained very dark and cloudy all day. I was shooting on 1600 iso even outside! But it must be said it was alovely day, and a real privaledge to a part of.
Here is a picture of Ainne and Steve lighting the candle just immediatly afterthey had exchanged their vows.

I am photographing a wedding here in Kiltimagh tomorrow, and so I went out this afternoon to check the different locations, re were the sun will be etc. Then in the evening I attended the rehearsal in the church. The weather today was very cloudy. Very low cloud and very dark, every where I went I just kept saying well it will be brighter tomorrow, but looking at the weather forecast I dont think it will be. Anyway it doesnt matter really, as the photographer I can only work with whats there and I cant control the weather. I think the wedding is going to be great however and I am looking forward to it. Ainnne and Steve are a really lovely couple and wont need good weather to have a great day.

Tonight I am posting a photograph taken on Mulranny strand last month, I came accross it tonight as I emptied all the camera flash cards in preparation for the wedding.

Nine days ago in Claremorris having parked my car in the snow I got out with my camera and a number of things balanced on a book in my right hand. I dropped several things and thinking I had retreived them all from the snow I continued in what I was doing. It was only later in the day that I realized I had lost a 4GB Flash card full of pictures. I did look for it the next day but in 5 or 6 inches of snow it was impossible to find. So I put it out of my head and forgot all about it. Then this morning as I got into the car in Claremorris I noticed what looked like a small piece of paper on the ground, I bent down and was mildly pleased to find it was the flash card I had lost over a week ago. I say mildly pleased because I assumed that having lain in the snow for a week and in two days of rain it was unlikely to be working. I placed it on the dashboard so it would get the hot air from the car heater and drove home, I then put it into the hotpress for the day and this evening still not expexting anything I put it into the camera and low and behold it worked !! The card contained 268 images not all works of art I would have to say, but I did like this one taken near Mulranny on 23rd November!



For those of you who are interested the card is a SanDisk Ultra 11 4GB

Well the thaw has really taken grip, nearly all the snow has gone, but it was a miserable kind of day and I got no photographs taken. The big issue for most people, and I have heard described as the most topical chat up line, is, "have you got water".
We have been very lucky so far and seemed to have avoided any burst pipes, our next door neibhours have had no water since Christmas eve, and have filled their tanks from our house every morning. This evening our own water went off, we are hoping its just work being done on the local water system and not something worse.

So back to the archives for todays picture taken in Glenheist near Newport

The thaw started in the early hours of the morning, temperatures have risen considerably, the snow and ice is melting rapidly and the place is a total mess, it rained most of the day. I had hoped the snow would stay a couple more days as I had hoped to get out in it both yesterday and today, but my little tummy upset of Christmas eve has really floored me and I just didnt have the energy, never mind theres always next year.!!




This is another picture taken on Christmas eve, you may regognise the location because I have posted a couple of pictures from here.This is Turlough on the road from Kiltimagh to Castlebar.

Christmas in the McCarthy house this year was a little unusual. Our Daughter Aisling lives in Scotland and had attempted to come home for a few days before Christmas but the weather prevented her. So we were already prepared for our first Christmas without every body at home. Then the weather struck a second time and our son Darragh failed to make it home from Dublin. Then I got sick last night and was up most of the night calling hughie down the big white telephone!! So Christmas dinner was reduced to just three people.
I had intended to go out and catch some snow pictures before the thaw which should start tomorrow but I was just too ill to go out. I am beginning to feel better now.

So this picture of trees was taken on Christmas Eve morning at Bohola. The treeshave a lovely pink hue caused by the rising sun behind me.