I don’t always want to bring my camera with me everywhere, especially when the the rain is lashing hard and horizontally – as it does quite often in Ireland. So, I’m quite happy to have upgraded from my old Nokia (which was a great phone) to a new phone with a half decent built in camera.
Kilmore Quay fishing port was crowded last night, as beyond her protective walls, the wind howled and the dark sea heaved.
Nice peeling lefts and rights!
South East Ireland is not the ideal location for surfing; we are pretty much sheltered from the big swells that come roaring in from the Atlantic. Occasionally, however, a swell will come far enough south to hit our beaches: If we are lucky the wind will be offshore; if we are really lucky the tides will be right; and if we are really really lucky, the sun will be shining down on our smiling faces!
Yesterday was one such day.
Firework malfunction, New Year’s Eve, Finland, 2012.
We bought a load of fireworks for the new year’s eve celebrations and brought them with us to a local party. The host, Henri (pictured in the red jacket) was lighting the fireworks, he had just turned his back to light another when BOOM, one exploded before takeoff, it was a big one too. Luckily he is an advocate of strict finnish safety laws and was wearing a bike helmet. No harm done.
Kiitos Henri for a great evening.
Back in December amidst the madness that is the run up to Christmas I spotted in the distance some glorious light shining through the cloudbreaks. I grabbed the camera, took a spare roll of film from the fridge, started up the car, and literally raced towards one of the local beaches.
There was a cold Easterly wind blowing, and in my rush to chase the light I forgot the tripod. Holding a small camera (M6) steady in low temperatures and freezing wind is not the easiest. I must have spent the bones of an hour taking around forty photographs of the scene, watching the light change, moving forwards and backwards, left and right. With only a few frames left, the guy in the bottom right of the frame arrived and started digging for bait. I took a few more photographs until the winder would move forward no more.
The film was sent off to John Gunn’s Camera Shop in Dublin for processing and scanning. The wait for negatives to return from a lab is a little like waiting for Santa to arrive; one never really knows what one will get.
I have looked through the contact sheet a few times and this image is my initial favourite. I realise in time this may change, but for now this is my catch of the day!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.
Simon Bates Photography 