John Finn Photography

Knockadoon Signal Tower

2011-12-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

In 1796 a French invasion of Ireland nearly came to pass. In December of that year 14,000 troops led by General Hoche and accompanied by Wolfe Tone eluded the Royal Navy and reached Bantry Bay. Unfortunately, a combination of very bad weather and poor leadership put paid to any landing and the fleet returned home. As Tone remarked at the time: "England has had its luckiest escape since the Armada".

The chance of another such invasion must have been remote - the French were preoccupied with their colonial wars - but the authorities were nevertheless fearful of such a possibility. It was decided to build a series of towers around the west, south and east coasts to keep an eye on shipping and to enable the alarm to be raised should another flotilla of French warships be spotted. The towers were built within line of sight of each other so a signal indicating possible invasion could quickly reach Dublin.

The tower at Knockadoon dates from 1805. It is situated on public land at the end of a road that changes to a narrow pot-holed lane after you pass the last house. The lane is drivable but I would advise parking your car near that house and walking the rest of the way. Or, in order to avoid any inconvenience to the residents, you could park on the main road near where it comes to an end by the camp and walk back. It's not far.

There isn't any signpost to the tower. For its exact location check out the interactive map on www.osi.ie - put these XY coordinates in the search field and you will see it: 608734/569653. Or simply ask a local person.

I was there on a cold, bright December afternoon. As I was checking out the surrounding countryside a rainbow suddenly appeared to the east:

This breaks a compositional rule which says that you should not have your subject in the centre of the frame. I tried a version with the tower towards the right - as per the Rule of Thirds - but it didn't work for me. (Canon 5D Mk11, Canon 24-105L, ISO 100, 1/200 sec @ f/10, unfiltered, RAW exposure processed in CS5).

For the following shot I used a B&W 10 stop ND filter on a Canon 17-40L. The camera was tripod mounted and the exposure was 60 seconds @ f/22. The B&W filter added a slight reddish hue which helped to accentuate the natural rich colour of late winter afternoon. The long exposure rendered some of the moving clouds as a blur which was what I wanted.

Youghal Panorama

2011-12-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

This is a panorama of Youghal taken across the river at Ferry Point. It was shot back in August and I used 35 separate exposures with the camera in portrait mode. It was processed in CS5.

http://pix.ie/carrigman/2651233/size/7916

Capel Island

2011-11-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

Capel Island is located at Knockadoon, East Cork. It is the island that you see when you look south when walking along the front strand at Youghal. It derives its name from a Norman family, de Capelle, which was granted the island after the Norman invasion in the 12th century. It is just over ten acres and rises to 124 feet.The tower is twenty five feet high and it was once intended, in the 19th century, to build a lighthouse here. That plan was dropped in favour of Ballycotton.

The island is now a nature reserve and is home to a herd of wild goats.

I took some photos here on 25th November in some nice winter sunshine.

Bean Bag

2011-11-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago I bought a bean-bag online from this UK company: http://www.camerabeanbags.co.uk/index.html

The purchase seemed like a good idea at the time but after using it once or twice to try it out I couldn’t find any need for it as my tripod or monopod delivered all the support I needed.

Then, recently, I took a short trip to London and I had a specific photo in mind that needed camera support as the exposure time was going to be a couple of seconds or more. Bringing a tripod was not an option as, apart from the inconvenience of lugging it around the city, I was travelling light with no checked-in luggage and the tripod would definitely not fit in my carry-on bag. Finally, a practical use for the bean-bag.

The photo I had in mind was of the British Museum Great Court with people moving about rendered as blurs. I went down there in the morning and found my vantage point: an open window on the first floor looking down on the Great Court. There wasn’t a window ledge, just a narrow railing, and I was worried in case it was too narrow to support the bean-bag plus camera. In fact, the bean-bag worked a treat and it gave ample support. I composed the shot, took a meter reading, fitted the B+W 10 Stop ND filter, adjusted the exposure for the latter and took a series of shots using a cable release. This 2 second exposure gave me the result I wanted:

I used it further on the same trip for some night shots of London such as this one of Tower Bridge:

The bean-bag itself is lightweight and it contains not beans but tiny polystyrene balls. It will easily fit into any rucksack or camera bag. The standard size one which I have costs only £11.75 plus postage and is ideal for those situations where support is needed but a tripod is not to hand.

East Cork Early Music Festival

2011-10-10T05:43:00.000-07:00

This year the East Cork Early Music Festival (http://eastcorkearlymusic.ie/) was held between the 5th and 9th October in various venues - the Cork School of Music, the Grain Store in Ballymaloe, the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, and Fota House. Having volunteered my services I was asked to document the festival and as this was something outside the photographic mainstream for me I was eager for the challenge.

Photographing classical music concerts can be problematic. One doesn't have the same freedom of manoeuvre as in a rock concert for example. Moving about looking for the right shot can distract the musicians and the audience and while this was not a major issue in a large venue like the Curtis Auditorium of the Cork School of Music it most certainly was in all the other much smaller locations. It would have been great to experiment with different angles and so forth but it was not possible. Even in the Curtis Auditorium I had to be very careful to change my shooting location only at the end of a particular piece of music and never during it. Shutter noise was another consideration - the shutter on my Canon 5D Mark 11 is not silent so I had to avoid firing it during quiet passages.

Dame Emma Kirkby performing at the Curtis Auditorium, Cork School of Music

Rachel Brown of the London Handel Players

Lighting was also an issue. While there was an excellent lighting set-up in the Stack Theatre the same did not apply in the other locations. The Grain Store in Ballymaloe is a great venue but for the recital by the Irish Baroque Orchestra the stage lighting was kept to a minimum in order to preserve the tuning of the period instruments - bright lights, apparently, can affect them. The lights around the theatre were brighter than those on stage and it was a struggle to get any usable images of the musicians.

The Irish Baroque Orchestra at the Grain Store, Ballymaloe

Likewise with Malcolm Proud's harpischord recital of Bach Partitas at Fota House on Saturday night. The only lighting was a pair of household light-stands and the light from one of those was just to the left of the musician and facing the audience (and me).

Malcolm Proud at Fota House

Flash, of course, was not an option. Instead, I was using high ISOs - typically, 1600 to 3200 - and my camera was supported on a monopod. The lenses I used were the Canon 17-40L, the Canon 24-105L, the Sigma 70-200, and the Canon 400 f/5.6. The fastest of these was the Sigma (f/2.8) but the lack of other fast glass wasn't a problem. Typical exposures were in the 1/60th to 1/100th sec range at apertures between f/2.8 to f/5.6 but the lighting in the Curtis Auditorium permitted much faster speeds.

Emma Kirkby conducting a masterclass with young sopranos at the Cork School of Music

Overall, I was happy with the images. More importantly, the music was magnificent and the committee of the ECEMF deserve great praise for making it happen. The highlight for me was the masterclass conducted by Emma Kirkby at the Cork School of Music on Friday morning. I was astonished at the amazing talent of the individual students who participated in the class. Each girl who stood up and sang had a wonderful voice and it was fascinating to hear Emma give pointers on how improvements could be made.

Soprano Róisín O'Grady at the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh

Next year will be the 10th year of the Festival and I have no doubt that the calendar will be one to savour. Anyone who loves music - any music - should make a point of attending a few of the events. Sitting in silence while listening to accomplished musicians and singers bring music of another era to life transports the listener to another realm. It is magical experience.

Kinard

2011-08-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

I am an admirer of the photography of John Hooton and Brid Coakley and some of their finest work has been done in the Dingle Peninsula and particularly in Kinard Beach.

See: http://john-hooton.com and http://www.bridcoakley.com

I had never been in Kinard. In fact, I wasn’t sure exactly where it was until a couple of weeks ago when I looked it up on Google Earth. (It’s about 3 miles East of Dingle: as you approach the town from the East turn left at the Seal Sanctuary on the main road – there’s a small sign saying Cinn Aird. Drive due south on the narrow winding road until you come to the sea). Last Saturday I decided to check it out.

It is a beautiful place. To the East is the sea-stack called An Searrach. South across Dingle Bay are the mountains of the Iveragh Peninsula and to the West is the high ground around the entrance to Dingle Harbour. The beach is sandy and there are plenty of rocks and boulders to delight the photographer of coast and sea. I could see why it is a favourite with John and Brid.

I climbed up the hill to the East heading for An Searrach, about three quarters of a mile away. When I arrived at the tip of the headland overlooking the sea-stack I set up my tripod, placed the 5D2 with the 17-40 attached on it, inserted the remote trigger cord, screwed in the Lee filter holder and slotted in an ND grad. I checked the scene, composed, and fired the shutter. Nothing. Looked at the LCD screen – “No CF card”. Blast. Rummaged in bag for card. None there. I uttered the unabbreviated version of “FFS” in a loud voice. Nothing for it but to traipse back to the car where I knew I had plenty of cards in my main camera bag and come back again. Which I did. Memo to self: make out a checklist before hiking across country to do photography – at your age you can’t rely on your memory anymore.

I mooched around the Kinard area for a few hours but it is a place that needs to be visited several times for it to offer up its full photographic potential. As in any form of landscape photography time of day is a major factor and I know that John and Brid are often here around dawn. It’s definitely a location that would be worth getting up early for.

These are some of the snaps I took:

I like the figures of the people in the foreground rendered ghost-like by the 10 seconds exposure.

Apology from Dept. of Justice for using my photograph without permission

2011-08-03T04:09:00.000-07:00

.

See: http://carrigman.blogspot.com/2011/07/dept-of-justice-uses-photo-of-mine.html

When I initially queried the matter with the Department I was told that the image had been purchased from a stock photo agency: istockphoto.com.

I had never made the image available to that or any other stock agency.

