We visited Sherkin Island more than ten years ago and walked the narrow road to the other side of the island, to Cow Strand and then on to Silver Strand. I’ve been back a few times since but I think this is the only time I saw a horse on the beach.
It was a lovely day. Fabulous beaches too.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 6D |
| Focal length | 105mm |
| ISO | 160 |
| Shutter speed | 1/320s |
A Jet2 737 comes in low over the beach at Playa Honda, undercarriage down, engines glowing pink in the dying light. The approach-lighting pier marches out from the lava coast like an unfinished bridge, each platform waiting to flash its sequence and guide the next arrival onto runway 03 at Arrecife. I took this in January 2020, a few short weeks before the word “Covid” started elbowing its way into every conversation and the holiday traffic into Lanzarote dried up almost overnight.
Looking at it now feels a bit like looking at a photo of someone the day before they got bad news: everything still in its right place, sun setting beautifully, plane on schedule, no idea what’s about to happen. The 737 didn’t know either.
The structure on the right is the approach-lighting pier for runway 03 at Lanzarote Airport (ACE). It has to extend several hundred metres out over the sea because the runway threshold sits right at the coastline, leaving no land on which to mount the standard ICAO approach light array. It’s one of a small handful of airports in Europe where the approach lights are essentially built into the ocean; Madeira and Gibraltar have similarly creative solutions to the same “we ran out of land” problem.
Take multiple short exposures (with some blur) merge them together to get a longer exposure.
Interesting quote: “A photograph should be more interesting than the subject and transcend its obviousness” – Jeffrey Ladd.
“Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.” – Gary Winogrand.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 17mm |
| ISO | 20000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/250s |
I shot this on Princes Street in Cork back in 2016, and I had it filed in my head all this time as a Starbucks-versus-Starbucks gag. The wellness sermon in the window was contradicted by the Frappuccino in the hand.
Turns out the window belongs to Rocket Man, a salad and juice bar, which means the slogan is just an honest pitch for what’s inside. The joke isn’t the shop being two-faced; it’s the woman walking past it with a competitor’s plastic cup and a New Look bag, completely uninterested in being nourished, satisfied or energised on Rocket Man’s terms. Three brands sharing a frame, none of them in agreement.
The black-and-white striped barrier slices the scene in half like a referee, the leather jacket and ripped jeans give the date away within a year, and the lower-case earnestness of the window text feels very 2016 indeed. Ten years on, the Frappuccino lid is the same shape, the uniform has barely shifted, and I owe Rocket Man a small apology for misreading their window.
| Aperture | ƒ/2 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 6D |
| Focal length | 50mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/250s |
I spent a few minutes watching this white-tailed eagle do absolutely nothing, and it was riveting. It sat on its branch at Fota Wildlife Park like it owned the place which, fair enough, when you’re the largest bird of prey in Ireland, you probably do. The dark backdrop did me a favour here, throwing all the attention onto that pale, scruffy head and the hooked yellow beak.
A moment later he launched into the air and flew off to another part of his enclosure.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 600mm |
| ISO | 2000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/2000s |
I was visiting Fota Wildlife Park with Henry recently when he spotted these two in an enclosure and I genuinely cannot get over how small a little grebe chick is. It’s basically a wet pom-pom with an attitude.
The adult, all chestnut throat and businesslike beak, was patrolling the surface and the chick paddled over, demanding food with the kind of cheek only baby birds can pull off.
I love how the second shot caught the wee one drifting solo, perfectly mirrored on glassy water, looking pleased with itself for absolutely no reason.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 600mm |
| ISO | 800 |
| Shutter speed | 1/2000s |
This part of Oosterdokseiland was a building site back in 2011, and I rather enjoyed picking my way around the fencing. NEMO’s great green copper hull sits across the water like a ship that has run aground on purpose and this afternoon it had a proper foil in the foreground: a battered Caterpillar 385B from Oudtzwanenburg’s demolition crew, parked on a churned slab of rubble and looking entirely unbothered by the architecture behind it.
Fifteen years on, and the island is all glass and bicycles, but I love construction sites. They’re a temporary view of the underside of modernity.
| Aperture | ƒ/9 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 40D |
| Focal length | 48mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/125s |
As I climbed up the rocks from the beach I spotted a lone fisherman in the distance. He hadn’t caught anything yet but in the bright sunshine I caught a nice silhouette.
It was Santa Cruz in Portugal, and a lovely day to be beside the sea.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 112mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/640s |
I saw Dermot Henry perform at the Wavelength Rooftop Bar, attached to Cyprus Avenue, in Cork, last night.
Folk music isn’t my usual cup of tea but Dermot’s got a great voice and judging by comments on his YouTube videos, a passionate following.
The support singer was great too. He said his name a couple of times but every attempt to search for it online returned other people. If you recognise the man in the second photo, please let me know!
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 75mm |
| ISO | 1000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |
The man in the blue jacket has both hands on the jockey’s left boot, mid heave, and number 37 is halfway between earth and saddle. It’s neither one place nor the other. I love the awkward physics of a leg-up. It looks ungainly until you remember it’s the only sensible way to get a small, light human onto an animal that tall without a mounting block.
I have no idea how this jockey and horse did on the day. The photo is from 2024.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 320 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
I caught this one on a warm Saturday night in Katowice a few years ago. Somewhere on the Mariacka strip where every other doorway is a bar and the pavement is essentially a parade route. Five women in a loose flying-V, the bride-to-be in white on the right with a tiara, a veil and a sash that does the introductions for her. It’s the kind of group you hear before you see.
I love that it’s not posed: one’s mid-laugh, they’re all mid-stride, the leader has her arm out like she’s parting the Red Sea, and the rest have an assortment of expressions. The night was still young.
Shot wide and low so the restaurant lights smear across the back, which felt right for the energy.
Katowice doesn’t get much love from travel guides next to Kraków and Wrocław, but on a Saturday night it was alive and buzzing with activity.
| Aperture | ƒ/2.8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 12800 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |
Foz do Lizandro is one of those beaches where the Atlantic doesn’t let you forget it’s the Atlantic. Even on a bright spring day, the surf comes in heavy and the water is properly cold. I caught this little scene from up the beach: mum framing the wave on her phone, dad watching, holding a baby in his arms (a leg is sticking out on his left), and a young woman in a long striped dress walking barefoot along the wet sand, completely in her own world. Three lives, three small reasons to be standing on this stretch of sand enjoying the surf.
The waves along here really were spectacular. A sight to behold.
Videos to watch
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 160mm |
| ISO | 500 |
| Shutter speed | 1/5000s |
The siamang barely moved while I framed the shot. Two long arms hooked around the timber, and then a bundle of jet-black fur with two enormous eyes peering up. I’d wandered over to Fota’s gibbon island half-expecting the usual whooping chorus, but instead caught this quieter scene: mum holding her ground in a patch of sun, baby latched on to her.
The light caught the auburn glints in her coat and the tiny one’s startled little face, and I had maybe three seconds before she swung off into the shadows.
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 356.1mm |
| ISO | 800 |
| Shutter speed | 1/2000s |
