Bliain - Part 25
10th December 2021
Part twenty-five of my project to make a photograph every day for a full year, or bliain in Irish. Find Part 24 here.
23rd November
The Com an Áir lakes in the dark before the dawn of a beautiful, blue sky winter day. A calm, clear night brought the first frost of the winter to West Kerry and shaded places stayed white with rime til sundown. Despite the cold it was a sublime day of bright stillness. The kind of weather I wish we saw more of.
24th November
Back to more normal weather service today - cold and blustery in a chilly north wind with occasional showers of hail and rain. I went out for a photo before sunset but a thick bank of heavy cloud sitting on the horizon killed the idea of a colourful sundown long before darkness fell. So here’s another easy scene of a brewing sky instead.
25th November
Landscape photographers often head out in the hope of finding gold. The obvious place to find it is in extravagant light shows at either end of the day. But sometimes you stumble across it in the random scatter of sea-quarried stone on the shore.
26th November
Very windy today, the first real storm of the winter season. I could feel the cold northerly cooling the old draughty house I live in last night, and it howled all through today and this evening. In these conditions the open ocean is a frightening, heaving chaos of white noise and scratchy texture and appalling, elemental energy.
27th November
The cold north wind still blowing, less so now, but it’s still far from calm. The first snow of winter is on the hills. Friends are visiting and I have little interest in my cameras. In the living room we play scrabble and talk and laugh and good music plays on the stereo. The muffled wind rumbles in the hollow belly of the stove, feeding oxygen to the firewood that heats a pot of tea. We walk on the beach later, distant dark clouds dumping showers like jellyfish tendrils. Cold air rushing over red cheeks while the lowering sun paints the snowy mountains in orange and peach. After months of lockdowns and rural isolation all of these things feel so much more alive again in the company of old and new friends.
28th November
A quiet night in Green Street. This is a weekend that would usually see the streets of Dingle thronged with people drawn to the Other Voices music festival, but the recent resurgence of Covid has certainly curtailed the crowds this year. While I’m not into hectic nightlife or busy places I think there are fewer more powerful experiences than the collective sense of love that music can bring to mass gatherings of people. Sport, for those into it, is much the same. We’re gonna need a whole lot of big gigs and games to undo the communal trauma of the pandemic once it’s settled down some bit.
29th November
Sea rods and faded fronds of kelp thrown up on the sands of Ferriter’s Cove. I swear this seemed like a more interesting image at the time... It was actually quite a nice day today, for a change, but I spent most of it enjoying the company of friends before they departed for Dublin again this afternoon. It feels striking that the consistently uninteresting images of recent days are the result of having far too much fun to be bothered giving any time to this project. It’s hard not to read into what that says about my living situation, as well as my current level of interest in photography, but I’ll keep the navel-gazing for myself. The initial concept of matching the images to the writing has already been totally lost for this entry...
30th November
The run of poor photography continues. In my defence the rain was atrocious by the time I went out with the camera today, and all I could think of to do was drive down to the sea and shoot this simple scene from the sheltered side of the car. One of the main lessons learned from this 365 project is how impossible it is to continuously create meaningful, worthwhile work, day in, day out. While forcing myself to go out with the camera when I usually wouldn’t have bothered has opened my mind to new ideas and resulted in some images I’m quite happy with that I wouldn’t have made otherwise those instances are in the minority. The vast majority of photos and written pieces from this project are totally unremarkable, and it feels like they’re snuffing out the few occasions I’ve felt like I’ve done something right. Those maths add up to an overall impression of having become worse, and not better, with a camera and words. Which is very much the opposite of what I was hoping. Then again, that’s not the only lesson taken from this self-inflicted undertaking. And none of the crap, most of which only really came about because of the arbitrary rules of this project, undoes any of the better stuff, same as no amount of darkness can extinguish a light that’s on. Perhaps it’s best not to look at it all in terms of a simple sum of (good) + (bad) = (my sense of creative self-worth). But this is all getting a bit too philosophical, despite my previous promise to reign in the deep and meaningfuls. I might enjoy those kinds of conversations with friends but I’ll save anybody reading this from being subjected to any more of it. For now at least.
1st December
Strand Street, Dingle. The roads of this town have become too smooth for my liking. This was the best strategically placed puddle I could find all evening...
