Entries by Robert

I first photographed Dromaneen Castle on banks of the Blackwater river back in 2015. At that time, besides my camera, my most important piece of equipment was a solid pair of ankle high waterproof boots. Those boots were marginal dealing with the mud and the cow manure on route through the fields and knee high wellingtons would have been a better choice.

This time round, despite being in the midst of Storm Kathleen, I found a break in the weather to put my camera up where no cow patty could foul it and capture this birds eye view along side of the, ‘not so meandering’, Blackwater river just out of Mallow.

Dromaneen Castle is said to have been built by Caher O’Callaghan in around 1610 to replace an older tower fortification of the ancient O’Callaghan clan. However, it was soon lost to the English during the Eleven Years' War (Cogadh na hAon-déag mBliana) and was never occupied by an O’Callaghan again.

To this day the O’Callaghan’s of Longueville House, on the other side of the Blackwater, have the ruin of their former castle remind them of Ireland’s, and their own, volatile past.


#Ireland #travel #aerial #dromaneen #castle #ruin #O’Callaghan #blackwater #river #tinyplanet #Longueville

Our Easter Saturday treat was witnessing this beautiful rainbow descent upon ancient Acha Dá Eo, ‘The field of the two yew trees’.

This place, now known as Aghadoe, is very old and dates back to pre-Christian Ireland. The Aghadoe church and cemetery as we see it now is a relatively young 866 years old.

From here the view is a breathtaking mix of modern and ancient humanity with the town of Killarney below, beautiful Loch Leane beyond and the distant Kerry mountains as a spectacular backdrop.

Even without the rainbow, this place is gorgeous.


#ireland #aghadoe #kerry #killarney #travel #history #ruins #church #cemetery #rainbow

It began as a bit of experimental fun capturing images through windows but the angles just did not work for me standing outside, and looking in. In changing my perspective, both in my thinking and in my geometry I brought out my flying camera for a fresh look.

From this high vantage, looking down and in, I have captured Jennifer’s musing gaze and a sense of the room inside, while the rain grimed window pain reminds me she’s cosy in there while I’m out in the cold and drizzle.

Despite the issues of privacy, and public perception, there is so much more creative opportunity now with accessible aerial photography. Yes and unashamedly this bedroom window portrait is, I confess, a candid drone shot.


#aerial #drone #portrait #people #jennifer #bedroom #window

I know this style of image has become a bit ho hum but it’s a celebration so why not.

First it’s taken on St Patrick's Day, a good enough excuse for any craic really.
Second it was the first nice day I’d seen in weeks of cold, wet rain and wind.
Third, it was my first time since we arrived in Ireland last year that I’ve been able to spend time outside wearing a t-shirt, even if was only for 30 minutes.
And to wrap it up up, when this green landscape get lit up, it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Not sorry for the Paddysphere, and not sorry for the ones to come.

#Ireland #tinyplanet #panorama #emeraldisle #aerial #drone

Lisa loves to freeze things and photograph their thaw. She's good at it and was eager to share this passion by preparing blocks of ice entombed frozen flowers.

It was now up to to us to interpret their thaw any way we liked. Aside from all the obvious creative possibilities there was something timeless about just watching and waiting as slowly the petals came to the surface, and finally fell limply away.

It seemed somehow sad watching these frozen moments in time being released, only to collapse and be swept away with the dross of the day.


#abstract #orange #petals #flowers #frozen #creativity #mallowcameraclub #ice #createday

How often have you found yourself sipping an extraordinary coffee while looking into the dungeon below watching the minions creating your next magical chocolate brownie. The only question lingering on your mind is whether to order a second coffee when those brownies are ready!

If you’ve never had such an experiences then you are just not trying, not imaginative enough, drinking the wrong kind of coffee or just unlucky.

Seriously though this industrious woman’s baking below is the reason I can’t wait to return here for another extraordinary coffee and another of her dungeon baked magical chocolate brownies.


#Dungeon #baking #cafe #lab82 #bakery #cellar #cooking #brownies #coffee #cork #baker

There is this little project I’m a part of that involves generating random co-ordinates for a location somewhere on the planet, being randomly given the name of some great photography master as inspiration, going to said random place on the map and doing something creative to what I found there.

Can you imagine my surprise finding myself exactly dropped into a Cork coffee shop with the rain lashing down outside. The deities must have been smiling on me that day!

The coffee shop, ‘Lab 82 Coffee’, was fun and quirky beyond any expectation with one of the best coffees I’ve tasted and brownies to die for. Those deities really went to town for me!

This image is NOT part of my project. It’s just a little taste of the quirkiness of this place and for people who like coffee, cake and ducks.


#Lab82coffee #cork #cafe #ducks #ziggystarduck #duckvader #alcapoduck #art #abstract #stilllife #lab82

Saturday I spent time with the local camera club at their ‘Create Day’. We explored crazy things like photographing melting ice, submerged flowers, oil slicks on water, and multiple exposures with subjects and textures.