I wrote to istockphoto and asked for their comments. As expected, they were at pains to point out that they respect intellectual property rights and would never lift images from sites such as Flickr to sell on. They asked me for the purchase reference number used by the DoJ so that they could investigate the matter further.

I accordingly wrote to the Department on 25th July for that information and requested a quick response. I eventually got a reply today as follows:

3 August, 2011

Dear Mr Finn,

I am directed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Mr Alan Shatter, T.D., to refer to your correspondence dated 25 July, 2011 regarding publication of the Cloyne report.

Upon our initial investigation into the matter, we were informed that the photograph on the cover of the report was used with your permission as its author and that the relevant payment had been made. On further investigation it now transpires that this is not the case.

The Department therefore acknowledges that the photograph should not have been used without your consent or permission as its author. We apologise unreservedly for the error.

A limited number of copies of the report, with the photograph on the cover, were printed internally in the Department and distributed without charge.

Following receipt of your correspondence of 13 July querying the use of the photograph, it was removed from the Department's website as a precautionary measure. Further copies of the report have now been printed for sale, and these copies do not contain the photograph.

Yours sincerely,
_____________
Damien Brennan
Private Secretary to the Minister for Justice and Equality

I trust they have learned a lesson: do not trample on photographers' rights.

We photographers should remain vigilant and pursue copyright infringement when it comes to our attention.

Mount Brandon via the Faha Ridge

2011-07-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

The Met Eireann forecast for Kerry was promising: good sunny spells with some scattered cloud on Friday. The very reliable www.yr.no was even more emphatic – it showed bright sun symbols for the day. I therefore left my hotel in Tralee at 5am anticipating a golden dawn illuminating the Brandon range. It soon became obvious, as I drove west towards Cloghane in the pre-dawn light, that there was little likelihood of such a prospect – the sky was overcast. Nor was there any improvement when I arrived at the car park in Faha. The sun had risen by now but it was hidden by thick cloud. The only upside was that the cloud cover was above 3000 feet and most of the peaks of the Brandon range were visible.

I’ve been up Brandon a few times and on all but one of them the peak was covered in cloud. The last time I was there I met a Limerick man on his twentieth ascent and he had never been there without a cloud sitting on top. Legend has it that Saint Brendan ascended the mountain around 530AD to see America before setting sail across the Atlanic. He must have hit it on one rare clear day.

There are two routes to Brandon from the Faha side. One is the tourist route along the flank of the Faha Ridge and is well sighposted. It brings the walker into the magnificent valley floor and its string of paternoster lakes. At the head of the valley there is an easy climb with some mild scrambling on to the top of the saddle and from there it’s a short walk left to the summit.

The other route is via the more difficult Faha Ridge and that is the one I chose. Instead of sticking to the waymarked route I veered right on to the ridge and continued upwards in a westerly direction. The ridge is very wide at this stage. That changes when the top is reached – it narrows very dramatically and it becomes clear that traversing it is not going to be easy. There are sheer drops down each side and it is obvious that once you have made your way across there is going to be a very steep scramble on to the main ridge to the right of Brandon on the other side.

It reminded me of the Crib Goch ridge on Snowdon which I did years ago except that Crib Goch is longer. Crib Goch also has the advantage of plenty of traffic. I saw no other walker on the Faha Ridge so if I got into difficulty I would have to rely on my mobile phone for assistance - if I was able to do so. Yes, I know it's foolish to be doing such routes solo. One of these days I'll start abiding by good mountaincraft safety guidelines. Otherwise, one of these days......

The "interesting"part of the ridge begins.

There were some heart-stopping moments when I said to myself “how the hell do I get past this?” and when I wished I had a rope and the skills to use it. In particular, there is a slab of rock towards the end of the ridge when one has to drop down about 15 feet or so. There are few signs of any defined paths but impressions of bootprints in the earth at least gave me confidence that I was on the right track.

This shows the steep climb on to the saddle at the end of the Faha Ridge section. The route is to the right of the peak in the distance.

It was a relief to get past that!

Looking back at the Faha Ridge.

It was with a great sense of relief that I finally reached the top of the main north-south ridge and from there it was a short walk to the summit of Brandon while enjoying some fine views of the north-west Dingle Peninsula and the Blasket Islands in the distance and down into the valley floor.

A view of the valley from the top of the saddle just below Brandon.

The summit, it needs hardly be said, was covered in cloud.

I didn’t stay there long and I headed east along the ridge in the direction of Brandon Peak. I soon dropped below the cloud and there were some fine views of the direction ahead.

Looking back towards Brandon from near Brandon Peak.

I had a vague notion of walking the length of the ridge towards the Conor Pass and then making my way back to Cloghane via the road. However, on reaching the summit of Gearhane it was obvious that it was going to be a much longer walk than I anticipated.

An alternative would have been to drop down to the valley floor at this point and make my way back to Cloghane via The Pilgrim’s Route. What really put me off either option was the 1.6 mile walk from the centre of Cloghane uphill to the car park in Faha. My heart sank at the dreary prospect. So, I made my back to Brandon stopping off en-route at the summit of Brandon Peak and descended via the tourist route.

The Reluctant Wedding Photographer

2011-07-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Weddings are not my natural habitat, photography-wise. I’m usually to be found perched on a rock on some windswept strand taking long-exposures of breaking waves or sitting contentedly for ages on a mountain-side waiting for the light to change. All a world away from the frenetic activity of a wedding. My view is that weddings are best left to the professionals. They do it week in and week out and know how best to produce a series of memorable images. A good professional will have developed a unique style, something that sets him/her apart from run-of-the-mill photographers, and that is something that can only be achieved by constant practice. I'm thinking here of photographers like Roger Overall in Cork and Shane O'Neill in Waterford, to mention just two. Prospective brides and grooms should therefore check around and find whose style they like best. Just because someone is good at, say, landscape photography does not necessarily mean that he/she will be able to do weddings well.

It was therefore with a sense of reluctance and not a little foreboding that I agreed to photograph a couple of weddings within weeks of each other in the last few months. Both were for family friends who were adamant that despite all my caveats and entreaties they wanted me to take on the job. I have photographed weddings before so it wasn’t as if I was a first-timer. Most of the weddings I’ve shot were in the pre-digital era when you were confined to maybe 6 rolls of medium format film and you had to make sure that practically every shot was properly composed and exposed. Digital wedding photography is a breeze by comparison.

The first of the weddings was in Spain. I had to make sure that all the vital equipment I needed was going to fit in a take-on bag – I was not about to trust expensive gear to checked-in luggage. Happily, my LowePro Photo Trekker Classic met the Aer Lingus baggage requirements – I called to the airport to make sure a week before I flew out - and it carried a Canon 5D Mk11, a Canon 5D, and a Canon 400D. The lenses I brought were the Canon 24-105, the Canon 17-40, the Sigma 70-200 and the Canon 15mm. (The 24-105 was used for most of the shots). I also brought two Canon 580 EX 11s plus a Gary Fong Lightsphere. In the checked-in luggage I included a Lastolite white reflector as well as some odds and ends such as flash batteries. If the luggage went missing I could either do without the missing items (the reflector) or buy replacements (batteries) locally.

I made sure to call to the different wedding locations a couple of times before the event: the hotel where the bride would be getting ready and where the reception would be held, and the church where the ceremony would take place. Obviously, I needed to be confident of being able to find them on my own on the day. I also needed, of course, to check out the light and note the likely exposure settings I’d be using as well as determining which locations would be best for group and individual shots. And as I visited the church I uttered a silent prayer that the wedding day weather would be dry and overcast and not, please God, wet or too sunny.

All went well (and God answered this agnostic’s prayer by producing a dry, warm overcast day with only occasional bouts of bright sunshine). I accompanied the bride and her party to the hotel and photographed them being made up and getting their hair done. Then it was a quick dash back to where the lads were staying for some shots of them on the beach. This was done pretty sharpish as I had to return the 10 miles to the hotel for the final shots of the bride and her party as they were about to depart for the ceremony.

Then it was on the church to capture the arrival of the bride and the usual photos outside the church door before changing cameras for the internal shots. I went from ISO 100 and natural light to ISO 1600 and flash. Some photographers refuse to use flash for weddings preferring instead to crank up the ISO to the max. I’m not one of them. The light here was abysmal and I wasn’t going to trust in ISO alone to give me usable images. Even at ISO 1600 I was using a setting of 1/60 at f/4. And it worked very well indeed.

After the ceremony it was back outside to natural light and making sure to change the ISO settings accordingly. Weddings are a combination of remembering a host of different technical things (ISO, when to switch from Manual to Aperture Priority to Shutter Priority, flash settings, etc) as well as checking if the various “must-have” shots have been captured. Doing this on one’s own is not easy, at least not for someone who is not doing it regularly. An assistant would have been very useful.

And always there is a voice at the back of your mind saying: “listen, if you screw this up, this once in a lifetime event, this unrepeatable day, you will have to live with the disappointment of the couple and their families for the rest of your life”. As they say, no pressure.

I finished shooting at about 1am. I had been photographing from about 10:30am the previous day. In sequence: bride’s/bridesmaid’s make-up and preparation; groom’s/groomsmen’s pre-church shots; bride’s departure from hotel; bride’s arrival at church; ceremony; post-cermony shots at church; arrival at hotel; group shots; shots of B&G on their own; arrival at reception; speeches; cutting of cake (usually staged before the actual cutting of the cake but not possible in this instance); more individual shots of B&G in low light; B&G arriving for first dance; photos of guests dancing and having a good time; photos of bride and/or groom with particular friends/relations.

