Gougane Barra, Co. Cork

This was made sometime around 2008 or 2009, not long after I'd moved to West Cork. One of my earliest photographs from Gougane Barra, and still one of my favourites.

I was down at the lough before first light. The valley was completely still, mist sitting on the water, not a breath of wind. Just dark shapes and silence. Then the sun cleared the hills to the east and came through in this narrow band of warm light that caught the island and St. Finbarr's little church. A sliver of orange reaching across the water while everything else stayed cool and blue and wrapped in fog. Thin streaks of amber in the cirrus overhead, the kind you'd miss if you weren't paying attention.

There's no dramatic explosion of colour here. It's quiet. The mist softens everything, and the sunrise is almost reluctant, just enough warmth to separate the island from its reflection. The valley holds the fog in place, funnelling it along the surface, and on mornings like this it can linger for hours.

I live twenty minutes away in Ballingeary. I've been back hundreds of times since. But I didn't overthink it that morning. I just set up the tripod and made the photograph. Sometimes the simple ones stay with you longest!