Daily Blog

In the morning I will be 26years married to Patricia.

It was Patricia who bought me my first camera , an Agfa 110 instamatic. Within a week I had added a flashgun to the camera and within only a few months had replaced it with a practica 35mm SLR ! That was 29 years ago three years before we were married. Patricia to this day continues to encourage me. And has made many sacrifices so that I can follow my dream .

The day I met Patricia was the luckiest day of my life, the day we married was one of the best and every day since has had its blessings.

We got married in Fanore co Clare


The old church , Fanore Co Clare



Wild Thyme on Limestone pavement.

Yesturday evening I went with Patricia to a Christy Moore copncert in Galway. Christy was great but it was late when we got home and when I posted the picture of Tourmakeady waterfall, I posted the wrong one! Waterfalls can be difficult to photograph well, especially this one, because the forground is dark because it is under trees while the waterfall which is the brightest part of the picture anyway is also in the light. So when photographing I tried various combinations of graduated filters and exposures. The picture I posted yesterday is I think too dark in the top half. So I am posting a similar picture but with much more colour. I would be interested to hear which you prefer.

After all the rain we had last night I decided it might be woreth doing a quick trip to the waterfall at tourmakeady. I was not disapointed asthere was plenty of water.

The rain this evening was unbelievable. It was so bad that having decided that there was no way I was going to get out with the camera, I had a sudden urge to get a picture anyway! So I captured this panorama of the mall inWestport in the rain in double quick time. I dont know what people in their cars must have thought as I stood in the rain.I was wearing a rain jacket and because I had no umbrella I had a second rain jacket held over my head and camera. I got soaked from the waist down! but managed to keep the camera dry. Due to the circumstances I had to use a wide apperture to get a shutter speed that I could hold (1/50 second)so there is not great depth of field. I dont think this would win any prizes in a summer photo comp!!

The wet weather continues and while there were clear spells today, none while I was available to get out. Todays picture of the sky over Croagh Patrick was taken on Sunday.

What a miserable evening we had this evening. Somebody described it to me as, “ like a dark evening in October”!It certainly was very wet and dark.
I am planning some photography classes and mini workshops for later in July and for the month of August. One is “photographing in Evening Light” a three hour outdoor workshop, it would have been hard to do this evening. I will be running a number of training events in digital photography, photoshop and landscape photography, if you are interested in attending any or have an idea for a course please contact me.
So I did not photograph this evening but decided I would try cheer us all up ,by posting a picture of a sunset taken last month. Not from Mayo, this picture was taken in Ballyvaughan Co Clare in June.I hope you like it.

Today was one of those frustrating days, I got no time out with the camera, I did attempt to do an amount of computer work but kept making silly mistakes which meant it took longer then I thought. Then this evening as I drove out of Westport the light over clew bay looked great but I did not have time evn for a quick detour. Anyway one job I did complete was the processingof this panorama of Kinloughy lough taken over a month ago !

I came up from Galway this morning, in a bit of a hurry because other family members needed the car, but I still kept one eye on the look out for pictures. There were two reasons for this, well the truth is I am always on the lookout, but today I paid more attention because the forecast was not great for later in the day and more importantly the world cup final was on this evening so there was a good chance I would not go out with the camera. I know it really is a sign of a lack of dedication isn’t it! Well I spotted this tree just outside Kilmaine,



I am not sure why it is on a little mound in an otherwise flat field, I wonder is it an ancient burial site or something like that. Anybody out there know? Anyway I thought it made a good picture and I was delighted to get one in the bag because now I could relax in the evening and watch the world cup.!
I am posting this after the match, it was not great, unless you are Spanish of course!

It rained today from early afternoon until late in the evening. I had to drive to Galway this evening and many roads were flooded - in July!! After the driest June in forty or fifty years we quickly forget what rain is like ! I dont think July will breack any records. I am posting a picture I made two days ago on my walk in mulranny. This view is taken from above the Railway Hotal. There are fourteen pictures stitched together to form a panorama. It is hard to see the detail in it on the web , because the image must be reduced so much for the internet. the actual file is 229 mega bites in size and when printed will be 2 meteres long! It was raining when this picture was taken as well, but the air was very clear with great visability, and I love the muted colours.

