Hated leaving. – this is Couminole/Co Kerry as well.
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This piece of old wood was sitting in my Oldies but Goldies album. I can’t remember taking it at all but based on the file name and date I believe it comes from Doneraile Park.
Compared to the number of photographs I actually own, what you’ll find hanging on my wall is quite minimal. Mostly it’s because I lack wall space, another excuse is that I haven’t had the time to sit down and get the files ready for printing. This is a pity. One of the photographs I do have hanging on my wall is this one of a couple of surfers in Garretstown in Cork – it’s hanging over the mantelpiece and every time I step in the living room, I see it. I actually really love it, although I’m not fully sure why (why is it more special than all the others, for example). More to the point, it’s one of the very few surf photographs I have (and most of my surf photographs are easy non-heavy action shots) and yet there’s something about it. The photograph above is another one of those rare surf shots where I think yeah, this is special for one reason or another while bemoaning the lack of classical surf shots. I can’t sell these things to surfers or surf magazines; only to people like me with a slightly different eye on the landscape. But I know what I like about this photograph. It’s the detail of the surfer’s hands. He looks like he is playing a piano. I wouldn’t actually trade this one for an aerial shot of Kelly Slater and that’s saying a lot.
I waxed a bit about this beach the other day so it’s pretty crazy not to actually have a picture of the beach itself. It’s up there in my list of favourite beaches which currently is as follows:
The thing with lists like this is there are so many others you just forget exist or there’s only ten spots and…then you forget something. Like the beach in Guidel, also in France, and the one in Nice isn’t too shabby either. And there’s a fair few very decent beaches in Queensland that I’ve just forgotten about. I really like the beach in Tarifa in the evenings as well.
Raindrops from the other side of a window, into the sun,. The weather in Dublin hasn’t been great. So this, 100mm macro 2.8 (lovely lens), some work with the black slider, desaturate and have at it with a scissors. I hope you like it.
The first time I crossed that bridge, I was in a bus from Auray to Quiberon, I think. Or possibly Carnac. I suppose I could look but… At some point, I heard that La Trinité was the biggest sailing marina in France. This wouldn’t surprise me; it’s huge. Much bigger even than Dun Laoghaire here in Ireland. If you’re interested, here is a Bird’s Eye view from Bing. It was cloudy the day Google passed overhead. I used to live in Auray which is about 10km away I think. I worked as a language assistant in a couple of the schools there. One of the best years of my life. I go to Brittany as often as I can find the time to but that’s not really often enough. When I was back there one month ago, it had been about 4 years since I was there. It’s not straightforward to get there out of season. Either you fly to Nantes and pick up a car and drive 250km, or you fly to Paris, get a train to Vannes or Quimper (I’ve done both) and pick up a car. You do not really navigate Brittany without a car. The weather wasn’t great when I was there; it was raining, and the sky was a featureless what. But I liked playing with the masts. I liked making the marina look really crowded with not a lot of boats. The view over the marina from that bridge is terrific. The last time I saw it, which is 4 years ago (because I approached the village from a different angle this time), I couldn’t really pay attention to it because I was driving. I love Brittany. I love taking photographs there; I have always brought back something quite special. I was in Kerry last weekend.
This was taken on Couminole Beach, in the evening; not quite as late as you’d think – the sun was on its way down but had a good portion of the sky to cross yet. The title of this photograph is taken from a song which Annie Lennox sings at the end of the Return of the King. Given my general style of photography, it’s not often I get to name check Tolkien around here so I’m taking that opportunity. The song is absolutely fabulous and I love it. This isn’t quite the same feeling, but the title, I felt, was appropriate. I’ve been angling to get to Couminole for a while now but any time I got as far as Dingle, I wound up having to come back without getting any further owing to time constraints. Last weekend, between the trip to Cork and onwards to Dingle, I estimate I drove around 850km which is not, I suppose, anything much to be proud of. I wanted to get to Couminole because the Ranga is wrecked somewhere down there and it was on my list of targets for the abandoned boats project which just isn’t happening on account of my actually having to work day to day. The thing with the Ranga is, there isn’t much of it left according to its Wikipedia page and I didn’t find any of it last weekend. I can’t, however, remember being on the beach itself so I went to take a look. I know I tend to bang on about this, but the beaches on the Atlantic coast really bring home to me just how ugly the beaches on the east coast are. Portmarnock Strand might be the nicest of the beaches in Dublin (in my opinion) but the sand just isn’t the same golden beauty that the Atlantic beaches show. This is an example. Most of the beaches in Cork and Mayo, same thing. Stunning golden against vaguely grey in Dollymount. I get wistful about it. I’ve been very busy the last week which is why the blog didn’t get updated – there are a couple of bodyboard shots and one or two surfing (nonaction) shots to come up this evening. However, I do want to point to the following items. Jason Kenworthy’s blog is here. He put a stunning shot on the cover of January’s Transworld Surf which is one of my favourites. Richard Eibrand has put The Mannequins on Blurb. Michael Clark has a new book coming out soon which I am seriously tempted by. Stephen Holmes has this pretty.
Thinking of printing this one. To hang in the kitchen, perhaps. The few days in Brittany are great. Clearly me and Atlantic landscapes work better than me and urban landscapes.
Most times that I go to Brittany, I try to make my way here. It is my ultimate soul food place.
After visiting assorted boat wrecking yards, I went to the beach at La Torche. La Torche is a little to the north of Penmarc’h on the south western coast of Finistere. It’s a little ickle but like Inchydoney in that it’s two beaches, one to the left and right of a point. The point is, however, bigger than the one in Inchydoney, as, in fact, are both the beaches. La Torche is a well known surfing beach and it attracts a lot of kitesurfers when conditions are right as well. On Sunday, the sun was shining but there was plenty of evidence to suggest it had been raining. Although I didn’t go there this time, there’s a stone circle on the point. I was more interested in the 9 foot waves. You can get quite close to them provided you are aware of how fast the tide is coming in. On Sunday, there were a lot of surfers. I didn’t have all the sports camera gear with me so the actual surfing shots are thin on the ground. What struck me most about the place when I got there was just the sheer beauty of the waves. I wanted to drop everything and go and live there. Why wouldn’t you? Totally gorgeous, totally beautiful location. Stormy enough in the winter, I would imagine. Anyway, one of my favourite surf shots comes from this beach, shot on film a long time ago. I’m not obviously trying to copy it but there seems to be some common feeling between both shots, for all that something like 10 years has elapsed since I took the first one. |
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