What The Duck

Clew Bay from Old Head

While the family were on the beach having lunch and playing the the water i decided to take a walk around the other side of the Oldhead Quay. There was nobody over on this side so it was ideal for photo to be taken. You are looking out over Clew Bay with Achill Island and Nephin Beg Range in the background. We had a wonderful weather here at Oldhead and it was great to relax after the climb of Croagh Patrick that morning.

View from Croagh Patrick

On one of the days while in Westport we climbed Croagh Patrick. What a climb that was and worth the effort to get to the top when you see the wonderfull views. As this was a clear day with just a handfull of clouds the views were amazing. As you can see from the image above we were level with the clouds at times which made for interesting images. I have a couple of images with no clouds in them but I think this one works better as it gives you a kind of scale to the height of the mountain and the view below. It was hard work to bring the camera gear and tripod up the mountain but came in very handy. I dont think I would have got a sharp image as it was windy but I was breathing very heavy ( not very fit ). But most of all the tripod was put to good use as an aid so I did not fall or slide on the way back down.

Westport Again

I was is Westport again last week with the family, but managed to get out and take a few images. The weather was great and we had plenty of sun, sea and sand.  The above image was taken from the car park on Mallaranny ( or is it Mulrany, two different sign-posts and on maps ? ) beach. A funny sort of image with the rocks in the foreground. Not much to see over the rocks and the tide was at full-tide. We are looking over Clew Bay towards Croagh Patrick. I kind of like the way we have the smooth curves and surfaces of the rocks set against the mad scattered patterns of the clouds. I was going to crop out the sky to form a letterbox image but left it as is because that's the way I saw the image thru the viewfinder in the camera.

Barnesmore Gap

 

This image was taken back in May on my trip to Donegal with Navan Camera Club. After a long drive up to Donegal with wonderful weather my camera finger was getting trigger happy and I had to find a location. I was driving along the main road out of Donegal town (N15) towards Letterkenny when I spotted a river bed along the road. I stopped the car and got out to explore this location and what a find. This place is called the Barnesmore Gap as the road cut's through the mountains which I might show you later as I have another image from here looking the other way. After my first couple of shoots I moved along the river bed to this location in the image above.  I like the postion of the rocks in the foreground and the 'V' shape made by the mountains with the clouds in the middle. For you tech's out there it was taken with my Canon 5D with the 24-70 F2,8 lens set to 24mm. A couple of Lee ND grads were used to keep the highlights in the sky.

Mulroy Bay early morning

After a dull start to the day for sunrise at five in the morning the clouds started to break up and the sun came out to play. While driving around Rosguill point I spotted a small  harbour and found the road down to this harbour. The above image was taken from the harbour wall at around eight in the morning just before we started to drive back to the hotel for breakfast. This is a image of Mulroy Bay with the reflection of the clouds in the water. I waited for the sun to go behind some of the dark clouds so the highlight would not blow out.

The Zone System

This article is taken from the Wikipedia website.


The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in 1941. The Zone System provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black and white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black and white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography.

What The Duck

Donegal Trip

I am just back from my 3 day Donegal trip to Downies, Rosguil Peninsula. Again wonderful wheather and loads of full memory cards (10 gig worth). I was with six members of the Navan Camera Club. A lot of driving was done over the few days and I interduced a couple of the members to the 5 o’clock sunrise. The image above was taken on the road down from Fanad Head to Portsalon looking out over Lough Swilly and the Inishowen Peninsula. More to follow if I can get the time to process let alone look at the images.

Lough Conn & Nephin

This image was taken just before the last posted image below from Lough Cullan. This is Lough Conn with Nephin in the background. The light was wonderfull for black and white photography. The sun was high in the sky and nice contrast from highlight to shadow while using ND Grad filters to keep the sky from blowing out.

Lough Cullan

The first B&W image to be posted from Lough Cullan. This lake is in the road from Foxford to Pontoon (R318). There is a couple of places for you to stop and walk around. This was the last image taken as I ran out of memory card space. I backup the cards when they are full to a portable storage device (Jobo Giga One), but I still do not format the cards and use them again until back home and have backed up the again.

Viewpoints

Just back from North Mayo where I was with Carsten Krieger and Peter Cox.
IT was a very productive few days shooting form morning to night that is up at 5:00 for sunset and not returning to the B&B until 23:00. A total of about 22GB of photos to sort through.
So it could to a few days before I will post any of the images.