Played golf this evening. It was raining before we started and I briefly debated with myself , should I bring the camera. I packed it into the bag because as I said to my son Barry “ If I dont bring it something amazing will happen". Well it rained and rained for a full three hours, but just as we headed toward the sixteenth green the clouds suddenly parted and something amazing really did happen.! There was an incredible sunset and at the same time in the other direction a rainbow! I failed to play the sixteenth but I was glad I brought the camera, it continued to rain as I took the pictures. This all lasted about 10 minutes, the sun disappeared and we attempted to play out the golf game in the dark!

I returned to Mulranny to do a walk with walking guide Sean Carolan today. the first picture was taken from the road side and shows Bellacragher Bay from Mullranny. As you can see it was raining at the time and there seemed to be a mist down.



After this photo we left the road and climbed to the top of the hill were the view was fantastic. The weather seemed to lift as we climbed the hill.

Another sky picture for the blog this evening. I was teaching a night class in digital editing in Ballyhaunis. We were repairing old photographs. This photograph was brought to the class by one of the participants, it was in several pieces and as you can see was very faded.



After a little work this is the improved version



, its amazing what can be achieved with photoshop, we were able to reveal details not seen in the original !
Restoring old photographs is a great way to teach photoshop because it helps people to practice lots of different skills. Tonight people used layers, levels, healing brush, clone stamp , eraser , copy layers , move tool, sharpening, image size, and canvas size, and we had great fun also!


Anyway on the way home from Ballyhaunis I stopped in Knock were this lovely rainbow appeared to me!

I was in the Gallery all day today and did not get out until about 5pm. Barry and I went and played nine holes of golf , of course I brought the camera. It was very windy and started to rain as we left the first tee. It poured and the wind became gale force. I never took the camera out of the bag. The weather continued like that all evening. We got soaked and the golf scores were not good enough to share with you. I had given up on getting a picture and had settled down in front of the TV when at 9.55 Patricia called me into the Kitchen and told me to look out the window. There was a very small break in the cloud and behind the grey there were the most amazing colours. I grabbed the camera jumped into the car and drove for two minutes to get to a good view point but even in that few minutes the colours began to fade. I grabbed a couple of pictures as the grey cloud moved in and the colour disappeared and within five minutes the whole show was over .

I am posting the phototaken on Mulranny strand yesterday. This evening i was in mulranny, tonight was the last of my "Monday night class sessions" this group have been together for three courses now. Wew had decided to meet for a meal and to go taking photographs later.We did not go to Achill as we had intended, because we spent too long having our mealwe arrived in Mulranny just as the sun sank and had very little time to work. After the sun set I decided to try an abstract picture of Mulranny strand.




I am hoping to do an exhibition of these abstract pictures for the westport arts festival .

I was in Mulranny this morning and visited Cheryl Cobern Browne who runs the EOM Studio in Mullranny. Cheryl works with beads and other media and also runs residential workshops . The location is amazing with fantastic views over the bay and the house and studio is beautifully appointed and just screams of artist, everything about the place is inspiring! Why not visit the website www.eomworkshops.com/index.htm We also met with Sean Carolan, Sean is a local walking guide for Mulranny and he is a real font of knowledge our intention had been to go for a walk together but the weather was so bad early morning that we just met in the warmth of Cheryl's studio instead. Occasionally the rain stopped, but the sea spray near the beach felt like rain anyway. I did manage to take a couple of pictures of the Beach but I left the memory card in the Gallery this evening and it is too late to go and get it. I may post the beach picture tomorrow. So today felt like winter with grey skies etc but I am posting a picture from Mulranny that was taken last November on a beautiful bright day in the middle of winter!

