Bliain - Part 16
03rd August 2021
Part sixteen of my project to make a photograph every day for a full year, or bliain in Irish. Find Part 15 here.
20th July
Sea fog on an eerily still morning off the coast of Kerry. The heat and slack winds we’ve been blessed with recently often bring about a thick fog like this in West Kerry. Though it might be unwelcome to many I actually love conditions like this. At least when I’m in a boat with radar and a GPS plotter! The strangeness of such a shrunken world is wonderfully weird and disorienting.
21st July
This is almost certainly the worst image of this project so far. My motivation was low today. Between working almost every day now for over a month and having friends visit in recent evenings, including this one, the idea of switching on that part of my brain that searches out a decent photo was very unappealing. I put the task on the long finger all day, and then til dusk, and then regretted having done so. Not wanting to interrupt an evening around the garden stove with a friend I’d not seen in years by taking a trip away from home to make photos I’d no interest in making, I opted to shoot this quick and simple snap from the end of the garden. I had hoped the sky would light up a bit but it wasn’t to be. We went back to the fireside to catch up and I forgot about it. When I downloaded the image to the computer later this week I was fairly disgusted with myself. Maintaining interest in this project was always going to be tough during the height of the summer work season, so I’m trying not to berate my laziness too much. All the same, I’d very much like to try and avoid such a poor effort again.
22nd July
Herring gull following the boat in the hopes of an easy meal. Unfortunately for this bird it was after the wrong boat. I doubt any of our passengers had fish on them, and it probably wouldn’t do the gull much good if they’d started throwing out human food. Another lazy effort with the camera in fairness, though at least it’s passable. I think all this heat we’ve been getting may be sucking all the energy out of me...
23rd July
Hazy summer sunset over Smerwick Harbour. Though none of my recent images reflect it, this has been a shockingly warm week by Irish standards. Even out at sea there’s little respite from the heat, and while many other nationalities would laugh at the idea of the high twenties being too warm I’m certainly not built for this kind of weather! This evening was the first I had to myself in the last week and I didn’t really feel like bothering to go away and do any photography so I took the lazy option – fly the drone from the garden. The warm, southeast winds had brought clouds in for the evening, but the sun showed all the way to the horizon once it passed below the last barrier it’s seen peeking out from here. As is always the case with flying the drone I wondered about the strange disconnection from the scene while looking at the screen, but at least this time it was reasonably close to what I could see myself when looking up from the iPad and out to sea.
24th July
Another cracker of a day. The heatwave is real, and while it might be a little warm for my liking it’s hard to not enjoy these conditions. The light winds and summer sun have certainly been making work more pleasant, and throw in scenery like this and it’s hard to find reasons to not like my job. It’s generally said that the best landscape images are made at the cusp of the day, when the light is warm and soft. And while I generally tend to seek those kinds of conditions out I find myself liking this image quite a bit, despite the harsh, white light. In fact, the high summer sun makes this scene for me. I’ve photographed it enough times at sunset by this stage that this attempt feels more interesting and fresher than many of the attempts I’ve made in the past.
25th July
After another warm night of broken sleep I woke at 5am and noticed a thick fog had descended out in the garden. Somehow I found the motivation to get up and get out with the camera, imagining a quick and easy mission to the Conor Pass, with the sun rising above a low mist below me. But less than two miles from home I was back out of the mist and changed plan, deciding instead to put the drone up for a bird’s eye view of what was going on. As sunrise approached the fog increased, flowing like a rapidly growing glacier in from the north, smothering most of West Kerry under a muffled quiet. As much as I’d like to have watched the show from high up on a hill there’s little chance of me being on a mountaintop for sunrise while work is seven days a week, so the drone screen had to make do. I’m not particularly interested in the gadgetry side of photography but each time I fly the drone I’m amazed at the opportunity it offers to see the beauty of the world from the sky, even if only through a screen.
26th July
Today brought the first rain for a long while and it was welcome. I’m sure most of the plant life will be glad of the wetting after such a sustained spell of hot and dry weather. To the left here is selfheal, a common wildflower that’s showing in great profusion these days. It is both edible and medicinal, hence the name. I’ve never taken it myself but given how well it’s doing close to home maybe I’ll take a few leaves to add to a salad one of these days. On the right-hand side of this image is a pink-flowering yarrow. It has a liquorice kind of taste, and an Internet search sends me to websites suggesting more potential health benefits, though the real world data are lacking. I think I’ll leave this one be for the bees and other insects, and any potential passing human who might also appreciate it.