The Irish wedding schedule was: arrival at bride’s parents’ home at 11:30am for make-up, preparation and photos with parents, siblings and bridesmaids; groom/groomsmen outside church; bride’s arrival at church; ceremony; post-ceremony shots – including family groups - at church; to Blarney Castle for individual shots of the B&G; arrival at hotel; cutting of the cake (staged); more individual shots of the couple; speeches; first dance; photos of guests dancing and having a good time. I put my cameras away around 12:30am. I should add that my wife and myself were guests at both weddings so there was no question of packing up and going home as soon as the first dance was over as would be the norm with most wedding photographers.

I took a *lot* of photos. I am not a “spray and pray” merchant and I tried to ensure that each frame was properly composed and exposed in camera. Still, the beauty of digital is that I could shoot six or more frames of a family group just in case someone blinked. The downside is that they all have all to be edited. Which is where the real hard work comes in.

I was faced with days of post-processing in Photoshop CS5, of poring over individual images checking for things not noticed during the shooting: the odd tree branch growing out of someone’s head, the “toilet” sign that had to be cloned out, and the like. Then there was the colour correction and noise reduction to be done, the contrast to be tweaked and the levels to be adjusted, the conversion of selected images to black&white, appying vignettes and Gaussian blur to particular shots, and so forth. Naturally, I shot in RAW so each usable image had to be converted to jpeg. And yes, I know about Photoshop Actions and I’m sure professional wedding photographers use them to speed up the workflow but that is something that they refine after years of experience. I felt I had no choice but to do it the hard way.

Then there was the album preparation. I explained to each bride and groom that I would determine which photographs would be used in the album but would give them the power of veto over any particular image they did not like. (I only had to make one very minor change in each instance). I do not subscribe to the philosophy of letting the B&G decide on which ones will feature in the album. As far as I was concerned, they selected me, for better or worse, to produce a record of the day and to present the finished product based on my experience and, for want of a better phrase, on my aesthetic sensibility. They would have to trust me and they had no hesitation in doing so.

A lot of work went in to the album design. The selection of images, resizing individual ones to match the particular page templates, deciding on which ones to include and exclude – this took me about a week in each case. I’m sure that I could have done it in a long day or so but I found that I could only manage a couple of hours per session . With all due respect to the lovely people concerned there was only so much time I could spend staring at them, their relatives and friends on screen.

Then there was the slideshow which is pretty well expected as part of the package nowadays. I loaded as many images as possible on to the slideshow – it’s an ideal vehicle for including all those shots that didn’t make it to the album. I used ProShow Producer from Photodex and I burned the final versions to DVD. I chose the soundtrack myself – lesser known modern instrumental music to complement the images but not songs as I felt they would distract.

The couples concerned were delighted with the end results – the albums and the slideshows - and I was very pleased with how things turned out myself. At some point in the distant future someone will look at the end album page and see “photography by John Finn” and maybe wonder who I was. There is a sense of gratification in that, in capturing one of the most important events in a couple's life, in making something that will outlive us.

But I won’t be touting for wedding business. There’s just too much pressure on the day, too many opportunities for something to go wrong, and the workload afterwards is something that I had seriously underestimated when I agreed to take on the jobs. I think you need to love weddings to do them on a regular basis, to constantly find new ways of making fresh and exciting images, to avoid the worn out old clichés, to retain the love of photography and not let it become a chore, a mere means of making some cash.

And I don’t even like weddings.

Dept of Justice Uses A Photo Of Mine Without Permission

2011-07-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

Today the long awaited Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne was published. There was a Prime Time special on it after the 9pm news. I was sweating over a hot PC post-processing wedding photos when fellow photographer and Carrigtwohill man Paul Flynn emailed me to ask if that was my photo of Belvelly Bridge on the cover of the report. I rewound the programme and there was a graphic of the cover behind Richard Crowley. And very prominently displayed on it was my photo!

Here is the original on my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnfinn/942441429/in/photostream/

Here is the link to the cover of the report:

http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Cloyne_Rpt_Cover.pdf/Files/Cloyne_Rpt_Cover.pdf

Here it is on the RTE website this evening:

Pretty cheeky, huh?

I would have thought that the Dept of Justice, of all people, would have complied with copyright and not go lifting photos from Flickr without the photographer's permission.

I've emailed them telling them they've been very naughty.

Meanwhile, I'll dine out on the fact that, in a sense, I've been featured in the notorious Cloyne Report!

Google Image Search

2011-06-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

Google have just introduced a new feature: you can now search by image - just load an image into the search box either by dragging it from a file on your computer or by entering an image URL from the web. For more information see: http://images.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1325808

I tried it with a photo of a seagull I took recently on Ballycotton Island. It correctly identified the websites where the image appears. It also produced a list of "visually similar images". Check out the bird on the lower right!

Ballycotton Island

2011-06-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, June 3rd, I fulfilled a long-standing ambition - I set foot on Ballycotton Island. One of my earliest memories is of looking out on the island from the little cottage I lived in as a child in Warren, Ballymacoda. It is part of a landscape indelibly imprinted in my mind. I remember the long, deep, booming sound of its foghorn whenever the bay was shrouded in invisibility; I loved to watch the red flashes from the lighthouse at night.

And so, after all these years, an opportunity arose to visit the island. I should add that unauthorised visitors are forbidden and I was definitely not authorised. Thanks to an approach to a third party a boatman was contacted and he agreed to land me at 6:30am as he was on his way out fishing.

The sun was just rising when I arrived at Ballycotton and the sky was clear. It was going to be a beautiful day.

The boatman - I had better not mention his name - arrived at 6:15 and we were soon on our way out the harbour and across the calm sea to the island.

The boat pulled in to the pier on the north side and it was agreed that I'd be collected at about 10:30am. The tide would be ebbing at that stage; any later and a landing would not be possible - I'd have to wait until later in the day when the tide would be rising again. (Actually, that would have suited me just fine - a day alone on the island sounded just the ticket - but I didn't want to push my luck). I bade the boatman good fishing and I made my way up the path to the lighthouse. A gate near the top of the path seemed to bar entrance to the lighthouse area but luckily it was unlocked. I was now on top of the island.

From Wikipedia: "Situated on the steep sloped Ballycotton Island approximately 2 km from the village, the lighthouse was commissioned in 1851 when the keeper and his family lived on the island and their children rowed to school weather permitting. By 1899 the four keepers were housed in the town with keepers rotating duty at the lighthouse. In 1975 the light was converted to electricity and it was automated on 28 March 1992 when the lighthouse keepers were withdrawn".

And from the Commissioners of Irish Lights website: "The main light was converted to electric on 15 January 1975 when the original 1851 optic was replaced by an AGA sealed beam lamp array with a character of Fl W 10 seconds. On 14 August 1975 a 175° landward red sector was incorporated into the main light.

A modernisation of the station was carried out in 1976-77. New quarters were built for the keepers and tradesmen, with a watchroom on the roof, and the old keepers' dwelling became a general store...The diaphone itself was repositioned in a new diaphone house in the south-east corner of the compound complete with an ex Osprey lightvessel air receiver and an ex Inishtrahull diaphone trumpet. An eleven metre diameter concrete helicopter landing pad was constructed. Since April 1978 the light is exhibited in poor visibility when the fog signal is sounding.

The Radio Beacon and Radio Direction Finder Calibration Beacon service was discontinued on the 26th November 1991. In 1991 the diaphone fog signal was changed to an electric horn retaining the same character. On 28 March 1992 the lighthouse was converted to automatic operation. The three keepers were withdrawn from the station, and the station was placed in the care of an Attendant. The aids to navigation are also monitored via a telemetry link from Irish Lights Dun Laoghaire.

An undersea mains electricity cable was laid by the ESB from the pier at Ballycotton to Ballycotton Island on 17 July 2004. The three generator sets were replaced with a 10 kW mains fail generator on 16 April 2005, and the batteries and chargers were upgraded. The existing light and 4 nautical mile fog signal were retained. This project was designed to provide reliable operation of the station for the ensuing 10 years.

On 11 January 2011, following a review of aids to navigation, the fog signal at Ballycotton was permanently disestablished. The light continues to be exhibited in poor visibility during daylight hours".

This is the fog signal that is now, sadly, no longer in use:

All the buildings, as expected, were locked. Peering through the windows revealed empty rooms except for a couple of old mattresses in one and a disconnected freezer in another.

It was great to be next to the lighthouse itself, one of the few black lighthouses in the world.

Having photographed the island from the mainland side for so long it was interesting to be able to see the opposite perspective:

I then turned my attention to photographing the bird life, mainly gulls and cormorants.

As I said, I would happily have stayed there all day but around 10:15 I saw, through my binoculars, the boatman heading towards the island from north of the bay. I made my way down to the landing area and soon I was heading back to Ballycotton pier.

The Great Saltee, May 2011

2011-05-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

After weeks of disappointing weather - it was either too wet, too windy or a combination of both - I finally got to make my annual visit to the Great Saltee Island off the Wexford coast last Saturday. The purpose of the trip was to photograph birds - specifically: Gannets, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, Cormorants, Shags, Guillemots and, if lucky, some Puffins as well - but the Great Saltee is more than just a location where such wildlife is abundant. There is a refreshing sense of leaving civilisation behind when one lands on the shore. There is a whole desert island vibe going down and the various monuments and inscriptions to "Prince Michael The First" add an attractive air of eccentricity to the place. ( The Saltees are privately owned by the Neale family - Michael Neale who died in 1998 gave himself that regal title - and the sole building on the island is their holiday home). For more on the Saltees see: http://www.salteeislands.info/

I was accompanied by friends Colm Ryan and Claudia Wagner from Midleton and Ed Guiry from Youghal. Claudia and Ed are fellow photographers whose work can see seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/hedirey/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/39113677@N07/

There were some Puffins about but not a lot. I've found over the last few years that Skellig Michael off the Kerry coast is a better place for seeing Puffins up close. All the other bird species were plentiful with the Gannets again exhibiting total unconcern for the proximity of humans. Claudia, who is German, tells me that the German word for Gannet is "Tölpel" meaning "idiot" and it derives from the time when Gannets were widely eaten in Germany and yet allowed themselves to be caught so easily.