This beautiful blue chrysanthemum was placed in a fish tank before being bombarded with various coloured liquid substances. All of this was very interesting and made for some quite dramatic images. I think however I liked this one the best, peacefully submerged, a few clinging bubbles of air, oblivious to what is about to happen next.

Thank you Viv, Paul, Lisa and Joy for a fun, creative and very different day out!


#chrysanthemum #underwater #creativity #mallowcameraclub #abstract #blue #flowers

Friday night, for reasons nothing to do with photography, I found myself in the little Irish town of Pallaskenry with around an hour of free time. Never having been there before, and knowing nothing about this place, I set off down the main street looking for something interesting to photograph.

I soon found Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church, a Gothic Revival church on the edge of town where I began with the statue of St Brigid as it was well lit by the street.

To the rear of the church I noticed a large mound upon which stood the statue of the Virgin Mary with her silhouette in sharp relief on the rear wall of the yard. This I thought would make for an interesting image so I made my way to the back of the yard, turned around, and was greeted by this amazing sight.

The Lady did not move, she remained as still as stone, but I to me this unexpected vision was a little miracle indeed.

#pallaskenry #saintmarys #church #ireland #night #photography #silhouette

This guy engrossed in his own personal bathing antics attracted the interest of a young lady eager to see what all the fuss was about. But, when she ventured too close he was clearly not happy.

She persisted a few moments but when he got aggressive she was out of there!

A short while later another young lady turned up and was met with a very different reception.


#anasplatyrhynchos #ducks #ireland #donerailepark #mallard #doneraile #waterfowl #birds #courtship

I took a big gun of a lens into Doneraile Park today to see if size really matters.

The pros are obvious of course in being able to get closer to the action. The cons don’t become obvious until you have been holding that camera and lens for a few minutes. It’s a heavy setup and really hampers being dynamic.

In the end for practical reasons I put the camera on a monopod and simply waited for something to happen. And something did happen. A gorgeous mallard flew into the pond and preceded giving itself a bath. Just magic.

Today at least size mattered but I’ll need to build my upper body strength if I am going to make a habit of it.


#anasplatyrhynchos #ducks #ireland #donerailepark #mallard #doneraile #waterfowl #birds

We’ve been living in ‘The Emerald Isle’ for six weeks now and Ireland’s poetic namesake is as true as ever. Despite it being in the middle of winter with most trees being bare, the lushness of the grassy fields makes everything as green as ever.

I’m told the weather can only get better from now on but really arriving into an Irish winter has been kind of fun with the incessant and unpredictable rain, the frozen white frosted mornings, and the occasional peeking through of the sun from rents in a sky shrouded in cloud.

So just for a bit of extra craic here’s our tiny little emerald planet, on a pale blue dot, somewhere in the universe. Our new home.


#Ireland #tinyplanet #panorama #emeraldisle

Have bookshops now entered the world of quirky eccentricity?

It seems like only yesterday experiencing the novelty of buying a book through Amazon for the first time and now its almost all digital whether screen or audio.

I noticed Simon Prim’s bookshop in Kinsale and the word ‘Bibliotherapy’ in the signage and it made me think about the role books and bookshops now have in our digital world.

Having a place where you can explore books, hold them in your hands and feel the weight of their pages as you turn them; where words transport us to other places, other times and other lives, is perhaps a therapy we all could use a little more of again.


#simonprim #kinsale #bookshop #books #street #bibliotherapy

Reflections, reflections everywhere.
Reflections on the water painting squiggly lines of sailing boat masks.
Reflections in shop windows of passersby on the other side.
Reflections in car windscreens of street lights above.
Reflections in doorways of a stranger behind a lens.
Reflections, reflections everywhere.


#Selfie #kinsale #selfportrait #reflection #abstract

The curious thing about the Black-headed gull is that it changes its head from white with a dark smudge to a full black-brown cap when it’s in the mood.

This guy playing with his mates on the shores of Loch Leane is probably only interested in one thing right now, tidbits from visitors! Come breeding season he’ll don his black cap, find a black capped mate and the two will stay that way for the duration.

When parenting is over for the year they’ll leave their black caps in the empty nest and head out into the world again.


#ireland #killarney #landscape #lochleane #seagulls #blackheadedgull

There are ducks a plenty everywhere; it’s the perfect weather for them. For the most part I was ignoring them around me as having been used to being fed by visitors they can become quite annoying.

Suddenly a ray of warm light from the setting sun burst through the Irish winter sky bringing a splash of amazing colour to this lone mallard.

The light only lasted a moment, the duck, oblivious to his moment in the spotlight simply swam on.


#killarney #waterfowl #ducks #mallard #anasplatyrhynchos #reflections #ireland

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." In this case perhaps the title should have been ‘with’ instead of ‘in’.

This quote by Ratty to Mole in the novel 'The Wind in the Willows' echos my own thoughts about boats. Many of my most joyful times have been spent either in them or under them.

These two boats, in the backwaters of Loch Leane, might be docked for now, but come the opening of the season, their owners, fishers for sure, will be be feeling just the same; messing about in boats.


