Glencar, Co. Kerry

This is one of my favourite photographs, and probably the most underappreciated in my whole collection. I made it during the Atlantic Light Project, flying over Glencar in winter. It didn't make the book because there's no Atlantic in it. The project had its rules. But I've always felt this image deserved far more attention than it gets.

What pulled me in was the tonality. The foreground is almost black, dark bog and heather soaking up what little light there was, and cutting through all of that is the silver ribbon of the river, catching every scrap of available light and holding it. Then in the middle distance, a lens-shaped opening in the cloud where light was pouring through, illuminating a band of green farmland and the lower slopes of the McGillicuddy's Reeks. So precisely shaped, that pool of light. Above it, heavy cloud pressing down. Behind everything, the Reeks with a dusting of snow across the peaks.

The conditions were far from straightforward. Heavy overcast for most of the flight, and I was starting to think I'd come away with nothing. Then this gap opened and lasted maybe ten minutes before the cloud closed over again. That's often how it works in Kerry. You wait, then suddenly everything aligns for a brief window!

I find myself coming back to this image again and again. It has a richness that rewards slow looking. It just feels like winter in Kerry, distilled into a single frame.