Living for Light » landscape

Near Lovely Inch, I must leave thee, Co Kerry

Treasa — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:12:14 +0000

Advance apologies – this is superwide. But I think it deserves it, big time. You see, this is what I couldn’t do in Mayo. Pretend to be Ansel Adams.

Welcome to Kerry. While I was on my so-called holidays a couple of weeks ago, I wound up with a plan to go to Dingle. For reasons I don’t quite want to go into, I got as far as Inch and Annascaul which was quite a bit short of the original plan to aim for Coumeenole and the Ranga. Never happened. Next time. Apparently I have time this year (yipee).

This is along the road between Castlemaine and Annascaul, one of the loveliest roads in the country. If you’re going to Dingle from Tralee, I’d nearly always recommend that road unless you’re in a mega hurray (although I’m not sure going the other road would make a whole lot of difference). It takes you past here (points up) and then on to Inch. (points down)

Inch, along with the beaches west of Louisberg in western Mayo, is one of my favourite beaches in the country. Barleycove in Cork comes pretty close as well but there’s something quite…special about Inch. It’s huge. It’s clean. Compared to Dollymount where I spend a good whack of my time, anyway.

No links for this post. I did a load this morning when I posted the non-volcanic ash pictures.

on the road to Achill

Treasa — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:14:05 +0000

I had cause to go to Achill Island on Saturday.

And I exploited the opportunity.

A whistlestop tour of my childhood/Galway

Treasa — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:33:46 +0000

It was an absolutely beautiful morning this morning. One of those days when you just want to get right out of the city. I wanted to see the Atlantic. To be honest, I wanted to be at the Pointe du Raz in west Brittany but for a day trip, absent a private plane, that really isn’t an option. So I started thinking about how you could get to the Atlantic Ocean quickest from Dublin City – look, I spent last weekend in Dun Laoghaire, yesterday in Howth and it’s methadone to the heroin that is the Atlantic Ocean and the last time I saw it was sometime ages ago.

In a secondary ideal world, absent the trip to the Pointe du Raz, parts of Cork and Kerry would be top of the list. They are rather a long way away for a day trip so in the end, it occurred to me that the motorway had opened to Galway and Galway, apparently, is now 2 hours from Dublin. This beat off the competition from Sligo. I drove to Galway instead.

I started off in Annaghdown, which is a small village outside Galway off the Castlebar road. When I was a child, my dad used to go fishing with his cousin from the pier there, so I spent a lot of time as a kid around there. I can’t remember the last time I was there, but I’m thinking it’s at least 20 years and possibly closer to 25. We used to camp down there.

I don’t remember that castle keep; although my mother has some slight recollection of it.

Annaghdown has a pier and since I was last there, the pier has been built up a bit, with a wall to protect people from falling in. There are still a lot of boats there, however.

In the 19th century, there was a huge boating tragedy on the lake; I don’t know the details, but there is still a memorial to the people who lost their lives in the accident.

Nearby, there is an abbey, and I had to go there. You see, I have very clear recollection of playing in that abbey with my younger brother and our cousins. I expected to remember it being “bigger” the way things in your childhood usualy seemed.

I was wrong. It was bigger than I remember. It’s not easy to photograph, where it’s located on the side of the road. The photographs of it are dedicated to the memory of my brother who died some years ago.

I loved the colours. So on the way back to Galway city itself, I stopped by the side of the road to play with the contrast between seemingly dead trees and the yellow stuff around them.

From there I moved to Salthill.

It was starting to get hazy and it was quite busy. I have to say that in terms of how a sea amenity is organised, Salthill is better than pretty much everywhere else I’ve been in the country. Kudos to Galway City or County Council, not quite sure who is responsible for Salthill.

This is the diving platform in Salthill.

John Smyth has taken some lovely photographs of it too I think.

Anyway, the plan after I grabbed something to eat was to head further west to catch a sunset. Things didn’t quite work out like that.

When I got to An Spidéal, it started to rain.

and that was it. You can see some evidence of the rain on both the filters and the front of the lens.

I didn’t have time to explore the city. Next time I will do that, hopefully on a day it’s not raining.

Volcano, Tenerife. Christmas about 4 years ago.

Treasa — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:44:00 +0000

I’m not sure what to say about this. It was taken with a 350D and a 70-300mm Sigma zoom. I’ve always liked Sigma lenses. There was a lot of haze for this photograph.

I have this yen to do lots of black skies but it’s difficult to find a balance when you have a volcanic mountain to deal with. Not that it’s any excuse. Sometimes I’m just looking to create an atmosphere.

I’m back to the Canary Islands in about 2 weeks’ time all going according to plan. I do want to have some fun there with the travel photography; I hope I get a lot more clear blue skies. Given some fortune I could get some startling things. I’m looking forward to it.

post-sunset, Carlingford Lough

Treasa — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:08:57 +0000

I’m not sure that post sunset is the right description actually. Carlingford Lough is bounded by the Mournes on one side and the Cooley Mountains on the other side. At sunset, the sun goes and hides behind some of the Cooleys. The result is the sky is still quite bright, but the light is a tad flat.

There is, however, this:

I was in Carlingford today just because other things went seriously wrong on me. I was at work during the night. When I got back it was sort of too late for me to go to bed because I had an early morning appointment anyway. I have been a way since 3 this morning. Stuff I wanted to do was made difficult by the Gately funeral which was between me and where I wanted to go. I couldn’t face the traffic so I turned north and went to Carlingford today because I had never been there, and it was somewhere new to go that I can’t ever remember being to before.