Here are some pics from the day:

Moonflight

2011-04-24T01:14:00.000-07:00

The full moon of April 18th with a passing aircraft:

Coastal Photos

2011-04-24T01:12:00.000-07:00

Some shots from the coast of East Cork taken in the last few weeks:

Concert, St Multose Church, Kinsale

2011-04-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

I was contacted by soprano Carol-Ann McKenna - www.carolannmckenna.com - last week and asked if I'd be interested in photographing a concert that she, Aisling Ennis- www.aislingennis.com - and Mary McCague -www.marymccague.com -would be giving at St Multose Church, Kinsale on 1st April on behalf of the Kinsale Community Hospital.

I was flattered by the invitation and I accepted readily. Photographing such a concert was something I have always been interested in doing but the opportunity never arose. And now, out of the blue, came Carol-Ann's phone call. Serendipitous or what?!

I am happiest perched on a rock by the seaside or halfway up a mountain with my camera on a tripod and the ISO fixed on 100. Photographing the concert was going to be a different challenge entirely. Flash was out of the question (apart from a few shots at the end) and so depending on the ambient lighting I would have to use high ISOs, something that I've never done.

Luckily, the concert was being filmed and the video lights meant I was able to vary the ISO range between 800 and 1600 and I was happy with the results. I used the Canon 5D Mk11 and the Canon 5D fitted with the 24-105L and the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 respectively. The Sigma was used for most of the shots. Use of a tripod wasn't desirable as I was afraid it might fall over with a mighty clatter during a quiet passage of music. I therefore used my Manfrotto monopod for additional support and it worked very well.

Below are some of the images from the night. I was happy with my first venture into concert photography and look forward to doing more. Thanks to Carol-Ann, Aisling and Mary for their confidence in me. The concert itself was sublime - beautiful music and song.

Hook Head

2011-03-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

I went to Hook Head in County Wexford again on Wednesday, 16th March. A beautiful, sunny, calm day. I waited for the sunset (around 6:35pm) but just as the Sun was setting it sunk into clouds and my hopes for a nice red orb sunk with it. Oh well. Another excuse to go there again soon. These are some shots I was happy with:

Ghastly Wedding Photos

2011-02-21T06:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some samples of really terrible wedding snaps. My favourite is Number 9 - it's so, well, romantic!

http://weddingpros.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/top-20-worst-wedding-photos/

Iconic Photos

2011-02-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

This is an excellent website: http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/. As it says, it contains "famous, infamous and iconic photos" with some excellent commentary on them. Be aware that many of the images are highly controversial and often very disturbing but your visual education will certainly benefit from seeing them. I came across it while searching for Robert Doisneau's "Un Regard Oblique" from 1948, one of my favourite ever photographs: http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/?s=un+regard+oblique. Enjoy.

A trip to the Skellig Michael

2011-02-03T11:19:00.000-08:00

This is a slideshow of a trip I took to Skellig Michael last year with a couple of friends. Double click for full-screen.

The Coumshingaun Horseshoe - A Walker's Guide

2011-01-27T03:54:00.000-08:00

The Coumshingaun Horseshoe is the finest high level walk in the Comeragh Mountains in County Waterford. It provides great views of Coumshingaun, a magnificent example of a corrie lake, as well as the countryside to the north, east and south. On a clear day, for example, the new bridge in Waterford is clearly visible as is Hook Head in County Wexford.

The terrain itself is also very interesting form a walker's perspective - the southern spur with its rocky outcrops requires some mild scrambling in places and is reminiscent of The Reeks while the boggy plateau provides an opportunity, if time allows, to explore such points of interest as Crotty's Lake, the Mahon Falls and the like.

The walk itself can easily be done by any reasonably fit person and it will take between 3 and 4 hours including a meal stop. Be aware though that there are precipitous drops into the corrie so great care must be taken.

Getting There: coming from the N25 take the Carrick On Suir road at Lemybrien and drive exactly 10.6 kms as far as Kilclooney Bridge. Look for the cul-de-sac sign on the right hand side of the road and park there:

Climb over gate across the road:

You will cross a stream and then head across a pleasant meadow:

Climbing over the wire fence you are now into the mountain terrain proper. You must decide whether to ascend via the north or south spur. The north spur is a much steeper ascent but the descent via the south is much easier.Personally, I prefer to ascend via the south one and that is the route I have taken here:

Looking back as you make the initial ascent of the south spur there are some fine views of the countryside to the east and north:

There is a distinct path to follow:

As you ascend, Coumshingaun Lake comes into view:

The spine of the south ridge with its rocky outcrops:

At the latter end of the ridge you leave the rocks behind:

The final obstacle on the ridge is a steep section requiring a scramble onto the plateau:

Looking back at the southern spur on the right, the lake and the northern spur:

You are now on the plateau and you have left the strenuous ascent behind:

As you head towards the northern spur there are great views of the lake:

You now descend via the northern spur:

Hook Head

2010-11-19T02:07:00.000-08:00

Hook Head in County Wexford is popular amongst photographers and it is easy to see why: a picturesque peninsula and the site of the oldest lighthouse in Ireland coupled with an ever changing skyscape and seascape.

When I visited it on the 18th November the sea was fairly rough which was good but the wind was very strong from the south which was bad. Bad because it was difficult to keep the spray off the filter on my lens. I used a 17-40L fitted with a Lee 0.9 ND Grad for all of these shots and it was an uphill battle to keep the spray at bay. Still, I was able to capture some images that I was happy with:

Venice

2010-11-08T05:14:00.000-08:00

“Yea the lines hast thou laid unto me
in pleasant places,
And the beauty of this thy Venice
hast thou shown unto me..”

From “Night Litany” by Ezra Pound

Truman Capote famously quipped that Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go. Certainly the visual richness, the romance and the history of the place can be a bit overwhelming but for those with the constitution to cope with the heady mixture it is a remarkably rewarding experience.

I made my second visit there last week - a solo photographic trip – from Tuesday to Saturday. Autumn is a good time to visit the city as the weather can be very pleasant - as it proved to be – and there are fewer tourists than in high summer.

I was determined to eschew the clichéd shots that everyone is familiar with - the gondoliers, the Rialto Bridge, St Marks Square etc - but I too was caught up in the whole tourist thing and I found myself clicking away with all the other visitors at the usual spots. So much for my high mindedness. Still, I think I also succeeded in capturing some images that were more than the usual holiday snaps variety and some are displayed below. Others can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnfinn/

The question a photographer planning such a trip has to answer is: what gear to bring? I opted for the Canon 5D Mark 11, the Canon 15mm, the Canon 17-40L and the Canon 24-105L. In addition, I took a Lee 0.9 ND Soft Grad + holder and a lightweight tripod (which fitted nicely in my checked-in bag without breaching Ryanair’s weight restriction). All in all, it proved to be a good compromise between weight and versatility. I carried it all around the city in my backpack for several hours each day without any discomfort.

A larger tripod would have been nice – fully extended, the one I had reached 4 feet and this proved inconvenient on a few occasions. However, I know that lugging around my big Manfrotto would have been exhausting. Big or small, heavy or light, a tripod or camera support of some sort is an essential piece of kit for those low light shots.

And don’t forget good walking shoes! You will do a lot (and I mean A LOT) of walking each day

Another advantage of an Autumn/Winter trip is cheaper hotel prices. I stayed at a hotel on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa, a few minutes from St Marks Square. You could get cheaper prices in Mestre (on the mainland) but you’d have the inconvenience of making your way in and out of the city every day. Not worth it, in my view. You realIy have to stay in the city to savour the Venice experience and be in a position to get those early morning and late night shots.

Other than that, my advice is just to follow your nose and keep your eyes open for the interesting image opportunities with which the city abounds.

Torc River

2010-10-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

I went to Killarney today to photograph the Upper Torc River. The easiest way to get there is to take the second turn left after Molly Darcy's pub and drive up the to the carpark. An alternative would be to drive on to the Torc Waterfall carpark and climb up the path from there. I chose the former as I wanted to avoid the families - this is Mid-Term week - going to visit the Waterfall.

The day was overcast and blustery with occasional rain - just right for my purposes as I did not want any sunshine interfering with my long exposures. I was after the "flow" effect that such exposures give to moving water. Some people hate this effect thinking it unnatural and/or clichéd; others love it. I am firmly in the latter camp. Sure it's "unnatural" but then capturing a frozen moment in time - i.e. photography - is also unnatural. And yes, it's a bit of a cliché...but I like it!

So, I made my way down from the car park to the Old Torc Bridge and I spent about an hour there. I used the 17-40L and the 24-105L on the 5D Mark 11. A Lee 0.9 ND filter was used for them all in order to lengthen the exposure times which ranged from 2 secs to 10 secs at an aperture of f/16. Naturally, my trusty Manfrotto tripod was used for support and a cable release triggered the shutter. Here are some of the results:

Brown Island

2010-10-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

Brown Island is about three miles from where I live in Carrigtwohill and over the years it has been a favourite location of mine for early morning photography. I was down there this morning to capture the dawn. It didn't look too promising when I arrived at about 6:50am - rain clouds were threatening to smother the sunrise but they scattered enough to allow some nice light to peek through.

