Ripening

You won't usually find me photographing dying exotic flowers. But these ones are ethically traded and were left on the shelf of the local supermarket. Himself succumbed to their vibrant beauty.

They just got better and better as they shrivelled up and died. Yes, BETTER! You can see for yourself, although maybe you would have preferred them in full bloom? Beautiful either way, but from the perspective of a photographer not nearly as textured, characterful, or intense.

This leads me neatly to myself and the challenge of how to talk about ageing. My ageing. The word AGEING comes with a lot of baggage. You know I'm developing a new online space, which is taking forever, but it's also very absorbing and is waking up brain cells I didn't even know I had?

Well, I'm making theme headings for my blog archive of 5 years and one of them will have to be AGEING or something like that as I've just realised that I write quite a lot about it! (While denial seems to be my default, there is no arguing with what's there in my own words.)

So when mulling over the last year and thinking forward into the next, I was meditating on the following beautiful Rilke quotation.


"There is no measuring in time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but RIPENING (my caps) like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without fear that after them may come no summer.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Thanks to Rilke my word for 2016 is going to be RIPENING, softening and easing my way forward, "confident in the storms of Spring without fear that after them may come no summer." Allowing for the completion of projects and the exploration of new ones in a more organic and instinctive way, it's all taking lots of time, and sure there's no hurry on me......

Plus, Ripening sounds a lot kinder to my soul than Ageing!!! 

Something precious to belong to; home.

Today it is the stillest, sunniest spring morning. 

To the east the hill of gorse is in full flower and the exotic aroma of sweet coconut brushes against my jacket. Birdsong fills the fields as nest making and nest guarding goes on. In the distant sky the Coastguard helicopter is rumbling it's way out over the Copper Coast. 

The golden light smothers everything in streams.  Later the wind will probably pick up from the southern Atlantic, a front might approach from the Comeragh Mountains to the west or from the plains to the north.

For now Waterford on a still spring day, in the golden light of this spring flowering, is something precious to belong to. 

And it's home.

Check out a new gallery called Up close in the Hedgrows here

Heavenly anenomes

Can I just go totally over the top here for 5 minutes? Can I share with you the exuberant joy of lying in these woodland anenomes at Zwartbles farm in Kilkenny on a spring afternoon in dappled shade? Can you soak up the colour and the light and the magic of it with me?

If contemplative photography is about anything it is getting close to the essence of the life force. One minute we are having a cup of tea and the next we are stretched over these tiny blooms of blue, opening and turning towards the sun on bed of green. Quivering petals expressing their full potential. Layers of light and shadow, turning to blurry colour through the photographic process. 

Just myself, Eadaoin and that dog with his nose in an earthy hole. 

Bliss all round!




For more spring colour check out the Purple Hyacinth Gallery here

Welcome little Zwartbles lamb!

We met on Twitter. Many people find it hard to understand how Twitter even functions, but in our beginning, a short few years ago, a small group of bloggers in Ireland discovered each other there. All with individual interests and reasons for blogging, eventually, here in the South East we bonded offline, over cups of coffee, camera phones and Wordpress v Blogger. 

Today myself, Eadaoin (City of Blackbirds) and Susan (Vibrant Ireland and Travel) are at Suzanna's farm in Kilkenny where she breeds Zwartbles sheep and makes dark chocolatey blankets from their wool. Four nerdyish females in the photography heaven of Irish Spring sunshine!

Could it get any better? Well it did.

Straight after lunch Suzanna led us into the orchard where there was a ewe in labour. Here we witnessed the birth of the last lamb of the season. It was the first time I had seen this up close, an everyday event full of wonder. In the shadowy light under the trees, with the rhythmic circling of the ewe, the wet lamb stands up in seconds having being licked and nudged by her mother. 

Later we brought some new babes for a walk through the daffodils planted by Suzanna's Grandfather, we lay in the wood anenomes to photograph the dying light and fed lambs from bottles in the farmhouse kitchen. 

I'm left with the warmest glow of gratitude. Passionate women, cuddly lambs and sunny daffodils, a perfect kind of day..........

See also my first meeting with Suzanna in December 2012   

You can find Suzanna's website here

Just before they fall apart

Just before they die off for the winter they have their most spectacular show. Faded edges, crinkled old flowers, their faces a little worse for wear.

The October sun catches them in their last glory. Having been down this path before, I know there will be one more beautiful phase as the papery petals fall off those spiny bones and the skeleton appears.

They will turn all spidery and golden first. And then they will fall apart and wither into the earth. Wrinkly, lined and speckled.


Sounds like some one I know.




Remember to be in with a chance to get a signed copy of the little book and a selection of cards leave a comment here  And if it was you who bought 2 copies of the book on Sunday 12th October please contact me!

Browse more in the Petals gallery here

Set free in a loose garden

We inhaled the scent of herbs on the soft balmy air. Occasional yelps of joy bounced across the lake as youngsters leapt into the water from the dodgy bough that leans out over the deeper water. 

The Irish feel such deep relaxation in our bodies when the temperatures soar. So we are elated by this evening, warm enough to sit outside under the sky, warm enough to put our feet up, one where we can get the grill out. 

I love your "loose garden" she said.  And loose is a good word for it. 

Loose enough to sway in the breeze, loose enough to shed colourful seeds everywhere, to create dingly dells of stems and blossoms. 

If I were a thrush I too would want to be set free, in a loose garden......

More wild places here

A man who knows his flowers~ Pilgrimage

When the streets of Vienna are getting too hot to bear, I duck into a side street flower shop.  It's the bunches of "weeds" in the window that first catch my eye; familiar wildflowers as carrot and catmint, laurel leaves and common grasses, in bouquets and tall vases.

As I stick my head in the door I ask "do you mind if I take some photos?" Fine, is all he says.

I snap away. There are huge cat portraits and the rows of jars are filled with soft colour combinations, in the background endless telephone conversations in animated German. And I am in awe, here is a man who knows his flowers......

After a while I say, "I'm not sure I know much about the flower business but you seem to be an artist of the genre."

"Ah! D'you think so."

He continues to twirl ribbons around a wreath of roses, lost in the zone; the touch, the scents, the colour. For some time we work side by side. Deliveries come and go. Orders are taken, glass jars are shifted up and down the rows.

Vienna is old world and on a grand scale, but transported into the intimacy of his workshop, I feel more inspired than by almost anything else in this city of ghostly memories.



See more Vienna photos here in the Street Gallery