I was driving near Balla today when I spotted this little guy . It was early in the morning and he was fairly inactive, you can see him stretching his legs in one of the pictures. He seemed to fall asleep standing up a few times. I think he needed the sun to warm him up before I was going to see any real activity and though I waited around for about twenty minutes I did not have the time to wait any longer.

Played golf with Barry this morning, The views from the golf course are amazing. Today it was very windy, so windy that on one green it was almost impossible to stop the ball unless it was in the hole. We got caught in a vicious shower but wwere dry again in about ten minutes due to the wind. The sky was constantly changing as the showeres came and went so todays pictures are of the sky above clew bay golf club.

I was driving into Westport this morning when a rainbow appeared very faintly over Croagh Patrick. I had trouble keeping my eye on the road as I kept looking for somewhere to stop that would have a good view without to many distractions . The rainbow still had not developed properly as I pulled into the Knockranny Hotel car park. Just as I parked the car the rainbow became very clear , it arched over Croagh Patrick and I fumbled at the camera bag to release the camera, at the same time the raindrops began to hit the car, I stepped out of the car shielding the camera lens from the rain and I lifted the camera to my eye, the rainbow just disappeared , gone, not a trace! I waited for about ten minutes in the hopes of a repeat show, but the weather just cleared and I have to be content with the image that is stored in my head!


Croagh Patrick after the rainbow!
June was the driest in mayo for fifty years. Yesterday evening I had a one to one class with a French visitor called Jean Paul. Jean Paul had a new canon Camera and we spent some time indoors going over the features of the camera and learning about exposure etc. Jean Paul was however interested in doing some outdoor portraiture and had brought Marie with him as a model. It was pouring rain at the time so we only spent a few minutes outdoors. We asked Marie to stand under the trees on the mall in Westport so that we were all sheltered from the rain. The light under trees even on a dark wet evening can be very flattering for portraiture, and it just goes to show that good pictures can be taken even in bad weather



, of course it helped that Marie was such a good model.

This morning I had to make an early trip to Knock Airport. I went off the main road for the journey home. Very close to the airport is a place called Barncogue. The area around the airport is very rural, not what you would expect close to an international airport



there are also alot of old deserted cottages and farm buildings in really pretty locations.



I stopped by the national school for two reasons, one to get the correct spelling for Barnacogue and secondly because I noticed the two letter boxes which I thought would make an interesting photo. There were some cows and calfs in the field behind and I tried to attract them over to the letter boxes by putting fresh grass over the wall. They would not come though and so I decided to take the picture anyway.



As I did the cattle started to engage in some activity of their own!

Even the young ones had a go!

As I photographed a lady in a car approached and in the spirit of true neighbourhood watch ,stopped and asked me why I was photographing the school { I should point out that the school is now closed for holidays) I gave her my card and explained what I was at. She then told me where I could go to get a good picture of the whole valley and so I followed her in her car. As we drove I was sure she seemed familiar and so when we stopped I asked her. It took us a couple of minutes to figure it out but I had actually photographed her and her family at one of her children’s communion several years earlier.



Her name was Breege and as I photographed the valley from above the school Breege told me about a celebration that had happened in the school on Friday . The school was visited by an ex teacher who was one hundred years old . The teacher is Delia Henry. Delia is almost a relation of mine! Delia’s brother married my Grandmother in Clonakilty and had one child ,Noreen, my aunt. Delia’s brother died young and my grandmother married my grandfather. Its a small world!!

Today is day one hundred and eighty of my "blog". I feel I should declare that number like they do when the darts players score three treble twenties ! I am still enjoying it but there have been days when I have been very short of inspiration.
Today was one of those days. I was busy in the morning, I was photographing boots socks and caps in the studio, when the weather was at its best ! This evening I only had a few minutes, the light was not great and I really struggled for ideas. Croagh Patrick is always there though ! I met somebody a few days ago on Bertra Beach who had decided to photograph Croagh Patrick every day this year, she had given up though.




There was some nice light on the lower part of the mountain and I waited as long as I could hoping it would move onto the higher parts but it didnt .