Daily Blog

Today was a fantastic day in Mayo. I went out and about around the Kiltimagh area. I finished at Lough Nambrackragh near Kilkelly. I arrived an hour before sunset and took this reflection shot,



I then waited for the sunset in the hopes of getting some nice colours on the water and sky but the sun set behind grey cloud and there was no sunset. But I enjoyed my time by the lake and spending an afternoon just waiting and watching is a very relaxing way to spend an time even if the elements don’t come together the way you hoped.

I was a bit slower getting up this morning and arrived in Westport just 15 minutes before opening time in the Gallery. It was a lovely bright and calm morning and knowing that high tide was only half an hour away I quickly headed to a spot were I would get some reflections. The clouds were amazing.

I was up before the sun this morning and went to kinloughy lough to get it rising. I have a favourite spot on a small wooden jetty that I often visit. There has been so much rain that the water levels have risen and the jetty was submerged, in the near darkness I nearly stepped into the lake! With only a few minutes till sun up I had to change my viewpoint which was very challenging for me so early in the morning !

Here is the picture..

Wild and windy in Mayo today, before opening the Gallery today I made a quick trip to Carrownisky Strand to see the waves. It was so windy I was hardly able to stand, so the tripod stayed in the car and I took several pictures. Between each picture I had to clean the camera because the spray was so bad. In the end I set my camera to manual, pre focused and and would then clean the lens and lift it quickly to my eye and press the button. I ended up with a lot of crooked horizons !! But I was glad to get back into the car and I knew I was alive!!

This morning was a lovely morning I am told, foggy and frosty, a photographers dream. Unfortunately this photographer was dreaming at the time, I slept until Patricia woke me at 10am!! So I got no pictures this morning and the rain arrived again before the evening, so here is a picture I got Yesterday evening.

In last nights advanced nightclass we discussed black and white photography, what subjects made good black and white and we also looked at various ways of converting pictures to Black and white. We agreed that Black and White best suits subjects with High Contrast and never take the pictures in Black and white ( on a digital camera) its always better to convert afterwards. this morning I went to Mulranney and the scene had plenty of contrast so thinking of my "students" from last night I took this..

Well the “storm” never really happened. Certainly we got plenty of rain and some roads were in danger of flooding but the break in the clouds came today and it looks like things are going to improve for tomorrow.

I awoke to a lovely morning, the nicest in a long time. I had a class in Westport today starting at 9am. This was for the "advanced" night class group but in the ten week programme we inclure 2 day time slots. This alows us to do some daytime photography. Today however we had decided to do some still life photography using the studio lights. On the way over I felt a huge urge to change the plan and switchh to outdoors. I stopped for a couple of seconds myself to get this picture of Lough Lannagh in Castlebar.


Look at how blue the sky is ! But I am assured it is only the calm before the storm and the weather warnings still apply. Certainly by lunch time the sky had clouded over and the rain had begun, as I write this it is bucketing down.

Anyway going back to the class, I decided to " stick with the plan" and we worked indoors.
We had a great morning,people brought their own items to photograph which was great because even I could not be prepared and so we had to work out solutions together.We used two studio lights with softboxes and for some items , as many reflectors as we had people to hold them !It is amazing how in that type of photography every time you solve one problem you seem to create another, ie a reflection of something or somebody in a shiny object , a shaddow thats too deep etc.
People were amazed at just how complicated an apparently simple picture can be!!

Well the storm hasn't arrived yet but it keeps raining.To be fair the sun did come out a bit today, it just seemed to keep avoiding me, every time I went out, it went in !! I made a determined effort to get a couple of pictures despite the weather.the first of the rainbow was taken at about 8.15 am in Claremorris,




The second picture of the seemingly overwhelming cloud was taken this evening about half an hour after sunset. On both occasions I had to keep drying water off the lens between shots !

Another dull and wet day in Mayo . The day did dry up for a while but I was unable to get out at the time. I put on the weather forecast this evening and was told our weather will “get steadily worse over the next few days” , I thought it was pretty bad already ! The country is preparing itself for a big storm, and they are distributing sand bags in parts of Dublin.. It has git very cold this evening and so we might get a clear morning, lets hope so. Todays picture was taken three weeks ago and shows Ben Creggan at Doolough. It is hard to judge the scale but if you look carefully you can see a lady walking her dog in the bottom right hand side of the picture

This weather is really getting me down.there has been no sign of the sun now for several days.tonight I decided to have a look at some pictures taken last november,just to prove the sum does come out sometimes in November. This picture was taken at Darreda near Lough Furnace on a cold November morning last year!

