Sunday 28 May 2017

Chasing clouds


I'm dying to update you on this weekend's trip to Fermanagh for the first stage of my Following Frances project.

But it's going to take a few days to write it all up and edit some photographs, so in the mean time, this was another grand day out last week.



A new lens (Canon EF 24-70mm f/4 L IS USM), sun peering as best as it could round massive clouds of hail, and a fast drive down the peninsula after work to shoot straight west.

Not a single drop of rain fell on me, and I got a very nice beef and mushroom in black bean sauce from the Good Fortune on the way home. A top class outing.







Sunday 21 May 2017

Kearney: and a heaven in a wild flower


I had fun last week making a grid from the abstract black and whites I took at Kearney ... so here's something similar with the wildflowers currently in bloom there.

Top marks, as always, to nature for the lovely colour palette. I try hard to achieve this sort of consistency and interest when I'm planting my own garden, and it's not always easy.

What fun the master planner must have had in selecting the range of shades for each unique corner of our planet. Possibly other planets too. Perhaps those other ones feature new colours that we can't even imagine right now. I'm too claustrophobic to volunteer for the spaceship ride there to find out, but it's good to dream...











Saturday 13 May 2017

Kearney: to see a world in a grain of sand


Bright sunlight on a cloudless day. It's not a photographer's dream here, though several guys clutching what appear to be very expensive cameras greet me along the path and tell me that it is.

Practising my landscapes is out of the question, so I lie on the grass and read my book for a while. It's the loveliest spot in the world right at this moment. The smells and the sounds and the feeling of the soft springy turf are all perfect. 

I have to photograph something, so I wander along the awkwardly rocky shoreline in search of inspiration. There's a newly installed fence and gate - it's lying open, but I feel a bit guilty as I walk on through and wonder if I'll be endangering a rare seabird's habitat under my sensible Hotter trainers. (I won't - I see later that it's all to do with putting cattle to graze here later in the year.)

Up close is the answer, and my lovely 100mm lens does all the work. The rocks, seaweeds and flowers on the beach here are uniquely beautiful and everywhere I turn, I can fill my frame with patterns and textures.

The colours are pretty, but the monos are cooler. I try some square crops, and arrange them into an Instagram-ready square of squares. It doesn't really capture the flavour of the day, but it does start to show the special weirdness of this place.

...and separately...










Saturday 6 May 2017

Lough Naronamurrive


On the road from Pettigo, across the hills to Laghy. 

I loved this tree, set against a brooding sky, at the end of a waterlogged path, accessorised by a dilapidated wooden pen.

At home again, I searched for its location. Googlemaps puts it beside Lough Naronamurrive. I googled Lough Naronamurrive and got only four results. They're all from one of my own Instagram posts. 

I hope it's not an error on the part of the Google map-makers. Or just that it's a very dull lake.

I hope its digital existence is next to nothing because it's so special and elusive, a beauty that appeared just to me. A mirage. A watery Brigadoon.