2nd December
My bedroom and office, warmly lit on a cold night of drizzly showers and intermittent clear spells. There’s something deliciously cosy about coming into a warm house on a frigid night. While winter is generally tougher than summer I’ve come to enjoy the slower pace and the comfort of blankets and woolly caps and long evenings reading in front of the stove. I’ve almost certainly written about this here before but I find it baffling how most modern work systems make no distinction between summer and winter. You’re expected to do the same amount of hours during the winter, at a time when our animal bodies start to wind down in response to the shorter daylight hours. On top of spending most if not all of the brief daylight hours indoors, rarely seeing much of the sun if you work a ‘normal’ nine to five, there’s the madness and hysteria of Christmas to deal with. We should all be sleeping more and eating less, and generally chilling the fuck out. But the great machine of modern capitalism does no downtime, so instead some people get burnt out and stressed and end up wondering why they’re not good enough for the world.
3rd December
I made yesterday’s image in the early hours of the morning as I had surgery during the day and doubted I’d get much of a chance to spend any time outside. Today I’m tired and sore and can’t move around much, and glad of all those excuses to explain away this incredibly dull photo of a dirty looking gap of colour on an otherwise drab and dreary day.
4th December
Bright and breezy today, with cotton wool clouds drifting past on the wind. Having had my lower abdomen sliced open for a hernia repair a few days ago I have a renewed respect for women who have babies by C-section and are sent home to mind a newborn infant while trying to heal from an incision across the stomach. I’m learning that it’s almost impossible to make nearly any movement without using your midriff, and doing so soon after it’s been cut open and stitched up again is painful and awkward enough without having a baby to take care of. And that’s without even mentioning the enormous toll that childbirth takes on the body. Kudos to all the mothers out there; you’re a powerful bunch.
5th December
These old sheds across the road have appeared in this series of images before, but I have enough of a soft spot for them that I’m happy to include them again. I love the shocking blocks of colour in the rusty roofs when the sun shines and the way the low winter daylight traces out the straight edge of the carefully laid corner stones.
6th December
Big skies from the bottom of the garden in the hours before Storm Barra’s arrival. We’ve not had a significant storm for a few winters now, but this one sounds like it could do damage. The anticipation of big weather events like this is always kind of exciting; there’s a sort of perverse awe in watching how bad the weather can be, but maybe that’s easier to say as somebody who doesn’t own a house who’s roof could be whipped away. And the one I'm writing from could very well be one of those houses tomorrow...
Find Part 26 here
23rd November
The Com an Áir lakes in the dark before the dawn of a beautiful, blue sky winter day. A calm, clear night brought the first frost of the winter to West Kerry and shaded places stayed white with rime til sundown. Despite the cold it was a sublime day of bright stillness. The kind of weather I wish we saw more of.
24th November
Back to more normal weather service today - cold and blustery in a chilly north wind with occasional showers of hail and rain. I went out for a photo before sunset but a thick bank of heavy cloud sitting on the horizon killed the idea of a colourful sundown long before darkness fell. So here’s another easy scene of a brewing sky instead.
25th November
Landscape photographers often head out in the hope of finding gold. The obvious place to find it is in extravagant light shows at either end of the day. But sometimes you stumble across it in the random scatter of sea-quarried stone on the shore.
26th November
Very windy today, the first real storm of the winter season. I could feel the cold northerly cooling the old draughty house I live in last night, and it howled all through today and this evening. In these conditions the open ocean is a frightening, heaving chaos of white noise and scratchy texture and appalling, elemental energy.
27th November
The cold north wind still blowing, less so now, but it’s still far from calm. The first snow of winter is on the hills. Friends are visiting and I have little interest in my cameras. In the living room we play scrabble and talk and laugh and good music plays on the stereo. The muffled wind rumbles in the hollow belly of the stove, feeding oxygen to the firewood that heats a pot of tea. We walk on the beach later, distant dark clouds dumping showers like jellyfish tendrils. Cold air rushing over red cheeks while the lowering sun paints the snowy mountains in orange and peach. After months of lockdowns and rural isolation all of these things feel so much more alive again in the company of old and new friends.
28th November
A quiet night in Green Street. This is a weekend that would usually see the streets of Dingle thronged with people drawn to the Other Voices music festival, but the recent resurgence of Covid has certainly curtailed the crowds this year. While I’m not into hectic nightlife or busy places I think there are fewer more powerful experiences than the collective sense of love that music can bring to mass gatherings of people. Sport, for those into it, is much the same. We’re gonna need a whole lot of big gigs and games to undo the communal trauma of the pandemic once it’s settled down some bit.
