Lost in leafy light

Do you share a memory of lying under trees, watching the light flicker through the leaves? Did you throw yourself onto the grass and stare into the sky? Did you roll in leaves and kick them down the path on the way home from school, or half close your eyes to see faeries dancing between the branches and the sunlight?

Although Ireland should be covered in trees, outside urban areas the forests tend to be the monotonous evergreen pines planted all over Northern Europe. Sadly there is a lack of autumn glory in this part of the world, here autumn is over and winter has arrived.

But today under this rare group of copper beeches I revisited dreamy schoolgirl moments. Perhaps the world has enough photos of autumn leaves? What the hell, here are even more!

The cool balm of rain

Needing balm, something to soothe and cool, I turned again to the simple task of looking. Fired up and blasted off like a rocket that morning, by the end of the day I was dragging myself around.

Too many stories had caught my eye. There were so many burrows to explore. Strategies and crucial questions filled my brain. The simple task of looking would freeze the urgency.

The bracken still had tinges of green. The sky filled the frame with navy blue. Droplets held calm worlds within their lens.

Even now the smell of the earth and the undergrowth is a sweet memory that will get me through the busy days ahead.

Where there's muck there's money

There's an Irish expression that where there's muck there's money.

The last week has seen the return of muck to these parts but we are still waiting to see the money. Crops have been harvested, grass growth is slowing, the clocks went back last night, rain is falling heavily and the local pot holes are filling up to the brim with water. But still, no money!!

These photos were taken at the very crack of dawn through a hazy light. The heat was rising off the cattle and the promise of a glowing October day lifted our spirits. There have been tougher times I know, but we are yearning for a bit of respite from doom and gloom, and we are all dreaming up schemes to help us keep the show on the road........

There's no shortage of muck, but how can we turn it to gold!!!

Ireland 2013

It's messy. Through a blurry haze, the camera is loving raindrops and turning them into bokeh. Very little input from the photographer on this walk except maybe clicking the shutter.

Questions are meandering in and out of the two boney hemispheres between my ears. Round and round. How many of us are craving healing? Feeling tired of responsibility? Battling the negativity of crashing economics tightening and tightening on us?

Clinging to the colours of goodness floating between strands of threaded webs. Half closed eyes squinting against the evening sun. Soft drops falling on the squished up leaves.

Just keeping going, never quite on top of things, but never completely giving up on ourselves either.

Meanwhile back on planet earth

The backsides of two bullocks grab the warm morning light and become walking terracotta canvasses. They rustle the swan into alertness and she glances over her shoulder as they pass.

Not too many more trips around the sun before we will slow into winter, and this morning I am back on planet earth savouring the moment. There are so many people to thank and acknowledge, so many kind messages to respond to. What does it feel like to win Best Photography Blog? Unsettling has to be the word!!!

For now thanks to the Blog Awards organisers Lorna, Amanda and Beatrice for a fantastic event and to Damien O Cearbhuil Photography sponsor of the Best Photography Blog Category.

Congratulations to my friend Dee of Greenside Up who swept the boards and who kept me a seat at the "Outdoor" table of friendly wellie wearing types where I felt so at home!!

Later I will try to share more of the story with you all. To be honest it's all a bit overwhelming..........but that's me.........and it will take a few more long walks before I fully absorb it!

Meanwhile back on planet earth.......she seems to be saying to me, slowly, slowly..........take it all slowly........

Rabbit, headlights.

It was so good of you all to put me into the final of the Blog Awards 2013  Thank you! What can I say?

For about 30 seconds after I heard the news I was delighted, but then performance anxiety set in and I wanted to go right back into the burrow and hide! Rabbit, headlights.

Immediate next thought? What kind of rabbit would have to be pulled from the hat for my next blogpost?  Nothing would be good enough.

It was all rabbits, burrows, hats and headlights. That's when this pheasant came striding out of the long grass. He puffed himself up, strutted up to my window and the cheeky divil even winked at me saying, look at me, just LOOK at ME!

I didn't wish he was less of what he is, or a bit more rabbity, or a bit less in my face. I lapped him up, his crimsons and golds, his feathery coat, his cock sure command of the world. We are what we are.

The rabbit in the headlights moment has mercifully passed, I have a subject for this week's blog and I didn't even have to lie out in a wet field to capture the photos.





More golden colour in the Autumn Gallery here

It's one of those nights

It's one of those nights, summer turning to autumn, when the sun sends sideways glances at the earth and turns the day's heat into shades of pink and gold. We are walking on the cliffs at Garrarus and at each further climb towards the top field we stop and watch it disappear to the west.

The small details catch my eye but it is the larger sweep of things that I am more concerned about for once. Bits of me are blending into each other. Parts that have been kept hidden are bubbling to the surface. Work merges with life. Art merges with hope. While the light is fading on Ireland a ferocious determination is rising in me.

Rose tinted spectacles and all, I write three orders in my diary for September, Engage, Reach out, Enthuse.  The words come from somewhere, a powerful energy.

O I don't have all that lingo of dreaming and journeying, concepts in some foreign language, or maybe in code. I only have a simple phrase which says, life is short.

Mesmerised by butterflies

At least once a year there has to be a Butterfly Blitz on Foxglove Lane and today's the day!!  That's it plain and simple........

What is, is....

I could see from the window that the Purple Loosestrife was blooming profusely in the bog field. Every day as I ran out the door to complete my week's work I held the image in my heart and waited for the opportunity. (Am not too bad at delayed gratification after all these years of practice) At last this morning I headed out after breakfast with the camera.

It was about 9AM and already too hot to bear. I stood for a long time under a Sycamore tree watching and waiting. The scent of the creamy Meadowsweet was intoxicating. The shade welcome and eventually I sat on my rucksack and succumbed to the silence.

Every most fabulous insect, danced in my face, but evaded my lens!

My photos were supposed to be of Butterflies, Dragonflies, Damselflies, but they just flitted and floated by. Every precious moment of their beauty and presence even more fleeting and impossible to capture than usual. 

Instead I got tangled up in a evil briar. (Loud cursing!!) Why do the beautiful moments slip by impossible to hold onto while the clawing, gnawing of thorns is impossible to escape? Beauty is brief and frail, pain deep and unending......and so on, muttering to myself while the briar clung to me like a desperate man.....

Later on the beach while the country sweated in an uncanny 30 degrees, the superficial lacerations on my legs soaked in the salty sea water and I suffered a little less. When I came home and looked at the pictures I saw again a gentle reminder of the beauty of photography, capturing moments in time now gone. What is, is. 

And so I label these pictures,"Purple Loosestrife on fire in the bog in the July heatwave of 2013". It may be an invasive species in some countries but here kept in check by Irish beetles, it is stunning without doubt, purple which is always good in my book, and like the elusive butterfly, soon to be gone except here between ourselves, on our mutual internet cloud of colour.....

Also posted on Vision and Verb today

Also take a peek at my new project here www.onehalfshuteye.blogspot.com