Long Exposure

An Searrach (The Foal) is a sea stack just outside Dingle Harbour. Visible from the Conor Pass, I'd been meaning to find a good vantage point for it since I first saw it some years ago. Just recently while returning from business in Dingle town shortly after sunset, and in miserable weather I found this spot. Made with a long lens over 30 seconds, I believe it captures the mood of the scene very well.

Boughil More and Boughil Beg, two large sea stacks on the western edge of the island of Inishturk stand sentinel beneath a starry sky.

Photographing from Hag's Head for the first time, I discovered this canyon at exactly the right moment. The moon was just rising through the slot - a circumstance I couldn't have planned better.

Since my first visit to Cork as a photographer some years ago, I've had it in mind to photograph Toe Head, an imposing headland to the west of Galley Head on the south coast of Cork.
I hadn't found a vantage point I was happy with on the few occasions I'd been around when good light was threatening. However, serendipity paid a visit when I was out with Roger Overall, a commercial photographer and friend of mine.
We met up, I stabbed my finger at a spot on the OS map that looked promising and we arrived at the location in this photograph.
Made looking to the west as the sun was getting low in the sky, it shows the headland's most imposing aspect with the rocks in the foreground leading the viewer up to it.
Made using a filter which forces a long exposure, the water and waves take on a misty character which adds to the character of the scene.

Made on my second visit to the north Antrim coast in 2009, this view of Fair Head from Colliery Bay is my favourite of that trip.
The weather was threatening in the pre-dawn hours, but there was a band of clear sky right where the sun was due to rise. The low clouds are lit from beneath as it rises over the Scottish Hebrides, but all too soon the show was over and it vanished behind the advancing cloud cover.
Being in the right place at the right time is crucial for successful landscape photography. On this morning I realized the shot I had planned, which relied upon golden sunlight on the scene, was not going to happen - so I shifted gears and went to a location where I'd be able to shoot directly at the Sun as it rose.
The tactic paid off in this case, and this image - made at the peak of the light show - shows that the red light wasn't quite strong enough to fully light the underside of the clouds nor to illuminate the rocks. The result is a contrast of warm and cool colours which I feel work very well.