27th July
The recent heatwave is well and truly over by now. Today was considerably colder than any day last week, the northerly wind carrying spectacular columns of cloud along on the cool air. Personally I much prefer this kind of weather. It is far more interesting than empty blue-sky days. The colours, textures and shapes of an ever-evolving sky are better than any show on TV. Throw in a rainbow and some late sun shining gold on the green hills and even a simple scene like this can feel magic.
28th July
Another day of cloud appreciation. Such was the spectacular scene shortly before sunset at home. It was very much a sky of two layers, with the cumulonimbus peaking in its fiery orange outlines around this time, before later fading to a flat blue grey while the higher cloud took on a fleshy pink afterglow that burned well beyond sundown.
29th July
A triptych of left-facing seabirds I encountered at work today. From top right – a lesser black-back gull. A simple scene but I like how the Xanthoria lichen on the boulders complements the gull’s yellow legs and bill. Below the gull is a pair of black guillemots, shy little auks that breed among boulders on suitable coastlines. They aren’t very well known but are beautiful birds when seen close-up, which I believe is quite easy to do in certain parts of coastal Dublin where they have become quite common. To the left is an oystercatcher, a regular sight (and sound) around the Irish coast, though poorly named. I’m not sure they eat a whole lot of oysters with that brightly coloured bill. Certainly not off the coast of West Kerry anyway.
30th July
Somehow I fear this naomhóg has already seen its last day out on the water. It’d certainly want a bit of work done if it’s ever to be taken to sea again. Today was a mostly dark day, punctuated by heavy showers brought in on a steady breeze. What a difference to last week! I don’t mind at all – any weather that gives me a day off work after the hectic nature of the last six weeks is welcome. I’m pretty tired, have a few aches and pains that are at me, and am trying to avoid aggravating a hernia. The tourist season is too short and the company I work for too small to take time off for the surgery I need to fix it, unless of course it becomes serious. It occurred to me last night that I feel like I’ve peaked in life in some ways, particularly physically. The idea that I’ve already lived the best of my days wasn’t a very nice realisation, even if it’s it not necessarily true. Like this old boat I feel like I could do with getting back into decent condition. Anybody know a good boatbuilder?!
31st July
Staring down the blowhole of a common dolphin. Dolphins, being mammals, have to come to the sea’s surface to breath. Despite living entirely in water they still have to breath air. They straddle the thin blue line between two very different worlds, and the physiological and behavioural adaptations required to do so are highly specialised. Breathing is a conscious decision for whales, dolphins and porpoises. Not only do they have to decide when to swim to the surface, they also have to engage the muscle that blocks the blowhole (basically their nostrils) to clear the airway when they do come up for air. For unconscious breathers like ourselves the concept of making multiple decisions and actions every time you want to get air into your lungs seems crazy, as is the idea of holding your breath for 99% of your lifetime. This need to constantly manage their breathing means that cetaceans can’t sleep, at least not in the way you or I can. Instead they rest by shutting down one side of the brain at a time, using the active hemisphere to keep swimming, surfacing and opening up the airway when needed. A friend of mine asked if this means that they alternate between being really artistic and really practical as each side of the brain gets rested. Perhaps some good marine mammal expert could shed some light on this brilliant question?
1st August
Meadowsweet in the golden light of a late summer evening. The Irish for this beautiful wildflower is airgead luachra, the silver rush. It’s worth leaning into a ditch at this time of year to sniff its pleasant scent. In days gone by people used to scatter it on the floors of their houses for its pleasing aroma.
2nd August
For the past few days there have been incredible numbers of compass jellyfish in Ventry Harbour. I’ve never seen so many, nor such big specimens. There are few more beautiful creatures on the planet in my opinion. The sight of a gently pulsating, slowly drifting compass jelly seen through calm, clear water is incredibly hypnotic. Big blooms such as this are bad news though. Beyond being a nuisance to human swimmers, they are a sign of a depleted ocean. In a healthy ecosystem fish would eat jellyfish in the early part of their lifecycle, when they float as tiny plankton. Overfishing means less predation at this stage of their development and so a far greater number of jellyfish reaching adulthood. It’s predicted that there will be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050 (when measured by weight). By that time massive swarms of summer jellyfish will probably be as common as plastic waste on our coasts is now. Unless of course we decide to change things.
