North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

My Blue Heaven

Two weeks ago, (after spotting some pictures on Flickr), Sean McCormack and I went over to Portumna Forest park to photograph the bluebells. Sean is this year's winner of the Galway Camera Club's Nortel Trophy - and congratulations again, Sean [and thanks again to Andrea, pj_poppy and Caitriona for helping me pick my entries].

Now, Sean's job as a sound engineer means he works late into the night, so it took real effort on his part to meet me at 07.30 am on the Saturday morning (actually, I don't think he had seen 07.30 before). By 8.30, we were walking along the Turlough walk in the park - at that hour of the morning, we had the place to ourselves. We saw plenty of fallow deer (if I'd been out trying to photograph them, there probably have been no sign of them). Bluebells, on the other hand, were in decidedly short supply. We walked and walked, but still couldn't find any. I was beginning to feel a bit bad for having dragged Sean into the wilderness at an ungodly hour ( he looked as if he was getting withdrawal symptoms ). We stopped in the magnificent stand of beech trees (worth a photo trip in itself), and I was sure that if the bluebells were anywhere, they would be there. They weren't.

My backup plan is always the same - wander about randomly in the hope of stumbling across what I was looking for), and yet again, the plan came up trumps. We turned a corner, and up ahead, glowed a oval hill of pure purple. It was a magnificent sight - a thick carpet of bluebells in a stand of hazel and young beech trees. We set to work. And that's when it occurred to me that maybe I was under just a little pressure to take a good shot.

Normally, I take photos on my own and the pictures that you see on the site are the ones that I think are the best. Plus, they are usually the only pictures of that particular spot at that particular time, so no-one knows if I could have done better. I can't blame my tools anymore. I'm using two Canon DSLRs, a selection of lens that cover all possible focal lengths and a sturdy tripod. So I have a bit of a confession to make. After an hour or two of snapping, I still didn't think that I had done justice to the scene. Don't get me wrong - even if I didn't have any cameras, it was a real privilege to see such a scene - impossibly beautiful and, on a Saturday morning, undisturbed by any other humans. But I don't think I got the best shot possible there that morning [I'm waiting to see Sean's pics].

Back at the car park, I got talking to ladies who were sharing a flask of tea. I asked them if they had walked through the woods. "Walk ? We're from Australia -we don't walk around places - we drive around them!" And the reason for their visit? "Over to meet the mad rellies", came the reply, though I suspect that the relatives probably refer to themselves somewhat differently.

Camera = Canon 350D , lens= Sigma 10-20mm@14mm, ISO=100,Aperture=f10,speed=1/6 sec.

bluebell,May,ireland, irishblogs,photoblogs,monasette,galway,portumna.

Posted by Monasette at May 28, 2006 01:42 PM