I was in Greenore as well.

I didn’t quite get the temperature on this that I wanted, it seems now. When I finished processing it, it was just right…now I am thinking excess tiredness may have killed it.

I was also playing with the macro lens.

Dollymount – SW Winds

Treasa — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:20:21 +0000

Taking photographs when the sand is blowing like this is kinda of difficult.

Okay, a couple of things to run down at the moment.

Red Bull Illume is running again. I am under severe pressure for it because I did not realise it was coming up, need to check deadlines and select photographs. I can think of just two photographs so far that suit any particular category for that competition. I can enter up to 50, 5 per category.

I don’t enter very many photography competitions – I am not competitive by nature but Red Bull Illume is specialised for extreme sports and it is the one competition I will enter any time I get a change. Photographs must be taken after 1 July 2007. Bork. The last two summers have been horrible for me.

If you are interested in extreme sports photographs and have a portfolio in that area, it might be worth a look.

While we’re on the subject of Red Bull Illume, this story is worth a look. Having looked at the clip I have to say I am very interested in the whole concept of the shoot, I’m just slightly underwhelmed by the photographs that came out of it. However, a few of my friends see it differently, so…people’s tastes vary.

Have to add that I’m intrigued by their use of FaceBook and Twitter this time round.

Last night I went and visited Offshoot Photographic Society. If you’re in south Dublin, it’s a very good photography society to get involved with as they have a very interesting collection of talks coming up and they are also very web savvy. Doing a lot of things right in my opinion. I am tempted to join them as I like what they are up to. Last night, they had Peter Cox come and give a talk.

On balance, I found the talk interesting, although in different ways. Peter Cox takes some wonderful photographs – there is no doubt about this – but the overwhelming impression I walked away with was “I can do that”. I spend a lot of time having doubts about myself and the photographs I take but following last night, I have some feelings that some of those doubts may be misplaced and that confidence is what I need to trash around with.

Strangely enough, twitter is helping on that front.:-) He’s one of the best kite photographers I’ve come across.

Back with last night’s talk, there was some discussion of it on twitter after the fact with some disappointment that some of the photographs lacked that wow factor. I have to confess that I’d agree to some extent with that sentiment while recognising the view that consistency is important.

In part, I think it’s because I think the consistency should be wow all the time. Take a look at guys like David Noton and Charlie Waite for example. Even in Irish terms, I would have preferred the colour work of Liam Blake and Peter Zoller for example.

Offshoot are also on twitter if you are interested.

Schedule for the weekend – kitesurfing in Mayo. Winds are light so that may convert into landscape photography in Mayo.

Flickr versus Picasa and all I am thinking is DUH.

Stephen has been in London.

Danny has been in County Down.

Okay I think that’s it for the moment.

Sunset, Bullock Harbour Dalkey

Treasa — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:18:25 +0000

I live in North Dublin. Apparently it’s the sticks but frankly, it has a postcode, the buses are pretty frequent and on average take around 15 minutes to get to town so it qualifies as the city for me.

Last night, suffering from a little “I spend too much time inside in front of my computer”, I decided to go and shoot the sunset. The fact that the sun was around to set was an added incentive, but I’ve done Clontarf to death, done Portmarnock to death, done Skerries to death and done Balbriggan to death. I wanted to go somewhere new seascapy, and the choice was north or south.

As it happens, a few weeks/months ago (time goes by so fast), one of my friends had taken me around parts of Dalkey because I was interested in where you might go climbing in Dublin, and amongst the places I was taken that day was Bullock Harbour. I can’t ever remember being there before although I know I attempted to explore Dalkey before many years ago. Anyway, absent any better offers, last night I went to back to Bullock Harbour having not found anything to attract me in Blackrock or Dun Laoghaire, and much standing around ensued. There was a gorgeous sunset. I am a lousy sunset photographer.

I’m starting to think I should perhaps learn more about enhancing these things with flashes rather than filters.

Unfortunately, yon towers are a bit too far away to light up with a Speedlite.

I’m a little bit lost photography wise, and for some reason I find Dublin very limiting when it comes to photography, don’t know why. I’m looking for ideas for different things to do which currently do not include HDR (doesn’t really hugely talk to me) but I haven’t found yet what I want to try.

Of the two places I have been lately – Bullock Harbour and White Rock Beach, I would be more inclined to go back to White Rock Beach despite it being too much like hard work – there are lots of steps. It is, however, beautiful.

I’m toying with another dawn raid in the morning; just haven’t decided if I can manage a second 5am start in a row, and, more importantly, where to go. Very hard.

Useful links are thin on the ground today but there’s just this

50 actions some of which I might actually use at some point in the future.

Old things with a new eye

Treasa — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:11:08 +0000

I took this on my very first photowalk with “other” photographers about 3 years ago, in Kerry. It’s taken from Brandon Head as far as I remember.

I started going through old photographs last night to see what had changed in the way I look at photographs and noticed that the way I look at photographs, and their colours in particular.

This one is from Dollymount Strand:

I’ve taken such a lot of photographs over the past 4 years that sometimes it’s hard to remember them all. So this exercise in part is a way to discover old friends languishing on a hard drive and it’s also a way to remind myself what I used to do before the kitesurfing and the filters and the macro lens.