Find Part 17 here
20th July
Sea fog on an eerily still morning off the coast of Kerry. The heat and slack winds we’ve been blessed with recently often bring about a thick fog like this in West Kerry. Though it might be unwelcome to many I actually love conditions like this. At least when I’m in a boat with radar and a GPS plotter! The strangeness of such a shrunken world is wonderfully weird and disorienting.
21st July
This is almost certainly the worst image of this project so far. My motivation was low today. Between working almost every day now for over a month and having friends visit in recent evenings, including this one, the idea of switching on that part of my brain that searches out a decent photo was very unappealing. I put the task on the long finger all day, and then til dusk, and then regretted having done so. Not wanting to interrupt an evening around the garden stove with a friend I’d not seen in years by taking a trip away from home to make photos I’d no interest in making, I opted to shoot this quick and simple snap from the end of the garden. I had hoped the sky would light up a bit but it wasn’t to be. We went back to the fireside to catch up and I forgot about it. When I downloaded the image to the computer later this week I was fairly disgusted with myself. Maintaining interest in this project was always going to be tough during the height of the summer work season, so I’m trying not to berate my laziness too much. All the same, I’d very much like to try and avoid such a poor effort again.
22nd July
Herring gull following the boat in the hopes of an easy meal. Unfortunately for this bird it was after the wrong boat. I doubt any of our passengers had fish on them, and it probably wouldn’t do the gull much good if they’d started throwing out human food. Another lazy effort with the camera in fairness, though at least it’s passable. I think all this heat we’ve been getting may be sucking all the energy out of me...
23rd July
Hazy summer sunset over Smerwick Harbour. Though none of my recent images reflect it, this has been a shockingly warm week by Irish standards. Even out at sea there’s little respite from the heat, and while many other nationalities would laugh at the idea of the high twenties being too warm I’m certainly not built for this kind of weather! This evening was the first I had to myself in the last week and I didn’t really feel like bothering to go away and do any photography so I took the lazy option – fly the drone from the garden. The warm, southeast winds had brought clouds in for the evening, but the sun showed all the way to the horizon once it passed below the last barrier it’s seen peeking out from here. As is always the case with flying the drone I wondered about the strange disconnection from the scene while looking at the screen, but at least this time it was reasonably close to what I could see myself when looking up from the iPad and out to sea.
24th July
Another cracker of a day. The heatwave is real, and while it might be a little warm for my liking it’s hard to not enjoy these conditions. The light winds and summer sun have certainly been making work more pleasant, and throw in scenery like this and it’s hard to find reasons to not like my job. It’s generally said that the best landscape images are made at the cusp of the day, when the light is warm and soft. And while I generally tend to seek those kinds of conditions out I find myself liking this image quite a bit, despite the harsh, white light. In fact, the high summer sun makes this scene for me. I’ve photographed it enough times at sunset by this stage that this attempt feels more interesting and fresher than many of the attempts I’ve made in the past.
25th July
After another warm night of broken sleep I woke at 5am and noticed a thick fog had descended out in the garden. Somehow I found the motivation to get up and get out with the camera, imagining a quick and easy mission to the Conor Pass, with the sun rising above a low mist below me. But less than two miles from home I was back out of the mist and changed plan, deciding instead to put the drone up for a bird’s eye view of what was going on. As sunrise approached the fog increased, flowing like a rapidly growing glacier in from the north, smothering most of West Kerry under a muffled quiet. As much as I’d like to have watched the show from high up on a hill there’s little chance of me being on a mountaintop for sunrise while work is seven days a week, so the drone screen had to make do. I’m not particularly interested in the gadgetry side of photography but each time I fly the drone I’m amazed at the opportunity it offers to see the beauty of the world from the sky, even if only through a screen.
26th July
Today brought the first rain for a long while and it was welcome. I’m sure most of the plant life will be glad of the wetting after such a sustained spell of hot and dry weather. To the left here is selfheal, a common wildflower that’s showing in great profusion these days. It is both edible and medicinal, hence the name. I’ve never taken it myself but given how well it’s doing close to home maybe I’ll take a few leaves to add to a salad one of these days. On the right-hand side of this image is a pink-flowering yarrow. It has a liquorice kind of taste, and an Internet search sends me to websites suggesting more potential health benefits, though the real world data are lacking. I think I’ll leave this one be for the bees and other insects, and any potential passing human who might also appreciate it.