The Photographer's Ephemeris

2010-10-13T04:16:00.000-07:00

One of the most amazing photographic applications I've come across in a long time is a free piece of software called The Photographer's Ephemeris. It's available for downlooad at http://stephentrainor.com/tools

What it does is provide landscape photographers with precise information in graphical format on the directions in which the sun and moon will rise and set.

Such directions of course vary widely throughout the year and I've had many a shoot spoiled because I've misjudged, for example, the precise location of the sunrise. Thanks to this application that will never happen again.

Yesterday I went to Ballycotton in East Cork to photograph the sunrise. I had checked the Ephemeris for the direction in which the sun would rise and it gave me the following information:

I knew therefore that it would rise to the south-east of Ballycotton and so I took up position accordingly. Had it been June for instance the sun would have risen to the north-east.

This was the result:

All in all, a wonderful application that will be very useful to landscape photographers.

Gyleen After Sunset

2010-10-02T04:23:00.000-07:00

Gyleen is a small little village - a hamlet really - nestled by the shores of Ballycotton Bay in East Cork. You can find it on OSI's search facilty http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,591271,743300,0 by punching in these co-ordinates in the Search field: 586390/560127

Here's a glimpse of what it looks like thanks to Google Earth's wonderful Streetview which went live during the week for the whole of Ireland:

Just to the right of the scene above is a pathway that leads to another beach and it was there (the co-ordinates quoted above give the exact location) that I went last evening to take some long exposures after sunset. The sea was suitably choppy with some fine breakers crashing on the sand.

Sunset is getting earlier and earlier now that we are well into Autumn. It was 7:10pm yesterday.

I set up my Canon 5D Mark 11 fitted with a 17-40 L lens and two Lee filters attached: a 0.9 ND and a 0.9 ND Grey Grad. I used a Canon cable release as my trusty Hahnel remote's battery was run down.

I took a series of exposures (camera set to manual) using an aperture of f/16 and varying the exposure times. The ND filter helped to shorten the shutter speeds in order to give the creamy water effect that I was after while the Grey Grad helped to pull back the exposure of the sky.

I set up my tripod on a rock and took a series of exposures. Forty five minutes and two very wet feet later (note to self: buy a pair of Wellingtons) the light had faded too much for my purposes and I set off home.

I used Canon's DPP 3.8.0 to process the RAW files. Version 3.8 is well worth the download if you are using an earlier version - it has a brilliant new trimming/angle adjustment tool. Some further minor tweaks were done in Photoshop.

This is one of the shots I was happy with:

Great Photographers on the Internet

2010-10-01T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is a brilliantly funny post on how some classic photographs might be reviewed by online "experts":

http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/06/great-photographers-on-internet.html

The Camera Club Scene

2010-09-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

Way back in the day – sometime in the late 70s to mid 80s – I was a member of a camera club in Cork City: the Cork Photo Workshop. Notice the absence of the word “club” from the title: it was a breakaway group from the (now long since defunct) Cork Camera Club which was, in our view, a collection of old fogeys many of whom didn’t even take photographs and who only went to the meetings to see the “nice pictures” and for the social aspect. We were more serious about our photography and as the word “club” had too many pejorative connotations “workshop” was used instead to indicate that ours was an altogether more high-minded collection of individuals.

And it was too. I spent many fruitful years there and I learned a lot from the likes of Niall Foley, Gerry Dempsey, Joe Tully and many other stalwarts of the CPW. There was a great atmosphere in the place and it was a very supportive learning environment. Circumstances – mainly my getting married and moving out of Cork City – contrived to sunder my connection with it and, to be honest, I also felt that I had been with it long enough and that it was time to move on. Since then I have not been a member of any physical photographic club/workshop/organisation preferring instead to do my own thing and, thanks to the internet, content to get feedback on my images from the likes of Flickr, Photosig and so forth.

However, I have just joined the Cork Camera Group http://corkcameragroup.net/ . I heard about them from a member whom I met by chance in Cobh some weeks ago and he was so enthusiastic that I figured I could do worse then go along some night and see what the vibe was. I was expecting to see about 15 or 20 individuals but to my surprise, on the night, there seemed to be 60 plus there comprised of all ages from the young to old fogeys like me (how the wheel has turned!) I have only attended two meetings so far but they seem like a friendly and eager bunch.

Why the change of heart? Well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure if a club environment is for me but I’ll give it a shot.

On the plus side of the reckoning are the following:

Meeting fellow photographers and yapping about all things photographic.

Learning from others and providing advice to those starting out.

Hearing interesting speakers from within the CCG and from visitors.

The ability to display one’s images and get feedback on them.

The social aspect: meeting interesting new people.

As regards “cons” I would be wary of the following:

Cliques and elite groups within the club (but so far at least I’v seen no evidence that they exist). Such groupings have brought many a club to grief.

Competitions: I’m not a huge fan of competitions believing instead that you should be your own worst critic. The CCG – like the CPW back in the day – is a member of the SACC: the Southern Association of Camera Clubs - and leagues and competitions are very much part of that scene. It’s an opportunity to see other people’s work but as regards a few judges ranking images from 1 to 10 or whatever I am in the sceptical camp. I have heard of photographers in other clubs changing their style so as to please a particular judge and I think that is totally wrong. If you are proud of a particular image – if it is technically correct and, more importantly, has impact - then that is all that matters, in my view. If a judge likes it, fine; if not, then that’s fine too. But don’t go changing your approach just because Judge A or B happens to favour a particular type of image.

And so, after all these years, I am back in the club scene. I hope it will continue to be as stimulating and interesting as the first couple of meetings have been. And I hope that I will not fall into the trap of becoming an old fogey with deeply conservative and entrenched views on what constitutes good photography.

Wedding Photography Clichés

2010-09-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

"Lets have some new clichés" Sam Goldwyn

I rarely look at my wedding album. It is consigned to the decent obscurity of the upper shelf of a wardrobe and is only retrieved on those very rare occasions when my children want a good laugh at the fashions and the hairstyles. I have been told that with my then long hair and beard I bear a resemblance to how Osama Bin Laden must have looked like when he was my age. Delightful. I would have posted a photo to illustrate the point but I couldn't pluck up the courage.

The album was photographed by the legendary Youghal professional photographer Bob Rock. Bob is retired now but for 30 years he was the THE photographer for weddings, portraits and social photography in Youghal and the general East Cork area. And an excellent photographer he was too. This was before the digital era of course and, as he said to me recently, wedding photographers back then generally shot three medium format films of 12 shots each and had to make each shot count. There was no question of shooting the hundreds of frames that modern photographers do at weddings.

There was a fashion at that time for at least one photograph to feature a head and shoulders shot of the bride and groom superimposed on a stock image of a glass of wine or (as in our case) a picture frame surrounded by candles and flowers. Utterly kitsch and clichéd but the punters loved them. (I didn't, but my wife did and she insisted on including it in the album. Who was I to argue?)

Then there was a fashion for a combination shot of the outside of the church and the bride and groom at the altar or some such interior scene. Some modern photographers are still producing this shot and I have to ask: why? It's dated and old hat, it no longer impresses because anyone with elementary image editor skills can do it and so should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Leafing through some modern wedding albums I cringe when I see these latter-day clichés:

The photograph of the bride's dress hanging up. Gentlemen and ladies: please stop doing this shot. It is ridiculous. A dress looks best on a woman, not on a hook or a hanger or lying on a bed or whatever.

Ditto with her shoes. Why do I see so many photos of a pair of shoes sans feet? It's just stupid. If I want to see shoes I'll look in a catalogue. In a wedding album I want to see people and not inanimate objects.

Likewise with the rings. Yes, we've all seen the photo of a ring between the pages of a bible casting a heart shaped shadow. It was interesting for the first few occasions about 10 years ago. Enough already!

The humorous jumping shot. You know the one: the photographer lines up members of the bridal party and gets them to, er, jump. Hilarious, no? No.

The black and white photo with a touch of colour. You know the one: a portrait of the bride in monochrome except for the brilliant colour of the bouquet. Aaaaargh! Stop it please!

I'm sure there are others but those are the prime offenders.

And while I'm on the subject of wedding photography, I was shocked the other day when passing the shop window of a very prestigious firm of Cork photographers. Pride of place was given to a large framed photograph of a bride and groom looking at the camera with a lake in the background. The lake is totally washed out, practically pure white. What in heaven's name possessed them to give it pride of place in the window?

Just above that photo was one with a bride photographed against the background of a
a cornfield. Just to the right of the bride's head was an ugly electricity pole. Why wasn't it cloned out?

This particular firm advertises a photo retouching service so clearly they are able to use Photoshop. Why it wasn't used in those two photographs? Personally, I would be ashamed to put such photos in public view.

Am I being hyper-critical?

Do non-photographers not notice such flaws?

Cobh Seaplane Trials

2010-08-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Today, Friday 27th August, saw the first of a series of seaplane trials in Cobh, County Cork. A company called Harbour Flights Ireland Ltd is intending to open up the harbours and estuaries of Ireland for tourism seaplane flights and Cobh is the first harbour chosen for test flights.

A large crowd gathered at the quayside in Cobh to witness the plane landing around 12:20pm. Conditions were perfect with sunshine and a calm sea.

East Cork Sunset

2010-08-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 15th August, was one of the finest days of the year. I headed for the coast of East Cork around 7pm in anticipation of a nice sunset. I chose Ballycroneen as it is one of my favourite locations - you can find it at www.osi.ie by clicking on the interactive map and inputting the following XY co-ordinates in the search facility: 592334/561775.

When the sun had set sufficiently low I took up position on the rocks. I set up the tripod and attached my Canon 5D fitted with the Canon 17-40L and a Lee 0.9 soft Grey Grad filter. Then I attached the Hahnel wireless remote control so as to eliminate camera shake. (That remote control - available from around €55 - is one of the best accessories you can buy).

