Cork

A pair of ponies take in the view on a blustery day near Gougane Barra.

An infra-red image of a copse of trees at winter's end.

Mist descends over the mountains as a lone tree stands on a ridge above a pasture.

Noctilucent clouds are a rare sight. Only visible when the sun is below the horizon, they are the highest altitude clouds on earth, right on the edge of space. One evening in June 2014, there was a particularly beautiful display which I captured near my home in Ballingeary.

Rich light suffuses the deep woods of Gougane Barra, glancing over the moss-covered tree trunks.

This lone tree is a magnet for local photographers. and was particularly beautiful on this evening. The red light on the clouds is not sunrise, but streetlights from the nearby village.

One of my favourite spots in the Gougane Barra Valley, and a view I'd had my eye on for a few weeks before all the pieces fell into place.
This image was made while teaching a workshop student on a foggy morning when the light was no good for the usual "grand scenic" landscapes. Mist and woodland are often a magical combination, as can be seen here!
This is one of my most popular images, and it's easy to see why. There's a very appealing graphic quality to the image, which combined with the soft mood makes it a satisfyingly peaceful print.

This is Illauncreeveen island in Glengarriff harbour. I'd been here on several other occasions and never really got an image I was 100% happy with. However, on this particular evening I was rewarded with some fantastic high-level cloud which caught the wonderful colours of the setting sun.
The Sugar Loaf mountain on the Beara peninsula is visible in the distance.

Made on the evening of March 7th, 2011, this image shows the International Space Station and the shuttle Discovery flying over the hills of Gougane Barra.
Just a couple of hours before, Discovery had undocked from the ISS to return to Earth for the last time. Discovery was leading the ISS in its orbit, so both took the same path across the sky and appear as a single trail. However, at the left side of the image, you can see the fainter trail that is the shuttle by itself - the ISS ended its track in this photograph where the line brightens again.
The orange-red light in the bottom center of the picture are the lights in the Gougane Barra valley.

This image was made at the same time as my blurred image of "Bluebell Woods, Cork", and in fact this is a vertical composition of that same scene.
Here, I've used a lens with a very wide aperture of f/1.2 to create a very shallow depth-of-field. The two closest trees are sharp, but the bluebells in the foreground and the backround are out of focus - this creates a three-dimensional effect that draws the viewer into the frame.
This effect is further aided by the natural vignetting of the corners of the frame, drawing attention to the center.
I like both of these images. Both have an otherwordly quality to them, but for very different reasons.

I spent the first few days of May 2009 looking for an excellent image of a bluebell wood. These wonderful flowers appear in the spring and, when conditions are right, form a rich carpet on the floor of ancient woodlands.
I made many images which I was happy with, but nothing really stood out. I needed something different.
I'd seen images by one or two other photographers where they had achieved interesting results by intentionally moving the camera during the exposure. I tried this on my last visit to Courtmacsherry Woods, in Cork.
After quite a bit of experimentation, I got the hang of including the right elements in the frame and moving the camera so as to create a blur which complemented the forms in the image, rather than detract from them.
I'm pleased with the result. I hope you are too!

Morning mist rises over the lake by Ballingeary, with mountains beyond.