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This coming weekend, August 27th/28th, I'll be exhibiting at the Peoples Photography Exhibition in Stephens Green in Dublin. There will be over 200 photographers exhibiting over the two days.

The above shot is my stand from Peoples Photography 2010. This year, I will be showing all framed images, including a number of new images I've taken over the last couple of months. I look forward to seeing you there!
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This image was taken from Dunquin Pier. The pier itself, and the steep path that leads to it, are popular subjects, but I decided to try and get something a little different. The sun had just set on the horizon, lighting up the clouds in shades of orange, pink and red. I was rather drawn to the two triangular...
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This is another image from Dingle. This was taken from Clogher Head, and you can see the summit of the headland in the foreground of this image. It's a great spot to park the car, take a short 10 minute walk, and get an absolutely stunning view of the entire area, including the Blasket Islands, Brandon, and (hopefully) a sunset like this.
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On this particular day, we'd all had enough of the rainy weather keeping us indoors, so we decided to head out for a drive, rain be damned! The Connor Pass was socked in with low cloud and rain, but as we made our way down to Brandon Point, the sun started...
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This image was taken on my recent family holiday to the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry. Dingle was one of the few places I haven't been in Ireland in the 15 years I've lived here, and it definitely won't be my last visit. There is plenty to do, wonderful food, and amazing scenery, as you can see here. I would highly recommend it!

This is a panoramic image comprising...
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Yesterday, the whole family trooped off to Powerscourt House and Gardens near Enniskerry, Co Wicklow for the afternoon. After a lovely lunch in the Avoca cafe, everyone went for a tour around the garden.

It was on that tour that I spotted this lovely elm tree (at least I'm pretty sure it's an elm). It looks to be at least 200 years old, and must be one of the finest...
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Yesterday, I heading up to Lough Key Forest Park with Marie and the boys. While we were exploring the beautiful grounds of the park, we came upon this amazing tree. I knew I had to photograph it, so the family waited patiently while I did.

The tree is so old and big that the branches have grown down to the ground and...
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Although I've taken many pictures of the new baby, this is the first landscape photograph I've taken in a very long time. If two kids make it difficult to get out and shoot, three make it nearly impossible! Last week, I headed off to Dingle with the family for a summer holiday. One night, after the kids were tucked up in bed, I headed off to capture the evening light...
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It's been almost two months since I've taken any new photos, due to the arrival of my son Cormac three weeks ago, which has been keeping everyone in the family busy! I've been itching to do some processing though, so I looked through my unprocessed images and found this one which I missed the first time around.

Burke's Island has featured in a couple of my previous images, but this is taken from a different...
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This image was taken from the cliff-top just to the west of Kilfarassy Strand. I couldn't find any specific name for this headland and rocky beach, but I absolutely love it. It has a really raw and rough-hewn feel to it. I processed the image in...
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After the disappointment of the fog the previous day, the second day of the SE Photowalk dawned with much better conditions. It was windy, but at least the clouds were broken enough to give some interesting light. We all trooped off to Kilfarrasy, which is one of my favourite spots in Waterford (or anywhere for that matter!). While we were there, we were treated to the best light of the day. It only stuck around...
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This is a shot of the stairs leading to the upper floors of the Hook Head Lighthouse. The lighthouse is open to the public for guided tours, and I highly recommend it if you're in the area. I was truly amazed to find out that the lighthouse is the oldest operational lighthouse in the world, built in the 13th century, and that...
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Yes, I know most of you who were on the Southeast Photowalk with me in February probably assumed I got nothing from all my shutter-clicks that weekend, but I did get something after all! It's taken me absolutely ages to get images from that weekend processed, but I now have two or three processed which I'm happy with, and here's the first.

This is, of course, Hook Head Lighthouse. I arrived just before dawn after hot-footing it down from Dublin. All the way down we drove in and out of fog, but we were happy...
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This is the last in my series of night-photography images taken recently in Wicklow. The river in the foreground is the Inchavore River in the Glenealo Valley, just before it flows into Lough Dan. I was very lucky that the water was so still that it reflected the stars like a mirror, even after a 20 second exposure.

This is one of my favourite spots in Wicklow, and on this particular night, it was absolutely stunning. To be honest, this photograph...
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This is another shot from my recent night-shoot in Wicklow. This is Lough Tay viewed from the cliffs along the Sally Gap road. It was rather disconcerting to be a few feet away from certain death in the pitch dark on uneven ground. It was an amazing view, but I was glad to get back to the safety and warmth of the car!

This image is actually a composite of five images stitched together. I was a bit worried the stars would move too much between 20 second exposures to successfully stitch the individual images together, but it worked out well in the end.
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Last night, fellow photographer Dan King (http://pix.ie/dk1974) and myself headed out to the wilds of Wicklow to do some night photography. We were hoping to shoot some star-filled skies, and maybe get a few star trail shots.

This was my effort at star trails. It's a 10 minute exposure, which allows the natural rotation of the earth to create these star trails around Polaris, or The North Star. The mountain in the foreground is called Knocknacloghoge, and the shot was taken from the Glenealo Valley near Lough Dan. As Dan will attest, it gets pretty cold when your standing around in -4C degree weather, waiting for a 10 minute exposure to finish. It's best to get the exposure right first time! Sorry Dan!
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As promised, here is the last shot from my Waterford trip. This is very similar to this shot, but in this case I didn't use the 10-stop ND filter, so there are no cloud-streaks and the water is not blurred. There is clearly a different mood to this version, but I think it works equally well.

It's been a busy month, but I've finally cleared my processing backlog! As I mentioned in the last post, I'll be heading to Waterford again in about two weeks. So it could be a little while before I have new images to post. I'm hoping to head out locally in the next week or two, but there's a lot of work to be done at home with the new baby only two months away!
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This group of rocks marks the eastern boundary of the beach at Kilfarrasy at high tide. At low tide, you can continue along the rocky coast to the east, but make sure you know whether the tide is coming in! Apparently, many unsuspecting tourists have been spotted walking back to their cars completely soaked from an unexpected wade through the water.

I'll be posting one more image from this series in the coming days, and then it's off in search of some new images. I'll be heading back down to Waterford on the weekend of the 19th of February with the fine folks from http://www.photowalk.ie. With any luck, I'll get better weather for Hook Head Lighthouse this time!
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This is another shot from my trip to the Copper Coast in Waterford. In this case, I went with black-and-white to emphasise the cloud streaks created by fast moving clouds mixed in with bits of blue sky, and a 10-stop ND filter to allow a long exposure.

I met a local on the beach who tells me the small rounded rock in the right of this image is known as Burke's Island. It's really a sea rock rather than a true island.
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This is the latest image from my Waterford trip in late December. Winter is a great time for photography on the south coast of Ireland as it's the only time of year the sun rises and sets over the water.

Of all the images from that particular trip, I think this is my favorite, although I still have a few more left to process. Once again, I used my new toy, the 10-stop ND filter, to allow for a long exposure of 50 seconds. If you look closely, you can see a bird perching on the top of the pointed rock in the left side of the image. It was very kind of him to sit still for his 50 second portrait!
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