27th July
The recent heatwave is well and truly over by now. Today was considerably colder than any day last week, the northerly wind carrying spectacular columns of cloud along on the cool air. Personally I much prefer this kind of weather. It is far more interesting than empty blue-sky days. The colours, textures and shapes of an ever-evolving sky are better than any show on TV. Throw in a rainbow and some late sun shining gold on the green hills and even a simple scene like this can feel magic.
28th July
Another day of cloud appreciation. Such was the spectacular scene shortly before sunset at home. It was very much a sky of two layers, with the cumulonimbus peaking in its fiery orange outlines around this time, before later fading to a flat blue grey while the higher cloud took on a fleshy pink afterglow that burned well beyond sundown.
29th July
A triptych of left-facing seabirds I encountered at work today. From top right – a lesser black-back gull. A simple scene but I like how the Xanthoria lichen on the boulders complements the gull’s yellow legs and bill. Below the gull is a pair of black guillemots, shy little auks that breed among boulders on suitable coastlines. They aren’t very well known but are beautiful birds when seen close-up, which I believe is quite easy to do in certain parts of coastal Dublin where they have become quite common. To the left is an oystercatcher, a regular sight (and sound) around the Irish coast, though poorly named. I’m not sure they eat a whole lot of oysters with that brightly coloured bill. Certainly not off the coast of West Kerry anyway.
30th July
Somehow I fear this naomhóg has already seen its last day out on the water. It’d certainly want a bit of work done if it’s ever to be taken to sea again. Today was a mostly dark day, punctuated by heavy showers brought in on a steady breeze. What a difference to last week! I don’t mind at all – any weather that gives me a day off work after the hectic nature of the last six weeks is welcome. I’m pretty tired, have a few aches and pains that are at me, and am trying to avoid aggravating a hernia. The tourist season is too short and the company I work for too small to take time off for the surgery I need to fix it, unless of course it becomes serious. It occurred to me last night that I feel like I’ve peaked in life in some ways, particularly physically. The idea that I’ve already lived the best of my days wasn’t a very nice realisation, even if it’s it not necessarily true. Like this old boat I feel like I could do with getting back into decent condition. Anybody know a good boatbuilder?!
31st July
Staring down the blowhole of a common dolphin. Dolphins, being mammals, have to come to the sea’s surface to breath. Despite living entirely in water they still have to breath air. They straddle the thin blue line between two very different worlds, and the physiological and behavioural adaptations required to do so are highly specialised. Breathing is a conscious decision for whales, dolphins and porpoises. Not only do they have to decide when to swim to the surface, they also have to engage the muscle that blocks the blowhole (basically their nostrils) to clear the airway when they do come up for air. For unconscious breathers like ourselves the concept of making multiple decisions and actions every time you want to get air into your lungs seems crazy, as is the idea of holding your breath for 99% of your lifetime. This need to constantly manage their breathing means that cetaceans can’t sleep, at least not in the way you or I can. Instead they rest by shutting down one side of the brain at a time, using the active hemisphere to keep swimming, surfacing and opening up the airway when needed. A friend of mine asked if this means that they alternate between being really artistic and really practical as each side of the brain gets rested. Perhaps some good marine mammal expert could shed some light on this brilliant question?
1st August
Meadowsweet in the golden light of a late summer evening. The Irish for this beautiful wildflower is airgead luachra, the silver rush. It’s worth leaning into a ditch at this time of year to sniff its pleasant scent. In days gone by people used to scatter it on the floors of their houses for its pleasing aroma.
2nd August
For the past few days there have been incredible numbers of compass jellyfish in Ventry Harbour. I’ve never seen so many, nor such big specimens. There are few more beautiful creatures on the planet in my opinion. The sight of a gently pulsating, slowly drifting compass jelly seen through calm, clear water is incredibly hypnotic. Big blooms such as this are bad news though. Beyond being a nuisance to human swimmers, they are a sign of a depleted ocean. In a healthy ecosystem fish would eat jellyfish in the early part of their lifecycle, when they float as tiny plankton. Overfishing means less predation at this stage of their development and so a far greater number of jellyfish reaching adulthood. It’s predicted that there will be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050 (when measured by weight). By that time massive swarms of summer jellyfish will probably be as common as plastic waste on our coasts is now. Unless of course we decide to change things.
Find Part 17 here