Knocknarea, Co Sligo
Back in July, my good lady wife was doing a course in the Leitrim Sculpture centre for a few days. While she was there, I had to occupy myself, so I took a notion and walked up a mountain.
Knocknarea had always interested me after hearing all about the mythology of it years earlier on one of my first trips to Sligo, so I thought I would go up and pay my respects to Queen Maeve.
Proper hot summer stuff. One of the hounds actually stopped bout the half way mark looking at me as it to say, forget it mate, your carrying me from here (but then he realised there were sheep about....)
And sur I couldnt go all that way up with out taking a a long exposure of a few rocks
Under a honeymoon....Last Friday, I was lucky enough to share a very special day with two people who are almost family.
My sisters fiancee's sister, married her betrothed Shane and while every wedding is always an amazingly special day, the date they picked had a few other connotations. Most people may shy away with being married on Friday the 13th, but Shane was following in his parents footsteps who were also married on a Friday the 13th of June. The little difference was, that last friday, coincided with a full moon.
The last time that we had a full moon on a Friday 13th of June was in 1919 and we wont see one again until 2098. Now, there is a special name on a full moon in June and that is the "honey moon"
The reason for this is, when the moon rises, it is much closer to the earth then other times of its lunar cycle, because of this, it is given a beautiful "honey" like glow from light bouncing off dust and pollen particles in our atmosphere.
Back in our unenlightened pagen times, weddings would often be held around the time of the summer solstice, which would often also coincide with the full moon, which in June is referred to as the honeymoon and that period of the full moon, was considered the happiest of the newly married couples and this is where the phrase honeymoon comes from today.
Naturally when I heard this, I really wanted to incorporate the rising moon into a photo for the newly weds and with a setting like the amazing Dunmore house with the ocean reaching away before you I thought all my christmas had came at once! I was outside waiting at 10pm with everything set up and ready to go but after a day of blistering sunshine, a bank of cloud moved in and blocked our view of the rising moon and by 10:30 and still no sign, I admitted defeat. When I finally said my good byes last night and went to head for the car, the moon shinning on calm ocean was what greeted me. So very hastily, for one more time, I pulled the newly weds out for one last photo and though its not the one I had envisioned I think it may favourite of the day.  
These are just another few moments throughout the day I thought I might share.
And on a day like this, its all about the love :)
Mining for stoke!I was looking for an image the other night and I was kind of disappointed in myself at the amount of images I have that had never made it to my site. There is always something else that needed to be done first, emails to be answered, images to be edited that I never took the time to keep up to date on own personal work.
Well, for the last two days I have trawled through the archives and I have updated!
I have managed to find a few gems I had forgotten about completely, like these two:
So, to mark this occasion, I am going to offer a 20% discount on all online sales until the 30thof April.
All you have to do is enter this when you are checking out Stoked2014
And you will get a whopping 20% off!
So have at it! Here are my newly updated galleries:
So go have a route around in them and treat yourself, your walls deserve it! John
...it is not down in any map, true places never areA few weeks back, I took this shot.
I have always struggled to name images, but I have never felt a quote more apt then "...it is not down in any map, true places never are" from Herman Melville. For nearly fifteen years I have checked this spot. That was as good as I have seen it. And we drove away.
Well, the other day, I was given my reprieve. It was far far from perfect, but it was some sort of a relief for a bad decision. Now I have seen the white whale up close and it will haunt me but the hunt will continue :)
Now, while it may not have been perfect, it wasnt all that terrible either ;)
Mossy was pretty stoked to have gotten outta the wind, and after years of me prattling on about the potential, he's starting to come around.
Irish steelSo the Surfers Journal published a two page spread of photos of mine.
Even excited just getting to type that. Beyond stoked. For years the journal has been my source of inspiration and my yard stick for what good looks like.
This has to come with a big thank you to Mossy, the sculptor, for allowing me in to photograph the process of him at work. Its thanks to him I had anything to offer the Journal at all. (Iv promised him, next time it will be a of him deep in the barrel that appears in the Journal) |
