Twelve from 2022
30th December 2022
It’s been a long time since I put together a best of the year blog, and after an absence of over twelve months from my own website this is just the kind of easy piece to return with. The second half of that sentence sums up my 2022 from a photography point of view. After finishing up my Bliain project last year I was pretty glad to have a break from the camera. Forcing myself to make a photo every day for 365 days straight was no easy feat, and more than a year later I’m still waiting for my motivation to return. In truth, I’ve been lacking inspiration in life in general. Photography for me was always a joyous thing, based in a sense of wonder and excitement about the places and moments I aimed my camera at. Those positive feelings have been noticeably infrequent these past few years. Stubbornness, much more than passion, got me to the end of the Bliain project. But with no self-imposed photography promises to keep this year the cameras have seen relatively little action.
That said, there are good things to look back on. Two long-standing book projects came to completion this year – Ireland’s Islands, and Exploring Ireland. Both were much delayed by the pandemic, despite being close to completion for a long time. And then seemingly all of a sudden both were published within five weeks of one another earlier this winter. And I do have a few photographs from 2022 that I’m happy with. I’ve picked one from each month to present here, though if I reread this in years to come I can imagine wondering why I bothered with such an arbitrary selection process; I did so little photography some months that a few of these images are here only to satisfy a strange loyalty to that capricious idea, not because they’re any good.
And on that cantankerous note, here are my twelve from 2022!
January
An abstract scene from a calm morning at Loch a’ Dúin. The spectacular sunrise I hoped for never materialised so I ended up zoning in on the smaller details and enjoyed it. The results aren’t all that special, but the process was absorbing. Which is arguably more important, at least to me, if not the viewer.
February
A shorebird working the tideline at Ocean Beach, San Francisco. I took a last minute trip to California in late February, and though it could be from anywhere adjacent to an ocean, this is one of my favourite photos from that visit.
March
Another abstract image, this time from Mount Brandon. At the tail end of an unusually mild winter a brief cold spell cloaked the upper slopes of my local mountain in snow for a day or two. It was my only snowy trip to the hills all year, and I spent much of it with my head down looking for patterns in the ground. Snow is a magical thing to photograph and be out in, all the more so in Ireland because of how rare it is here.
April
The month of April had me back to my seasonal summer work, and it started well. Basking sharks were plentiful around the Blaskets this spring, and having missed their seasonal influx for the last two years due to covid lockdowns it was nice to see them so regularly again. I made this drone image in the Blasket Sound. The boat is 43ft long. And this wasn’t the biggest shark around during those few weeks.
May
I had to resort to a photo from my phone for May’s entry, such was the dearth of ‘real’ photography I did in that month. But it’s quite a nice scene in fairness. Below and right is a small ash tree I was gifted early in the year. It was the first of about a dozen little replanted saplings to come into leaf, and judging by the lush greens and wildflowers in the scene it landed in a decent spot. I’m hoping it won’t be affected by ash dieback, and that I can enjoy seeing it as a decent sized tree in time to come.
June
Some brilliant blubbery action from an overcast evening off the Kerry coast. It’s not often that moments like these offer a clean composition. I have countless similar photos where one or more of the highly dynamic elements of the image is either ‘out of place’ or out of focus. There’s so much outside of your control at times like this. The chances of multiple different animals arranging themselves in a balanced way in the frame are slim at best, and that fact combined with the difficulties of predicting their behaviour in the first place, and keeping a camera steady while floating on the ever-shifting sea means even the best photographers often come home with few uncluttered compositions. That none of the birds here are overlapping one another, at the same time that two humpbacks surfaced between my camera (in a small, moving boat) and Skellig Michael on the opposite horizon feels like a very fortuitous aligning of the stars.
July
Some mountain magic for July. This was the view to the southwest on a particularly stunning evening on Mount Brandon. A low fog had blanketed much of the lowlands but the higher hills were clear, offering an overview of the mystical scenes. It's hard to make out if you're looking on a small phone screen, but the white farmhouse that's visible left of centre makes this one for me, adding a sense of scale to the scene.
August
Moonset over An Tiaracht. I could be waiting an awfully long time before seeing this kind of thing again. To get totally clear horizons in the west of Ireland is a rare thing, and to get them coinciding with an astronomical event that happens to line up with an iconic landmark is rarer still. There’s no great skill in making this kind of photograph, just good luck. But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy with it. And I wasn’t the only one making use of the exceptional conditions – check out Cian Ryan’s photo from a little further south along the coast. Certainly one of the best photographs I've seen this year.
