This handsome iguana was lounging on a branch in the hothouse at Fota Wildlife Park this morning. He didn’t seem bothered by the passing crowds: kids, parents and inquisitive photographers with the wrong lenses.
A bit of cropping and I had the frame I wanted. That red-rimmed stare never left me though, watching from the log, belying the relaxed sprawl.
| Aperture | ƒ/5 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 150mm |
| ISO | 4000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
We were standing across from Cobh in the park on Haulbowline Island to photograph the fireworks display over Cobh on St. Patrick’s Day this year. With a camera on a tripod, timing a fireworks display is basically an exercise in optimistic guesswork. When I see the firework launch, I press the shutter button, hope a burst lands in frame, and try not to jostle the camera and tripod as the photo is taken. Sometimes if the burst is impressive I’ll forget to take my finger off the shutter button to stop the exposure which I think happened here. Luckily, this one landed well.
The main burst came out in rich gold and blue, with a lower white chrysanthemum bloom adding a second layer of detail, and the town lights of Cobh strung out across the bottom of the frame giving the whole thing a sense of place. The harbour itself picks up just a faint glimmer of the reflection.
Ten minutes of intense concentration and then it’s over. Phew.
I shared a photo from this night shortly after the fireworks display but I think it’s nice to post a fireworks shot every now and again. They’re so pretty and get lost if too many are posted in one go!
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 320 |
| Shutter speed | 4s |
Clogher Beach in early March is not what you’d call hospitable. This little cove on the Dingle Peninsula opens straight onto the Atlantic, and the swell hits the slate head-on; the spray goes up twice as high as the wave itself. I was there with Blarney Photography Club, all of us strung out along the beach in heavy coats, pretending we weren’t freezing.
I kept the shutter short enough to freeze the break but long enough to let the water show some texture and pulled the exposure down a touch to protect the foam. You have to use burst mode in situations like this and going through the images in Lightroom makes a timelapse movie of the waves enveloping the rocks in a very dramatic way.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 160mm |
| ISO | 160 |
| Shutter speed | 1/2000s |
I spotted her first, then the bush, then the coincidence. Walking through Palafrugell one July afternoon, I saw this lady carrying her shopping bag back from the market. I kept the frame cropped tight: no face, just arm, fabric, and the tanned, weathered hand holding a shopping bag off to the side.
This is probably a journey she has made many times before. This is a small snapshot of her daily life. How many times have you carried a shopping bag home? I’m sure she’d scoff if she saw this photo of ordinary life.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 35mm |
| ISO | 2000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
We pulled in at the Mirador de Guise y Ayose and after photographing the statues there like everyone else (I have yet to post those photos, stay tuned) I pointed the camera at this little red-ringed 40 sign keeping watch by the road. Which is funny, because the view behind it is the whole reason anyone stops here: the central spine of Fuerteventura folding down into the Atlantic, lit up like someone had turned up the contrast knob on the hills while leaving the sea a flat, hazy blue.
The sign made me laugh though. Forty kilometres an hour on a road where every bend hands you a new postcard? You’d be lucky to manage twenty. You know the Conor Pass in Kerry? The road surface is better in Fuerteventura, but all that separates you from the cliff beyond are small white blocks or thin guardrails. Take a look on Google Maps and switch to street view to see.
I shot the photo at f/8 but the hills are so far away they go soft behind the sign, and I rather like how the red ring anchors all that orange and ochre. A reminder, I suppose, that the best landscapes are the ones you slow right down for, sign or no sign.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 240mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
The news broke this morning that Moya Brennan passed away yesterday, and this photo has been on my mind ever since I heard. I took it at Cork Opera House on the 2nd of March 2020, during Clannad’s Farewell Tour. What a strange, loaded date that turned out to be. Barely a fortnight later the country shut down, venues went dark, and the idea of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a theatre listening to a voice like hers felt like something from another era.
They put on a fabulous performance that night, and I’m so glad we got to see them.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 300mm |
| ISO | 25600 |
| Shutter speed | 1/320s |
I stopped halfway across the Millennium Bridge and pointed the camera north, which turned out to be the same thing roughly nine thousand other people were doing that afternoon. I looked behind me and there was another group of tourists with their phones raised taking much the same photo I have here.
St. Paul’s Cathedral was in the background but I was interested in the people, contrasting the ever-present building with the steady stream of humanity flowing past me.
| Aperture | ƒ/9 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 89mm |
| ISO | 160 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
Several years ago I’d been wandering around the narrow streets of Palafrugell’s old town when I came across the Sant Martí de Palafrugell and I loved to see it in the early morning light.
The sky was perfectly clear which isn’t great but the surrounding streets were quiet and it seemed appropriate. Everything was still. The unfinished tower of the church caught my eye, making me think of the cathedral in Málaga.
The original church on this site dates from around 1019, but the present building was constructed at the end of the 15th century. There’s a Wikipedia article about it here, but you may need to ask your browser for a translation if you don’t speak Catalan.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 35mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/800s |
The cloud had been sitting on the mountains all morning like a hat pulled down over its eyes, and then for about fifteen minutes the sun broke through low and side-on and set the entire rock face above Gougane Barra on fire.
The golds and ambers were almost absurd. It was the kind of light you’d dial back in post because nobody would believe it was real. Mist was still threading through the peaks, which gave the valley that layered depth you only get when the weather can’t make up its mind. Down at the lake, the reeds had turned the colour of tea and the water was calm enough to throw back a passable reflection of the whole show.
Gougane Barra is one of those places that photographs well on a grey day, but when it decides to perform, it properly performs.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 50mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/640s |
There was a single boat on our little corner of the Lakes of Killarney. I’d walked down from O’Sullivan’s Cascade to join other photographers from Blarney Photography Club. They were busy photographing the same scene you see here and everything around them. We were enjoying the afternoon sunlight on a calm October day last year.
| Aperture | ƒ/11 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 65mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/80s |
I walked past Blarney Autos this morning and clocked the “SORRY NO DIESEL” sign on a car blocking the diesel pumps there.
The fuel protests have been rumbling on around the country for days now, refineries are ringed by placards, and the knock-on is landing on forecourts like this one. It doesn’t help that roughly two-thirds of what we pay at the pump is tax of one flavour or another, and the war in Iran has shoved the wholesale price of oil the wrong way.
I sympathise but don’t support what they’re doing. It’s making the lives of other motorists miserable, but if you look at any post on Facebook about it, you’ll mostly find excited comments supporting them.
Ireland is far too reliant on a liquid from somewhere very far away. Hopefully this encourages new car buyers to go for EVs.
| Aperture | ƒ/1.7 |
| Camera | Galaxy S23 Ultra |
| Focal length | 6.3mm |
| ISO | 10 |
| Shutter speed | 1/2000s |
Someone chose to put two Union Jack armchairs and an exercise ball in their office window for all of London to see. I spotted this walking past an office block and the arrangement stopped me mid-stride. The chairs are proper wingbacks, upholstered in full flag regalia, flanking a slightly deflated-looking exercise ball that’s doing its best to fit in.
Someone in that office has a sense of humour, and I’m grateful they put it by the window.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 240mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