#Killarney #lochleane #boats #reflections #ireland

While I’m not the greatest fan of seagulls in populated areas they make for great sport shooting with camera in hand.

Here on the shore of Loch Leane, attracted by the day visitors to Ross Castle, I’ve plenty of opportunity to practice getting these fast moving birds in focus.

My success rate is still not high but with my newfound appreciation of the benefit of seagulls as target practice I can only get better!


#Ireland #landscape #killarney #lochleane #seagulls

It’s the last light of the day and a stillness has settled on Loch Leane.
Lingering on the balcony, with family inside at dinner, I’m juxtaposed between light and dark, between calm and bustle, between cold and warmth.
I’ll linger just a little longer before saying goodnight to this scene.


#Ireland #landscape #travel #killarney #lochleane #twilight #blackandwhite #siloutte

There a good reason why the Irish countryside is so green. It rains a lot!
Still, a bit of rain or its aftermath never stopped a true local from their family Sunday drive.
Just seeming their beaming faces through the car windows says it all.


#ireland #killarney #water #driving

It had to happen sooner or later, a pub session at the Oliver Plunkett in Cork city.
We came in for a quick drink; my first real Guinness in nearly 5 years.
We stayed for meal while being entertained with great live music.
And captured a few images to remember our first night back in Cork.


#Cork #ireland #pub #oliverplunkett #hotel

A winter bare tree looks out over Lough Leane.
A stray ray of sunlight hits the mountains of Killarney.
Pool sized puddles bear witness to bad weather.

I’m told January is the worst of it and the weather will only get better.
I’m really not sure what all the fuss is about.


#Ireland #killarney #loughleane #silhouette #blackandwhite #landscape #twilight

All day long the sun toiled hard to burn away the stubborn clouds. Hiding below, in the gloom, life continued in a manner familiar to anyone living through an Irish winter.

In the distance, defiant at last, a few lucky homes emerge from the mist to glimpse the setting sun.


#Ireland #clouds #village #mist #misty #landscape

The more I learned about the European Robin the more I wondered where it came in the running relative to the movie character’s actual angry bird, the Northern Cardinal.

Apparently, the friendly and inquisitive robin red breast, one of Ireland’s favourite birds, can develop quite a temper when confronted with another red bearing antagonist.

Fortunately I was wearing green today.


#Ireland #europeanrobin #robin #redbreast #birds #kilarney

For most of the day we found ourselves shrouded in fog with a landscape of frosted green and white vanishing into the mist less than 50 meters away in all directions.

Where the sun should have been was a vast brightness while somewhere above a hint of blue suggested we had been under a receding ocean of white.

As evening approached, like a tide, the mist ebbed away leaving us in a land above the clouds.


#Ireland #cork #landscape #clouds #aerial #panorama

2023 is now part of history and was our last year in Australia before embarking on a new adventure.
I have been to Ireland many times before but coming here to live is completely different.

This is a move my wife and I have been planning for many years. For Jennifer it is a long awaited homecoming. For me it is fair trade between the comfort of living in Australia and the challenging but exciting opportunities of Irish landscape and underwater photography, of getting involved in traditional Irish music, and being close now to my family in continental Europe.

For now we are being looked after by Jennifer’s family in their cosy Irish countryside home. Tomorrow I start working again, and after than we’ll see how this adventure unfolds through 2024 and beyond.

#Ireland #countryside #rural #home #aerial

Adnane, sits perfectly still in the darkness for what must seem like some strange dream.
Meanwhile all around him there is a flurry of activity as artists with torches and wands of coloured light paint in the scene.

White light’s painted where the colours should be real, elsewhere we used colour to create the surreal. Once it took a darkroom to bring the painted man to light. Now we just preview and review and repeat ‘till it is right.

This was a fun night experimenting with long time exposures and light. Thank you Silvi for the experience and thank you to the models who stayed motionless all night.


#Morroco #lightpainting #art #experimental #travel #photography #light

Castanets

In Marrakech I noticed castanets in many market stalls and alleyway shops. I even got the chance to see them being made in the local metalworking workshops.

It was not until well into central Morocco I finally got to hear them in traditional music.

I thought about bringing home a set to learn but decided on just memories instead.


#Morocco #music #musicians #castanets #traditionalmusic #instruments

The hijab need not be be the symbol of modesty many people automatically think.
When the eyes are all there is to see there is so much more imagination, curiosity, mystery and of paying attention to that beautiful human behind those eyes.


#Morocco #travel #woman #hijab #mystery

A nomad father lifts his son to high five visitors to his campsite.

Despite regular contact with travellers and their obvious wealth, the nomadic tradition is alive and well in central Morocco. Still, the telltales of change are obvious. Solar panels on the tent roofs, mobile phones and Chinese sneakers were signs of little cracks in tradition.

What the children will do is really the big question. Will they keep alive the nomadic ways of their forbears or will the lure of a bigger world out there be too much to resist.

Will there be any high fives here a hundred years from now? Time will tell.


#Morocco #travel #ergchebbi #nomads #travel #family #silhouette