Just as the sun was approaching the brow of the hill I set the camera to manual and took several exposures using an f/20 aperture setting and a shutter speed of 3 secs. I needed a long-ish exposure in order to capture that flow effect in the waves (such as they were- the sea was very calm). The f/20 setting also produced the star-burst effect in the sun. This was the shot I was most pleased with:

I've posted the shot on a few websites including Photosig (www.photosig.com) where it was featured as Number 1 photo on the front page based on the positive feedback from viewers:

A few minutes after the sun had disappeared from view I moved location slightly and captured the following shot:

Again, I'm very pleased with the result. In both cases the Lee filter has done an outstanding job in holding back the brightness of the sky without any colour cast. Lee filters are ridiculously expensive but they do what they say on the tin and I think they are a good investment.

Both RAW shots were post-processed in Canon's excellent DPP software with only minimal adjustments in Photoshop CS2.

Connecting A Second Monitor To Your PC

2010-08-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Connecting a second monitor to your PC is very worthwhile from a photographic post-processing perspective. It allows you, for example, to keep your Photoshop toolbar and other menus on one screen while filling the other screen with the image you are working on. And aside from photography, you can use one screen for, say, an application like Tweetdeck and the other for your web browsing. It really is a very versatile option to have available.

I was until recently under the impression that a second monitor connection would require the installation of a new video card. That is something well outside my expertise and so I didn't pursue the matter any further. However, purely by chance, I came across an article last week which indicated that all that was required was the installation of an adapter.

If you have a PC manufactured in the last 6 years or so it will almost certainly have an unused DVI port at the back. This is what it looks like:

Assuming you have a spare second monitor, the VGA connector on it will look like this:

That will not fit into the DVI port so you will need a VGA to DVI adaptor. It will look like this:

I got mine at Maplins, Blackpool Shopping Centre, Cork. The manufacturer is Nikkai and the part code is L53BT. It cost €13.89.

Connecting it is simplicity itself. Once you've done that, power up the spare monitor and then follow the instructions for activating the second monitor set-up from this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/hwandprograms/monitors.mspx

This is a shot of my own set-up with the smaller spare monitor containing Canon's DPP Raw Processing software's control menus while the main screen has the uncluttered image.

It makes for a very productive and versatile work environment and it requires no computer hardware expertise. All you need is a spare monitor and a readily available cheap adaptor.

Knock

2010-07-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

The Marian Shrine in Knock, County Mayo is a place of pilgrimage for traditional Irish Catholics ever since the alleged appearance of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist at the gable end of the local church in 1879.

I'm not one of the traditional faithful and I certainly do not believe that the apparition as described ever occurred. For what it's worth, I subscribe to the "magic lantern" hypothesis - the image was projected on to the wall using a primitive form of slide projection. Not that it ultimately matters, I think. Even if it could be proved conclusively that it was indeed a man-made event I think that Knock would continue to attract pilgrims. The attraction is surely not whether or not some supernatural event occurred there in the distant past but that it is a place of peace, reconciliation and devotion.

Be that as it may, I have always found the whole Knock phenomenon to be very interesting and so I visited the place on 28th July to do a photographic essay - something I have not done before: documentary style photography is not my thing - and I was not displeased with the results which can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnfinn/sets/72157624486143291/

or

http://pix.ie/carrigman/album/383847

My first impressions of the place were positive. There is a fine large car park within easy distance of the shrine and there is no parking charge. On the way to the shrine there are various shops and stalls selling all sorts of souvenirs - holy pictures, rosary beads, statues, bottles for holy water, etc- and yes, they are cheap and tatty in the main. However, they are part of any pilgrimage site and they obviously have an appeal for a great many people. I liked the fact that there was no hard sell on the part of the shopkeepers: you were free to browse - and photograph - without any pressure to purchase. Clearly, there is a demand for the goods and in turn it provides employment for local people. I can't find anything wrong with that.

The shops are located outside the perimeter of the shrine itself. The shrine consists of various buildings including the original chapel where the apparition is supposed to have appeared and a vast basilica which can house 10,000 people.

Even though it was mid-week there was a large crowd of people there. They were predominately middle aged and elderly but there was a surprising number of young people there also. Nor were they exclusively Irish: there was a significant contingent of Americans and other nationalities.

The air of devotion was palpable. Masses were being said every couple of hours and there was also a performance of the Stations of the Cross while I was there. There was a steady stream of pilgrims circling the old church in an anti-clockwise direction while reciting the Rosary to themselves. One such pilgrim was this intense looking young woman:

I wonder what it was she was praying for? Help for some personal problem? The health of a relative? Whatever it was I hope her prayers are answered.

There are no restrictions on photography at the shrine. I used a not very inconspicuous Canon 5D Mark 11 and 24-105 and 70-210 lenses but thankfully people ignored me and I was free to shoot as I wished.

These are some of my favourite photos from the set:

I liked Knock. Yes, given that I am outside the fold of fervent belief so obvious amongst the pilgrims I felt at times like an anthropologist observing the practices of a strange tribe. But not completely. Anyone who, like me, comes from the Irish Catholic tradition will have been familiar with Knock from an early age. I remember my parents and others in my family ( I was too young) going on pilgrimages to Knock at a time when the transport arrangements made it a far more penitential affair than it is today. And, of course, the rites and practices of Catholicism are practically part of our DNA - at least for people of my generation and older.

I like the fact that for all my own agnosticism there are still thousands of people of all ages who regard Knock as a special place. Many of these people probably do the the gruelling Lough Derg pilgrimage and they climb Croagh Patrick - not too far from Knock - in their thousands on the last Sunday of July every year. It speaks of a certain magical/religious way of thinking embedded in the Irish psyche and far from decrying it I think it should be celebrated. It is part of what we are. Which is a somewhat paradoxical position for a supposed rationalist like myself to adopt but there you are. I'm probably not as immune to it as I think I am.

Lee Trees HDR

2010-07-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'm no HDR expert. I'm not even a big fan of the technique and I have seen too many examples of HDR so badly done that they've hurt my eyes. Last year I bought the Photomatix software that all the experts recommend but I rarely use it. I didn't even use it for the subject of this post - I used the free beta software from http://www.oloneo.com/ which, to my mind, is even better than Photomatix. Get it now while it's still free!

The following therefore is far from a primer on how to produce a HDR image - consider it a novice's notes and feel free to proffer advice. I need it.

Anyhow, I thought a good subject would be the tree lined road by the River Lee near Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork city.

I set up my camera on the tripod, switched to manual mode and set the aperture to f/8. I then took 3 exposures at 1/4 sec, 1/15 sec and 1 sec respectively. (Expert users would use more exposures and it's important to vary the shutter speeds and not the aperture). This is what they looked like:

I then uploaded them to the Oloneo software and twiddled with the tone-mapping controls until I was happy with the following (some minor cloning of a few distracting elements was done in Photoshop):

It ain't a HDR masterpiece but I'm happy with it and it might just encourage me to go out and shoot some more. Watch this space!

Caliso Bay

2010-07-15T02:13:00.000-07:00

Caliso Bay is located west of Ardmore, County Waterford. To get there, take the turn off to Clashmore on the N25 and drive south all the way. Check out the interactive map on the indispensable OSI website www.osi.ie and put in these coordinates on the search facility: X: 613556 Y: 576695.

I arrived there around 7pm on 14th July. There was a high tide and nice evening light. Ideal for photography.

I took this test shot - using a Canon 17-40L on a Canon 5D Mark 11 - to check the perspective:

I then fitted a B+W ND110 Neutral Density10 stop filter. This is an opaque filter so when fitted to the lens you cannot see anything through it. You therefore have to compose the shot before putting it on, set the focus and then switch to manual mode as the camera's AF system will not be able to function. A remote trigger or cable release is also recommended as the exposure time will be quite long and camera shake is a real possibility if pressing the shutter in the conventional way. Needless to say, a good sturdy tripod is also necessary. (I use an old battle-scarred Manfrotto144).

I set the aperture to f/16 and took a series of exposures to gauge the correct shutter speed. Strictly speaking, it will be 10 stops less than the unfiltered shutter speed but the ambient light conditions will invariably mean that this will not necessarily be the case. As a rough rule of thumb, at 100 ISO start off at 15 seconds and you won't be far off the mark. I found that 25 seconds produced the most pleasing result and this is what I got:

The long shutter speed has resulted in a smooth, fleecy water effect. That belied the actual situation as there were some hair-raising waves crashing around me as I took the shots. It's worth going to the trouble though as I think the slow motion effect is particularly attractive and is uniquely photographic.

For anyone interested in purchasing a B+W ND110 it can be found at www.speedgraphic.co.uk A 77mm standard Canon fitting costs £81 sterling before postage.

Uploading Photos to Google Earth

2010-07-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

A very useful service is to upload some of your photos to Google Earth. It helps people get some idea of what a place looks like and it can be of particular interest to photographers scouting for locations.

For example, one of my favourite spots on the face of the planet is Ballybrannigan Strand in East Cork. This is how part of East Cork appears on GE:

This is how the Strand appears when you zoom in closer (unfortunately it is not in high definition in the current release of GE) and I have highlighted in red the photograph symbol.

When you click on the symbol in Google Earth the following photo (one of mine) appears:

You can upload photos via www.panoramio.com

It takes a few days for the photos to be approved and then another few days before they appear on Google Earth. They don't have to be masterpieces of the photographic art - most photos are just snapshots but they fulfill the purpose which is to show people an aspect of a particular place.

