Winter Wonder Land

Waterville and surrounding mountains under a sprinkle of snow 

Happy New Year to all of you, and don´t forget to take a few photographs during the cold but dry spell.

Winter scenes are quite good for graphic compositions and of course snow and ice on the gound are just so unusual here in the South West of Ireland that you simply have to keep a record.

 

The two photographs above were taken near Lough Derriana, north of Waterville, Co. Kerry.

Reenroe Beach , Ballinskelligs, in Winter Light

View from western end of Reenroe Beach towards Waterville

Don´t be afraid of the cold wintery days right now, as long as it is reasonably dry you can still go out with your camera and capture the blueish and pink colours in the sky towards sunset in the afternoon.

Find those clouds, they make a picture much more interesting than just blue sky, and maybe another interesting subject like the water spray of the waves in the next picture.

I had not brought a tripod with me for this walk, so to steady your camera, especially if you have a heavy lens attached, make do with whatever you can rest the weight on, even your walking partner´s shoulder...

By the way, I read about some place names along the Skellig Coast again the other day in Michael Kirby´s books and Reenroe which is obviously the English version of the Irish name Rinn Rua, means the Red Riff, I suppose, that is the place from where I took the first Photograph in this article.

Stars in the Sky

Last night we watched the cold and clear sky only for a few minutes and saw a number of "shooting stars" from this Decembers meteor shower highlight, the Geminid Meteor Shower. They are exceptionally impressive this year because it is near New Moon, so the moonlight does not distract from or diminish the visibility of the meteors´lights. It seemed last night they were everywhere in the sky but I read today they sort of radiate from a source within the Gemini or Twins, hence the name.
I added a link to an interactive astro viewer under the links in the left side column, you can change the location (it´s New York by default, you can also change the language for the stars between Latin and Englisch, for that you need to click on the full featured astro viewer, so if you don´t know where to find the Gemini, this is a help...)
Another tip for watching the sky at night is to be in a really dark place, so turn off all the lights around you or even better travel to a spot where there is as little light as possible.

October night sky on Bray Head, Valentia Island 

with view towards Portmagee

Our man on Skellig Michael

Here is an article in the Irish Times Magazine about Lighthouse Keeper Richard Foran, who just successfully finished a photography course with me, an interesting read, enjoy...

Certificate night in Tech Amergin Waterville

Congratulations to all my Fetac Level 5 Digital Photography Students, here you see the smiling Richard Foran, Bridget O`Shea, Trish O`Sullivan, Eileen O`Leary and me, from left.

The picture was taken by Lynda Higgins( thanks Linda), two other students Tom Horgan and Joe Hardy could not attend the ceremony.

Thank you very much again for taking part in this course

that you finished all with great success.

Keep the camera going and your eyes and hearts wide open!

A big thank you to Angela and Susan from Tech Amergin

 for the support I´ve received.

Killarney Photo Workshop Review

Thanks to all who came out and joined me on the photo workshop in Killarney´s National Park.
The heavy rainfalls had put Ross Castle´s surroundings under water so we moved on to Torc Waterfall and Muckross Gardens.
Our main project was to capture the flowing waters with long shutter speed anyway and some of you sent in quite good pictures of the mighty waterfall and other pictures too, some of which I am showing here.
Thanks again to the students in my Waterville and Caherciveen Photo Courses and to the guests.

                               Deirdre Booth

Mairead Murphy

Mairead Murphy

      Cormac Dineen

       Mairead Murphy

Cormac Dineen

Winter in the Kerry Mountains

Laune River and Kerry Mountains

What came down all over Ireland as torrential rain was to cover the highest mountains in Kerry, the McGillycuddy Reeks, in snow.
Back from my photo workshop in the Killarney National Park I took several photographs at this spot between Killarney and Killorglin and stitched some of them together afterwards to the panorama above.
For our workshop we actually could not go near Ross Castle, the carpark and most of the walkways were flooded but we were able to take pictures at Tork Waterfall and in Muckross Gardens, more about that later...for now, thanks to all who joined me there.