Uncategorized: Moonrise over Lackavrea
This picture was taken as the Moon rose over Lackavrea as I was on the way home after a long Sunday hiking in Connemara early last year (taken a few minutes before this picture).
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Uncategorized: Sex and the City
Sex and the city
What a weekend! Peoples Photography 2010 was awesome! It was my first time to exhibit at the Peoples Photography in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin and it definitely won’t be the last. In fact I’ve already booked 10 spaces for Navan Camera Club for next year (don’t forget Kyle!). I’d visited last year and met various Boards.ie people and thought to my self that I’d like to be here. Now I’m not a professional photographer or anything like it – it’s purely a hobby for me. I’ve no interest in taking on paid work like weddings or communions or any of that stuff. Fair play to those who do, but it isn’t for me.
There are two things that attracted me to PP2010. One was I love to see photos in print. It’s all very well looking at images on your screen, but there is nothing like seeing one of you shots enlarged to 20 x 16″, nicely mounted and framed and hanging for all to see. The second is hanging out with a bunch of like minded souls and enjoying their company. Peoples Photography gave me both in abundance. The fact that I shifted 26 prints at a grand total of €53 was a bonus. I’ve a small few of my PP2010 shots up on Pix.ie – just a few but that’s another story.
Uncategorized: Solar power
Despite a rising moon, the sky was still clear enough on Sunday night to see the faint outline of the Milky Way, which was visible from the windfarm outside Spiddal (as well as from other parts of the Galaxy).
Uncategorized: Autumnal
I can hardly believe that the summer is officially over. Already, sycamore trees are beginning to shed autumn-burned leaves, like this one in the Owenboliskey river that flows through the village of Spiddal in Galway.
Uncategorized: Fishing for mackerel
The mackerel are ‘in’ – last week, there were lines of fishermen along the prom in Salthill hauling in bucket loads of fish. Here is a video showing some of the more successful fishermen in front of the Waterfront Hotel (one of them hauled in about 10 on a single line) and here is a video of a few guys that didn’t catch anything but seaweed while I was watching them.
Uncategorized: Moonrise over the Burren
A shot of the moon taken last Saturday evening as it rose over Knockvorneen in Finvarra, by the Flaggy Shore (taken a while before these pictures) . The moon’s size is exaggerated because I used a large [640mm] focal length lens.
Here is a short video taken of the moon as it rose behind the hill [I began the recording after I took the picture above].It was recorded using a Canon G9 digital compact camera which has a built-in timelapse feature [the video covers about an hour of actual time].
Uncategorized: Deep in thought……
Deep in thought.......
Another shot from last Saturday’s photowalk in Dublin. On our way from Dublin Castle up towards Christ Church I spotted this woman leaning on a bollard staring into space. She is quite striking with her tight cropped hair going slightly grey and her big silver earrings. Her pose with her hand up to her mouth gave the impression that she was lost deep in thought.
I stopped and grabbed a few shots of her before she copped me taking her photo. Rather than walk on and ignore her, I went up to her and showed he the shot on the back of the camera. “Very beautiful” she said and she was right!
Red Mum: Donkey derby
Over the next while I’ll be posting pics from our two days in Mullaghmore in Sligo. We woke up on the first morning to see bouncy castles and stalls being set up, with the main attraction of the day being the donkey derby. It was mighty craic altogether so this first pic is from one of the donkey derby races.
Uncategorized: The Ten Wonders of Ireland’s West: the Flaggy Shore in Co. Clare
Moonlit clouds pass over Galway city, illuminated by the streetlights below. Above, the stars shine brightly over Galway Bay. The brightest light on the horizon is from the fairground on Salthill Promenade. Picture taken from the Flaggy shore.
In truth, I could have selected any number of beautiful spots along the Clare coastline – anywhere from Ballyvaughan, Fanore to Doolin, you can see what happens when the flat limestone pavement of the Burren meets the unrelenting power of the Atlantic Ocean. The Flaggy Shore is about half a mile of coastline at Finvarra near New Quay in Co. Clare. The shore itself is most beautiful on an evening when it has just rained but the setting sun has just about managed to break through the clouds. The soft limestone rock, wet from the rain and eroded into fantastic, rounded shapes by the sea, reflects back all of the fantastic colours of the sky.
Th Flaggy Shore is one side of a small peninsula that stretches from the village of New Quay to Finvarra Point, where a Martello Tower still stands.[In this picture, Finvarra is the land on the right handside of the inlet - Knockvorneen is the shrub-covered small hill behind which is the Flaggy Shore. The Martello Tower is barely visible as a dot at the mouth of the inlet - the Google Map link is here]. What makes the Flaggy Shore so special is, of course, the view, and the fact that generally, you have it to yourself. Apart from the rock patterns along the shoreline, it is the skyline that adds to the spectacle – look west and there is nothing to block your view at all. Look north across Galway Bay and the lights of the city and every village west of it, from Barna to Sipiddal and beyond twinkle back at you. During the day, the ridges of the Twelve Bens and the Maumturks break the skyline.
Just down the road from the Flaggy Shore is Linnane’s Seafood restaurant in New Quay. Everything you can eat in there was caught nearby – fresh from the sea. (If anyone ever organizes a boat trip from Galway where you can have a pre-dinner drink on board, alight at the quay behind Linanne’s in New Quay, have dinner there, and then sail back across the bay to Galway while having a nightcap, let me know – I am totally, ahem, on board for that trip.) Closer still is Mount Vernon Lodge, once the summer home of Lady Gregory and the place where she and a certain W B Yeats came up withe an idea that would become the Abbey Theatre [you can still stay there - it is a guesthouse now]. Yeats namechecks Finvarra [and the nearby Corcomroe Abbey] in his play The Dreaming of the Bones.
This video link [click here] is a timelapse movie of the sun setting, and the stars rising over Galway Bay, viewed from the Flaggy Shore. It is best viewed fullscreen.
Others in the series :-
1) The Ten Wonders of Ireland’s West: Kilmacduagh Round Tower
2) The Ten Wonders of Ireland’s West: Glencoaghan Valley and the Twelve Bens