The Rock Of Dunamase

2010-07-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

Time was when the road journey from Cork to Dublin was an ordeal, when it could take up to five hours to complete due to the traffic snarls in places like Fermoy, Cashel, Abbeyleix, Monasterevin and Kildare. Those days are gone forever as there is now a motorway all the way making the journey a doddle with the travelling time between the cities cut to two and half hours.

This makes detours to places of photographic interest in the general vicinity of the motorway a very viable proposition for the traveller with some time to spare. One such location is the Rock of Dunamase. Exit the motorway at Portlaoise and take the N80 Portlaoise to Carlow road. The Rock is about 4 miles from Portlaoise about midway between the town and Stradbally.

A brief history of the place: the castle was built on the site in the second half of the 12th Century by one Meyler FitzHenry or possibly Strongbow. It was abandoned and went into ruins in the 14th Century. During the Cromwellian wars of the 17th Century the remnants were blown up so as to ensure the place would no longer be occupied.

The Rock affords some fine views over the surrounding countryside. It is public property and is under the control of the Office of Public Works. Access is free.

The Old Head Of Kinsale

2010-07-05T02:50:00.000-07:00

The main part of the Old Head of Kinsale is now an exclusive (i.e.very expensive) golf club and is out of bounds to anyone who is not a golfer able to pay the high fees. Time was (pre-1997) when anyone and everyone could explore the place at leisure but those days are gone. All efforts to re-open it to the general public have failed and that's the way it's likely to remain. A pity, but there you go.

It is still worth visiting though. There is a car park just outside the main gate and if you walk along the path to the west there are spectacular views. They reminded me of the Cliffs of Moher - except you don't have to pay for the privilege of viewing them. I was there on the evening of the 4th July when the setting sun bathed the Old Head in some wonderful light. It is a place I will definitely return to.

A Day Trip to Tangiers

2010-06-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

I was in the Costa Del Sol for the last couple of weeks and while there I decided to take a day excursion to Tangiers in Morocco. Excursions to places like Tangiers, Seville, Cordoba and Granada are readily available and are good value if traveling on one's own. (My wife regarded the prospect of her being absent from the sun lounger for a day with horror so I left her to sizzle by the poolside). The cost of the trip was €62 and for that you get the coach trip to the port of Tarifa near Gibraltar, the fast ferry (35 mins) across to Tangiers, guided tour of Tangiers and lunch. The worst part is the early start (6am) and the numerous stops to pick up passengers all along the coast as far as Estepona.

Tangiers is different and can be a bit of a culture shock coming from the relative prosperity of Spain. That said, Morocco is one of the more liberal Islamic countries and people have freedom here that would be unimaginable in a lot of other countries in the Arab world. Modernity co-exists with more ancient ways of life and you will see people dressed in Western dress as well as traditional Moroccan clothing.

The day trip is not ideal from a photographic perspective. You are brought around the city initially by coach for a sight-seeing tour and the only intermediate stop is the obligatory camel-ride tourist trap. (Many years ago friends of mine arrived at this stop only to see atop a camel a well-known Irish TD. When they greeted him his response was: "Well, lads, I've ridden everything now!").

You are then brought to the ancient heart of the city, the Medina. The streets here are about the width of your outstretched arms and are dark. Vehicular traffic is not possible so you have to walk. This is where the street hawkers - young and old - descend upon you trying to sell jewelery and such and they are very annoying. The best response is a firm "No!" and keep moving, avoiding eye contact. If you engage them in anything resembling a conversation they will have you marked as a likely prospect and they will follow you, speaking more animatedly than ever. That puts paid to any idea you may have of melting into the background, casually taking Cartier-Bresson like vignettes of the locals. (As if!)

The tour guide herds you to (a) the snake charmer where you pay a few euro to see him coax a Cobra out of a basket by playing music and to have your photo taken handling a few grass snakes (b) a typical (?) Moroccan restaurant for lunch (not good) (c) a carpet shop where you learn more than you ever wanted to know about Moroccan carpets and (d) a pharmacy specialising in natural remedies - and a very hard sell to the tourists. Then it's time to get back to the ferry to Spain.

So, not good for serious photography - you simply don't have the time nor the freedom to roam. Having a big DSLR around your neck is no help either given that this is a country where locals don't like being photographed by strangers on the street. My advice is to take a compact.

Here are a few snaps I took:

1. A child in Islamic dress. When I took this she seemed to get distressed and ran away.

2. Street Hawkers. They were waiting for us to emerge from a shop.

3. Man in hole.

4. Tile workers.

5. Children in the Medina.

Nohoval Cove

2010-06-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

I went someplace today that I've never been to before - Nohoval near Kinsale. My SatNav for some peculiar reason wanted me to go in the direction of Mallow so I had to pull over near Carrigaline and enter a nearby village - Ballyfeard - instead. And on the way back the bloody thing took me down some roads that were no more than glorified dirt tracks full of gaping potholes. They might have been fine had I been driving an Abrams M1 tank instead of a Ford Mondeo. So much for SatNavs. I think I'll stick to the good old road map in future.

Anyway, at the end of a very narrow road I came to Nohoval Cove and I knew then the journey was worth the effort. (For those that are interested, the XY Coordinates are 573383/551414 - you can search for it on the Ireland map on www.osi.ie). There was one other car parked in the narrow parking space and I could see a man lugging a tripod and a camera bag up a grassy path in the distance. This turned out to be Pascal Lee of the Carrigaline Photographic Society and he is a very fine photographer indeed - you can see some of his work here: http://www.carrigalinephotographic.com/gallery.html

I made my way up the path to the precipitous cliffs on the east side of the cove. I used my 17-40 L fitted with a Lee Grey Grad on the Canon 5D Mark 11 to take this shot:

Back down along the cove (that's a reference Bob Dylan fans will appreciate - think "John Wesley Harding" 1967) I met Pascal again. He told me he was making exposures using a 10 stop ND filter. That prompted me to use my B+W 10 stop filter and the following was the result (20 seconds at f/9):

The long exposure renders the sea as smooth as glass, an effect I like a lot. Thanks for the idea, Pascal.

This is a place I will return to again and next time I will be wiser as far as the route to and fro is concerned.

Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye Lens

2010-06-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

Last week I took delivery of my new Canon 15mm lens. I ordered it from a Hong Kong supplier on eBay on Friday and it was delivered by DHL on Wednesday. Excellent service.

As for the lens itself: wow! The perspective on the full-frame Canon 5D is spectacular - similar to the Peleng 8mm on the APS-C sensor (see my previous post on the Peleng) but with superb edge to edge sharpness and magnificent colour rendition. It is light years ahead of the Peleng but that is no surprise given that it is (a) a Canon and (b) almost three times the price. Ken Rockwell has a good post on the lens here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/15mm-fisheye.htm

Given the extreme perspective, the lens is of limited use but is ideal for novelty shots and for photographing groups of people in confined spaces. Also, it needs to be used on a Canon full-frame camera i.e. the 5D and 1Ds series. There is little point in my view in putting it on an an APS-C body as you will not be getting the full effect.

Here are some shots taken while road-testing the lens in the past week.

Replacing The Sky Part 2

2010-06-03T00:36:00.000-07:00

A few people have asked about the technique used in the previous post. This is the process in Photoshop (I use CS2):

1. Use the Magic Wand to select sky – Tolerance 32, check Anti Alias and Contiguous. Use Shift key to add areas.

2. Select/Modify/Expand. 1 Pixel.

3. F7: Press down Alt and double click on Background Layer to make it Layer 0.

4. Hit Backspace key to change the sky area into a checkerboard pattern.

5. Hold down Ctrl and press D to get rid of the marching ants.

6. Choose new sky image. Hit Ctrl and A to select, Ctrl and C to copy it, Ctrl and W to close it, and Ctrl and V to copy it into the image.

7. The sky will appear as Layer 1 in the Layers palette. Click and drag it below Layer 0 and it will show through the image.

8. Press Ctrl and T to transform the sky – move it around till it looks right. Press Return to preserve changes.

9. Select the Blur tool (looks like a water drop). Use it along the sky line. Soft edge brush – 10 pxs – and trace it along the line. Use 50% strength, Normal mode. This will blur the line between the main image and the new sky and make it more natural looking.

10. Select Layer/Matting/Defringe and go for 2px width.

There is another method for images where the skyline is more complicated e.g. where it contains trees, poles, spires, etc. I'll post that shortly.

Replacing The Sky

2010-05-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

A deep blue sky isn't the best for a landscape photograph: generally, the inclusion of some clouds adds interest to the overall composition. So, what to do if there are no clouds in the sky? (This is not a problem we experience very often in Ireland). Use Photoshop to replace the sky with one that is more interesting. The technique is fairly straightforward and can be found in several places on the web. Here is an example of a shot of Skellig Michael with the original blue sky and the replacement.

The Peleng 8mm Lens

2010-05-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite lenses is the Peleng 8mm, an extreme wide-angle made in Russia. It's cheap (currently $343 from this American site - http://www.peleng8.com/) and is a good, solid build. Optically it isn't a match for glass from the mainstream manufacturers but then, at the price, you don't expect it to be. It is non-automatic so you have to set the aperture on the lens manually and choose the shutter speed using the camera's manual setting. It's a fun lens and is great for the odd novelty shot.

Here are some examples of the kind of results you can get with it.

From the top: Caoimhe in pursuit of a cat, Cows, Front Strand Youghal, Beenkeragh from Carrauntoohill.

Canvas Prints - www.point101.com

2010-05-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

This is a shameless plug for a UK company that produces beautiful canvas prints at very reasonable prices: http://www.point101.com. The website is excellent: it tells you if the uploaded image is the right quality for printing or not and it also shows you what the print will look like in a typical room. Delivery is by courier and you need have no worries about the fragile print in transit - the packaging is top class. I've had three prints done to date and they look great hanging on the wall. Canvas prints do not need framing: you can just hang them as is.

