B&W Rainbow ?

A black and white rainbow ?
I put this image up for one reason and that is to say "Bring your camera with you at all times".
I went for a walk around Skerries on Sunday afternoon after a very nice lunch with the family. The weather was sunny but a strong cold wind with rain, hence the rainbow. We took shelter in a doorway when it rained heavy. As we got back to the car park this wonderful rainbow appeared. Well talk about dropping everything and running. I managed to get a couple of shots before is disappeared. I was hand holding the camera as I forgot the tripod in the rush over to the shore line so that I got a clear view of the rainbow. It was funny to see other people taking photo's of the rainbow but they just stood in the carpark so they will have a forground full of cars (very nice). On the walk around Skerries I did manage to get a couple more images and will post them later.
I got my hand on a Canon G10 camera, so that I don't have to carry my 5D plus lens and tripod when I got out for walks. After reading the review on The Luminous Landscape website by Michaell Reichmann, I went and got one. I was looking at getting a compact camera for such a reason as my walking stick can be used as a monopod when you unscrew the top off. I will post image as soon as I can get out and shot with it.

Storm over Darty Mountains

This is another image from the last Viewpoints trip to north Mayo. We had driven up thru the Ox Mountains on our way to Sligo for sunset. We had lost Carsten some time back during the day but knew we would meet him in Mullaghmore. After a few shots down at Glencar Lake and Truskmore Mountain ( we drove up the mountain in Peters 4x4, I think that will be another post ) we stopped in Manorhamilton for dinner at the local Chip Shop. After dinner we headed out on the R280 towards the coast. Passing thru the valley at Glenade it started to get very dark as the clouds rolled in. We turned off the main road up a dirt track to get a better viewpoint when the sun came out and lit up the valley before us. By the time Peter got his large format camera set up I got the image we were looking for before the rain started again ( god bless the speed of digital setup ). The above image was the result "The Darty Mountains before the storm". We are heading down south, Co Cork for the next Viewpoints trip at the end of November.

What The Duck

Castlelough Bay

This image was taken while I was down in Killarney, Co Kerry. At the back of The Lake Hotel is a walk way out to a castle. This location is called Castlelough Bay on Lough Leane. The sun was very bright and high in the sky. With no Grad filters with me at I had to try and hide the sun. Lucky for me the tree branchs did the trick and also added a nice frame to the image. The mountains you see the the background are called Purple Mountain and Tomies Mountain. I don't clone anything out of my images as I don't agree with it, but in this case I might clone out the branch in the lower left corner because...... What do you think ?

What The Duck

Atlantic Drive

This has got to be my fav place to take landscape images, Achill Island. This image was taken on "The Atlantic Drive" around the island. That's Clare Island you see on the horzion in the background. I could spend hours, no days here but as always I have the family with me and only can stay a short while at this location. But you can come away with so many different images. I have gone to this spot many many times and have come back with different images all the time.

Easky Lough

This was taken on the last Viewpoint trip to North Mayo. However this images taken on the day we drove up through The Ox Mountains in Co. Silgo. We stopped a couple of times on this road and Easkey Lough was one such stop. What you have to do on this road is avoid the sheep because they are free the wonder around especially in front of your car. For this image I got down very low ( as far as my tripod would allow me ) to get the angle and position of the foreground grass. The clouds had started to break up and show some detail which helps. I don't really care about the technical details for my images as this is taken care of with the EXIF data, but I do always use the Lee 0.9 ND soft Grad filter attached to either my 24mm or 24-70mm lenses. So you can take it that all my images are shot this way with a aperture between f16 and f22. ( f8 or f11 on the 24mm tilt and shift lens ).