Irish Summer

The month of August was not a good one for landscape photographers in Ireland. In fact the summer of 2008 was one of the wettest on record in Ireland and the UK.
And so was my trip to West Cork. The week brought a mixture of rain, drizzle and mist, followed by some heavy downpours. After that we had some more rain, drizzle and mist.
After my third morning waiting for some light but getting soaked instead I decided that it would be a good idea to get another day job. Anything indoors would be nice. Plan B would be to get a hot shower, some breakfast and change my approach to landscape photography for the week.
So I kissed the grand landscapes goodbye and concentrated on other things. Who needs light anyway...

I spent the rest of the week in forests, on beaches and around old fishing boats. The results were not always what I had wanted from this trip or what I needed for the book commission I am working on but it was enjoyable and challenging. My favorite image from these days is the one of Canrooska River near Glengarriff (above). What looks like a pretty straightforward image took me more than 4 hours to make. Working in forests is always a bit tricky and my main problem here was finding a balance between the riverbank, the river and the forest on the other side. After working and trying to make an image in landscape format for 2 hours I gave in and tried working in portrait format. Turned out it I should have done this from the start. I spent 2 more hours fine tuning the composition which included relocating some rhododendron from the foreground. Drastic times require drastic measures.


By the end of the week the weather cleared a bit and I finally was able to make some of the images I had come for. The Caha Mountains under a dramatic layer of cloud with some heavenly shafts of light, a bog lake on Beara, the last light of the day on Healy Pass...


Being a landscape photographer in Ireland can be amazing. It's all about patience and being at the right place at the right time.


C.

Images are Copyright by Carsten Krieger - all rights reserved