For prints that I do get framed I use Be Framed in Douglas, Cork: http://www.beframed.ie/. They are excellent photo-framers, the turnaround is usually a couple of days and their prices are also very reasonable.

I use a cheap Canon iP2600 if I need a quick 7x5 print or two but generally I use Photobox http://www.photobox.co.uk/. Harvey Normans self-service booths are fine for run-of-the-mill enprints but their quality is not a patch on Photobox. Stephen Crozier in Dun Laoghaire also provides an excellent hand-printing service ideal for extra large prints: http://www.360-dpi.com/

And photographers: you do print your photos on a regular basis, don't you?

The Angel Of The Jets

2010-05-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

I was over Crosshaven way this morning and I spotted an old ruined church near Myrtleville. I don't know its name but for those who may be interested the XY Coordinates are 580132/560215 and you can search for the location on the excellent interactive map on the OSI website: http://www.osi.ie/

I took some infrared shots using my IR modified Canon 20D. I liked this shot of an angel on the monument of a grave. The jet contrails in the background prompted the title.

Here is the church itself:

Bluebell Time

2010-05-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a message via Twitter from Colm Ryan (@colm_ryan) to let me know that bluebells were plentiful at the stone circle in Curragh Wood near Midleton. So off I went to check them out. As I walked along the woodland path the bluebells were few and far between and I began to wonder if Colm had exaggerated a little. And then I came to the stone circle at the top of the wood (it's about half an hour from the start of the walk) and - wow!- there they were in profusion. Absolutely wonderful, especially in this ancient and magical place.

As beautiful as bluebells are it is not easy to make a good photograph from them - at least as far as I'm concerned. They look magnificent in reality but photos rarely do justice to the scene as experienced. But not to worry: better by far to enjoy the peace and the beauty of this place now looking its very best. Thank you Colm.

Skellig Michael 22nd May 2010

2010-05-22T12:27:00.001-07:00

At 6:45am Bill Sweeney, Claudia Wagner and myself set out from Midleton for Portmagee in County Kerry and hence to Skellig Michael. My fourth visit, Claudia's second and Bill's first.

I had booked our place on the boat the previous day by phoning Skipper Pat Murphy at 087 2342168. It is very important that prospective visitors to the island phone one of the several boatmen a day or so beforehand. Showing up on the day without having booked may result in disappointment, especially in high season. The fare is €40. Boats leave for the island around 10:15am.

The weather today was glorious: warm and bright sunshine with hardly a cloud in the sky. The sea crossing - it takes the best part of an hour - was reasonably calm but even on the best of days it is advisable to bring a waterproof jacket as there will invariably be some spray falling on the boat. Passengers sit in an open deck. There is some cabin space available but it can only accommodate a few people.

Time allowed on the island is about 2.5 hours and that is more than sufficient. Once you disembark you follow the concrete path which leads to the stone steps that take you to the top of the rock and the remains of the ancient monastic settlement. As mentioned in my previous Skellig post you need to be reasonably fit to tackle the sharp climb.

Last year a man died when he fell from a dangerous section of the steps. The authorities have since installed a chain anchored to the rock across this section (see photo 2nd from bottom). It is unobtrusive and does not detract from the character of the place. There had been calls last year for a railing to be installed all the way to the top of the steps. Thankfully, that has not happened.

We had hoped to see Puffins nesting but we could only spot one or two in flight. Too early. Another few weeks and they should be plentiful.

Again today most of the visitors were foreign - British, German, French, American - with only a minority of Irish and in my experience this is typical. Which is a shame. Skellig Michael is a unique place and one that many more Irish people should make an effort to visit.

William and His Mother

2010-05-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

William is a 24 year old Downs Syndrome man from Togher, Cork City.I captured this precious moment during a photo-shoot I was doing for a relation of mine and William and his mother were in attendance at the event. William loves having his photo taken and he was the most willing model on the day. A joy to photograph. He is also a talented golfer and will be participating in a Special Olympics golf competition in Charleville Golf Club on the 24th May.

Hook Head Lighthouse

2010-05-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

This photo of Hook Head lighthouse in County Wexford was taken while I was perched somewhat precariously on rocks as waves crashed around me and as darkness was falling fast. I was waiting some time for a vehicle to pass on the road in front of the lighthouse so that I could capture the light trail and my perseverance was rewarded.

Dursey Island Cable Car

2010-05-21T08:55:00.001-07:00

Ireland's only cable car connects Dursey Island in West Cork with the mainland. In service since 1969 it ferries people and livestock to and fro on a daily basis. Here, a sheep and some bemused tourists are sharing the ride on the short distance to the island.

Blue Moon

2010-05-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

A full moon photographed with a Canon 400mm lens, given a blue hue in Photoshop and the "sea" added by means of a Photoshop plug-in. Simple.

Robin Feeding Her Young

2010-05-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine found a Robin nesting in a spare shelving section of her garage. She asked me if I wanted to photograph it and I jumped at the chance.

The garage was quite dark and the Robin wouldn't enter while there were people in there. So, I set the camera on a tripod, fitted a remote trigger and went outside to wait for her to fly in through the window. As soon as she was inside I took a series of exposures hoping that at least one of them would be usable. This was the result.

Canon 5D Mark 11, Canon 580 Ex11, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8.

Skellig Michael

2010-05-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

I will shortly be making my annual trip to that awesome UNESCO World Heritage site 9 miles off the Kerry Coast - Skellig Michael.

All you need to know about the place can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skellig_Michael

How to get there: boats leave Portmagee around 10:30am and the relevant contact numbers can be found here: http://www.skelligexperience.com/skellig-boats.html It is advisable to book beforehand rather than turning up on the day hoping to get a place.

Be warned that the sea can be quite choppy so if you are not a good sailor don't bother unless it is very calm. Two years ago I experienced the roughest boat trip of my life going to and fro. It was like being on a roller coaster ride with someone throwing buckets of water at you every few minutes. Amazingly, none of the party got sick.

There are no facilities on the island so go prepared. Also, it requires a modicum of fitness to scale the 230m high path to the ruins of the monastic settlement. Avoid if you are prone to vertigo. An elderly American man died there last year when he lost his footing on the path in the place pictured in the third photo down.

A Fan of The Doors

2010-05-18T00:09:00.001-07:00

This photo has received more hits on the various websites it has appeared on than any other photo of mine.

It was taken with a compact Canon A95 while on a boat trip in Cyprus a few years ago. The girl was a fellow passenger and I think she was Russian.

Torc Mountain

2010-05-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

Torc Mountain must be the easiest mountain in Ireland to climb. Most of the route to the top is via a path of railway sleepers laid down by the Office of Public Works a few years ago. You positively bounce along them and before you know it you are on the summit.

Access to the path is via the Old Road to Kenmare. Coming from Killarney, take the exit left towards the Kenmare Road car park - do not go to the Torc Waterfall exit which is further along the road. The path is easily found a few hundred yards to the right as you exit the woods.

It's an ideal mountain for introducing children to the joys of hillwalking and there are some wonderful views as well.

This photo was taken using a Canon 5D Mark 11, a Canon 24-105 L lens, and a Lee 0.9 Grey Grad filter. Manual settings. The view is towards the west with the MacGillycuddy Reeks mostly covered in cloud.

The MacGillycuddy Reeks

2010-05-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am a regular visitor the The Reeks and I have been visiting them since the early 1980s. I have climbed Carrauntoohill on numerous occasions and in all weathers, winter and summer. I once climbed it at night, in June, and it was a numinous experience - the solitude, the silence, and the sunrise seen from the top of Ireland's highest mountain. Wonderful.

I am familiar with all the routes on The Reeks. My favourite is probably the Coomloughra Horseshoe - starting from Lough Acoose, ascending towards Caher, on to Carraountoohill and across the arete to Beenkeragh and back down via Skregmore. A great day's walking. The Eastern Reeks ridge walk is another exciting route - especially across the hair-raising arete ("The Big Gun Ridge") between Cruach Mhór and Knocknapeasta. Not a place for those afraid of heights!

Here are some photos I took in the last couple of years.

The Saltees

2010-05-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Great Saltee Island off Kilmore Quay, County Wexford is a mecca for bird photographers and I have been visiting it once a year for the last few years. Information on the island can be found at: http://www.salteeislands.info/index.htm

If you are thinking of going, the man to contact the day beforehand (at least) is Declan Bates, the skipper of the boat that takes visitors out. His number is 0872529736. He usually departs from Kilmore Quay at around 10:30am and returns at 4pm.

Note: there are no facilities on the island so bring your own lunch.

Here are some shots taken on my visit a few weeks ago. I used a Canon 400D and a Canon 400mm f/5.6L for all these photos. The APS-C sensor of the 400D is useful in that it effectively provides a 640mm focal length with the 400mm. Wish I had a 7D though (sigh).

Infra Red Photography

2010-05-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Last year, I sent my Canon 20D to the UK to be modified for Infra Red. I was no longer using the camera for ordinary photography - my 5D had assumed that role - so rather than leaving it to languish in my gadget bag I decided to use it for IR.

I had been a fan of IR since my film days. Back then, Kodak had a specialist IR B&W film which you had to load and unload in total darkness. This required the use of a changing bag so as to make sure that no stray light affected the film. When shooting, you had to use a special Kodak Wratten opaque filter. All very complicated but the results justified the effort. Foliage came out in various shades of white and blue skies were jet black.

With digital it's much easier to get the same results. The modified 20D doesn't require any special filter and exposure times are normal (unlike with film where long exposures were the norm).

Here are some examples of recent shots taken in the Blackwater River area near Lismore in County Waterford.