Well this spell of bad weather continues and we had more wind and rain today, but the rivers are full! this is the owenwee river near Westport

More wind and heavy rain today. It might have been a good day for some underwater photography. My camera is not waterproof so I didn't bother !!

This picture was taken at Bertra Beach last Saturday, I stumbled through rock pools and over rocks to get to this position, fortunatly I had a small torch with me to guide me back to the beach as the rocks were very slippy. It was very dark at the time, this picture was taken one hour and five minutes after the sunset.

Another very wet day in Mayo, spent most of the day in the Gallery, this evening I led a night class ,using photoshop we were replacing heads in group photos. You know there s always somebody in a group who blinks just as you take the picture ! So it always pays to take more then one picture when photographing groups !!This evening I find myself away from home without the means of getting any pictures off my camera so I am posting this picture of Turlough Round Tower from the "archives"

This afternoon Patricia and I drove from Kiltimagh to Westport, on the way I stopped to photograph these hawthorn bushes.



"I'll only be a minute" I declared as I hopped out of the car.Patricia is just back from a holiday in Isreal and feeling the cold so I left the heater on in the car. Well the "minute" became 35 and when I sat back into the car I turned the key and declared "**** the battery's flat! After gathering our thoughts we made a few phone calls and our friend and neibhour Martin came to our rescue with jump leads, poor Martin came twice because we could not get the battery cover off his car and so he had to go and get another car!! Thanks to Martin we got on our way, by the time we got to Westport we had missed a fantastic sunset but we went up slaughar hill to photograph Croagh Patrick anyway. I tried various exposure and again turned a "minute" into thirty . Afraid to put the heat on poor Patricia was freezing in the car. I wanted to record the clouds moving and did various long exposures this one was for one minute.



I asked Trish to time two minutes for me on her phone promising this will be the last one. Trish got the phone, declared herself ready to start timing, I pressed the cable release but nothing happened. Oh **** the battery's flat I declared for the second time.... Trish smiled !

I was up early again this morning. I have not taken a picture for several days now had decided I needed to put that right. I had decided to go to Old Head for the sunrise regardless of the weather. As I left Westport the sky to the East looked promising and it looked like we may get a sunrise. To the West the sky looked very menacing, so I drove towards the bad weather! Several times I thought to turn back and head East , but I have found that you are usaully better sticking with the "plan". the last time I was on Old Head was on 20th Sept with Mallory and Bruce (see blog: "capturing the moment") We got soaked that day, well just as I arrived today the rain started ! It was only a shower though and it quickly passed, infact you can see the shower to the left of the picture.

Anyway I got a few pictures before the rain started again,. I hope you agree it was worth the trip.




I got back to Westport to open the gallery as another shower started, this one was accompanied by a rainbow, just managed to grab a couple of shots before it disappeared.

Up before the dawn again this morning and went to Crosmolina were I met a photographer friend for breakfast, I was trying to help solve some printing problems, didn't quite slve it but the breakfast was good ! Hopefully we will solve the problem this evening. Of course I brought the camera and was very hopeful of a picture or two of Nephin or some of the lakes, but it just poured rain. I am posting a suset taken last month, just to try and cheer us all up !!

Despite the weather forecast last night, the skies cleared and I thought the morning would be nice. I got up and dressed only to find it was pouring out side and no sign of a let up, so I decided I would go for a swim instead. So not only did I banish the guilt of yesterday I simply glowed of self righteousness all day long!!
I am posting a picture taken this time last year at Tourmakeady.

The forecast for today was for more rain. Going to bed last night i decided i would have a long lie as there would be no pictures in the morning. I awoke around seven and turned over to enjoy the sleep. I awoke at 9.30!! delighted with the sleep I crawled out of the bed and looked out the window to see a glorious morning! The light was fantastic, oh the guilt... I should have been up! Anyway the cloud cover came in quickly and it did rain for the rest of the day. so i am posting a picture taken last week in doolough

Today it rained all day. sometimes it was really heavy and somtimes it eased but you still got just as wet, it was klike the drops were smaller but there were more of them!

he low lighting on this pony looked great.