Kieran Russell

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Connemara Revisited Part 2

Lough Corrib pier in Connemara

As a continuation from the previous post, Lough na Fooey was next on the list to revisit, and I again spent some time shooting the fishing boats pulled up on the unusually sandy shore of this lake. Passing heavy showers and nothing in the way of interest in the sky or decent light makes these images a little bit flat.

Something I had missed on the last trip here were a couple of trees near the lake that I had seen but never photographed due to lack of time. These trees are full of character had great potential but turned out to be quite difficult to come up with a composition I was happy with, both in arranging the trees themselves, avoiding distracting elements  and also placing them in a good position in relation to the background landscape. These are a few I came up with, the first of which I was most happy with.

The following day it was off to explore the north coast of the peninsula. There’s nothing I enjoy more than explore an area I haven’t been before and see what I can find, rather than chasing an image seen hundreds of times before. The coastline has a very distinctive look in this area of Connemara with very white sand and (in the right conditions) beautiful turquoise water. These few images were taken on a isolate stretch of beach, which has a section of bog right up to the coastline. I felt I had all the elements to make a good image here but what I came away with felt a little forced. I’d love to return and explore a bit more.

The bog running up the sea shore

The last stop  of the trip was Lough Corrib for sunset. There was a particular burnt down pier I was looking to take a few images of. This was another particularly difficult place to shoot as you have to stand in the water , with slippy rocks underfoot as well as difficult placement for tripod legs, not too mention the flying teeth! All this along with the fact that camera position left or right by a couple of inches makes a huge difference to the relative placement of  the poles. The 4 images below were taken in order and you can see the choices I made as I moved around to find an image I was happy with, the final image was probably my favorite of the trip and the last image I took before heading home.

Thanks for having a look at this post, and its back home to the Copper Coast for the next few posts hopefully.