The Tide Pulls Away at Kilfarrasy
Getting a shot like this is half luck and half persistence. You have to wait until the incoming tide is about to retreat to take the photo. This one was at Kilfarrasy Beach in Co. Waterford in 2017. Blarney Photography Club was visiting the area and this was on the itinerary for the the evening…
The Log That Caught the Sunset
A single weather-beaten log, marooned on the foreshore. It was nudged back and forth by the waves coming in and out but in the moment this photo was taken, the sky was reflected in wet sand and the log was beached. Safe from the incoming waters.
Soft Water, Hard Rock
This is a small section of O’Sullivan’s Cascade in Kerry. The lovely sound of the water falling through the rocks is soothing. The picturesque scene in front of me does the opposite as I worry about composition and, “Did I get a good photo of that?”
First Light at Cappagh
Cappagh Beach at half-six in the morning is colder than I’d planned for. We’d driven down to Kerry the night before and I was up in the dark, heading out the door and shared the journey from Dingle with Freddie at the wheel. I forgot my wellies, but while I cursed my lack of preparation,…
Lá Fhéile Pádraig in Fire and Light
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…
Where the Dingle Coast Meets the Swell
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…
Gold on the Mountain at Gougane Barra
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…
The Lone Boat at O’Sullivan’s Cascade
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.
Waiting for the Light
Nothing sorts the casual photographers from the committed ones quite like an early morning alarm on a Kerry beach in March. This lot from Blarney Photography Club were out on Cappagh Strand before first light, tripods planted in the wet sand, hoods up, waiting for whatever the sky decided to offer. The long exposure in…
Silhouette at the Harbour Mouth
There’s a narrow window just after sunset when the sky goes absolutely wild, when the sun has dropped below the horizon but the light is still bouncing around in the atmosphere, and you get these incredible bands of colour stacking up from warm orange through pink into deep purple and navy. The navigation beacon at…
Where Time Slows Down
Water becomes mist at Couminole/Coumeenole Beach on the Dingle Peninsula in Co Kerry.
Killarney’s Crystal Water
Last October when Blarney Photography Club visited Killarney to photograph the rutting season this year, we took a break from the deer and some of us went to O’Sullivan’s Cascade. This is the Lakes of Killarney as seen from where that waterfall flows into the lake. It was a beautiful clear day. The sky might…