29th November
Sea rods and faded fronds of kelp thrown up on the sands of Ferriter’s Cove. I swear this seemed like a more interesting image at the time... It was actually quite a nice day today, for a change, but I spent most of it enjoying the company of friends before they departed for Dublin again this afternoon. It feels striking that the consistently uninteresting images of recent days are the result of having far too much fun to be bothered giving any time to this project. It’s hard not to read into what that says about my living situation, as well as my current level of interest in photography, but I’ll keep the navel-gazing for myself. The initial concept of matching the images to the writing has already been totally lost for this entry...
30th November
The run of poor photography continues. In my defence the rain was atrocious by the time I went out with the camera today, and all I could think of to do was drive down to the sea and shoot this simple scene from the sheltered side of the car. One of the main lessons learned from this 365 project is how impossible it is to continuously create meaningful, worthwhile work, day in, day out. While forcing myself to go out with the camera when I usually wouldn’t have bothered has opened my mind to new ideas and resulted in some images I’m quite happy with that I wouldn’t have made otherwise those instances are in the minority. The vast majority of photos and written pieces from this project are totally unremarkable, and it feels like they’re snuffing out the few occasions I’ve felt like I’ve done something right. Those maths add up to an overall impression of having become worse, and not better, with a camera and words. Which is very much the opposite of what I was hoping. Then again, that’s not the only lesson taken from this self-inflicted undertaking. And none of the crap, most of which only really came about because of the arbitrary rules of this project, undoes any of the better stuff, same as no amount of darkness can extinguish a light that’s on. Perhaps it’s best not to look at it all in terms of a simple sum of (good) + (bad) = (my sense of creative self-worth). But this is all getting a bit too philosophical, despite my previous promise to reign in the deep and meaningfuls. I might enjoy those kinds of conversations with friends but I’ll save anybody reading this from being subjected to any more of it. For now at least.
1st December
Strand Street, Dingle. The roads of this town have become too smooth for my liking. This was the best strategically placed puddle I could find all evening...
2nd December
My bedroom and office, warmly lit on a cold night of drizzly showers and intermittent clear spells. There’s something deliciously cosy about coming into a warm house on a frigid night. While winter is generally tougher than summer I’ve come to enjoy the slower pace and the comfort of blankets and woolly caps and long evenings reading in front of the stove. I’ve almost certainly written about this here before but I find it baffling how most modern work systems make no distinction between summer and winter. You’re expected to do the same amount of hours during the winter, at a time when our animal bodies start to wind down in response to the shorter daylight hours. On top of spending most if not all of the brief daylight hours indoors, rarely seeing much of the sun if you work a ‘normal’ nine to five, there’s the madness and hysteria of Christmas to deal with. We should all be sleeping more and eating less, and generally chilling the fuck out. But the great machine of modern capitalism does no downtime, so instead some people get burnt out and stressed and end up wondering why they’re not good enough for the world.
3rd December
I made yesterday’s image in the early hours of the morning as I had surgery during the day and doubted I’d get much of a chance to spend any time outside. Today I’m tired and sore and can’t move around much, and glad of all those excuses to explain away this incredibly dull photo of a dirty looking gap of colour on an otherwise drab and dreary day.
4th December
Bright and breezy today, with cotton wool clouds drifting past on the wind. Having had my lower abdomen sliced open for a hernia repair a few days ago I have a renewed respect for women who have babies by C-section and are sent home to mind a newborn infant while trying to heal from an incision across the stomach. I’m learning that it’s almost impossible to make nearly any movement without using your midriff, and doing so soon after it’s been cut open and stitched up again is painful and awkward enough without having a baby to take care of. And that’s without even mentioning the enormous toll that childbirth takes on the body. Kudos to all the mothers out there; you’re a powerful bunch.
5th December
These old sheds across the road have appeared in this series of images before, but I have enough of a soft spot for them that I’m happy to include them again. I love the shocking blocks of colour in the rusty roofs when the sun shines and the way the low winter daylight traces out the straight edge of the carefully laid corner stones.
6th December
Big skies from the bottom of the garden in the hours before Storm Barra’s arrival. We’ve not had a significant storm for a few winters now, but this one sounds like it could do damage. The anticipation of big weather events like this is always kind of exciting; there’s a sort of perverse awe in watching how bad the weather can be, but maybe that’s easier to say as somebody who doesn’t own a house who’s roof could be whipped away. And the one I'm writing from could very well be one of those houses tomorrow...
Find Part 26 here