September
This year saw the devastation of many gannet colonies in the northeast Atlantic thanks to a new strain of avian flu. Far from being a naturally occurring event, this particular disease originated in the mid 90s in an overcrowded poultry farm, and has since caused the deaths of an incalculable number of wild birds (sound familiar?) Though this new variant arrived in Ireland a little later than elsewhere, it still took a toll here, with a depressing number of dead gannets seen at sea and washed up on our shores through the late summer and early autumn. It felt especially heartening then to see good numbers of seemingly fit and healthy birds fishing in Dingle Bay through much of September. The gannets (and lots of other marine animals) show up as shoals of sprat move inshore at this time of year, and despite this new threat to their populations I don’t think I ever saw such big flocks of these fine birds for so many consecutive days in any other of my ten years of working on wildlife tour boats.
October
Easily the most conventional ‘landscape photography’ photograph in this list, but I still quite like it. I’ve not seen many holly trees as magnificent as this one, and it sits nicely in view of one of my favourite mountains. I have to thank Alan Cronin for this image, because this composition was his find, not mine. Took me five years to get around to it, but I finally made my own version. I always feel a bit strange about shooting compositions that other people have discovered. Obviously we all do it to some extent, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting your own photograph of a frame that works. But at times it feels too much like plagiarism to me. I think that’s because, for me, the best kind of landscape photography involves getting immersed in an area and the eureka moment of finding an arrangement of features that combine to make a pleasing scene. Just rocking up to somewhere already knowing what you’re going to photograph takes some of the magic out of it for me. Of course there’s still the critical ingredient of good light to contend with, and chasing that elusive element can be very rewarding too. It’s not realistic to expect to be able to find new compositions and amazing light every time you head out. So I’ll cut myself some slack and try to be content with having a little help with this one.
November
Probably my favourite of my own photographs from 2022. Though yet again there’s a catch. I robbed this composition too, this time from Thomas Greenaway. A few days previous to this I headed out for a walk with Thomas, who wanted to film this brilliant scene. It’s an inspired idea, rewarded after his many trips scouting this particular stretch of coast. It therefore feels like cheating to me to have come along a few days later and made this photograph. I really like it. And that only increases my sense of feeling like I don’t quite deserve it. Thomas did the work that led me to end up making this photo, and having not gone on that journey of discovery myself this image feels a little shallow. Maybe that sounds like nonsense to other photographers out there, but this is how my head works. Originality in creative endeavours is far more important to me than technical mastery. I realise that many people think differently, and that’s ok too. But I do think it’s basic good manners to credit other photographers when you photograph a scene they put the work in to find. It’s not uncommon on social media to see repeat images of novel compositions pop up within days of the original photo being published. It’s less common that the first photographer gets credited. A first world problem if ever there was one, but it’s never a bad thing to be courteous.
December
Another long lens lunar landscape to close out the year (yes, I realise that alliteration is enough to make ‘real’ writers want to puke, but I enjoyed it). I almost walked away from this scene when the cloud seemed to close in before moonrise, but I’m glad to have been wrong. I actually prefer this to how it might have looked with a totally clear sky. Landscape photographers famously dislike blue-sky days because clouds can add so much texture, colour and extra interest to a scene. Though that idea is generally spoken about in terms of sunrises and sunsets, it’s no different with the moon involved; it just makes things so much more of a lottery. The beauty lies in the fact that wins mean all the more when the odds are against you. Now if I could only apply that sentiment every time an early alarm rings and I hit snooze instead of heading out for sunrise...
Thanks to everybody who engaged with my photography this year. Though I’m feeling quite disconnected from it, I still very much appreciate the kind words and constructive comments, the book reviews and print sales, the times spent chasing some magic with other photographers, and the bizarre fact that this thing I was doing anyway has become something that brings in money to help pay the bills.
I hope you all have a peaceful and meaningful new year.
That said, there are good things to look back on. Two long-standing book projects came to completion this year – Ireland’s Islands, and Exploring Ireland. Both were much delayed by the pandemic, despite being close to completion for a long time. And then seemingly all of a sudden both were published within five weeks of one another earlier this winter. And I do have a few photographs from 2022 that I’m happy with. I’ve picked one from each month to present here, though if I reread this in years to come I can imagine wondering why I bothered with such an arbitrary selection process; I did so little photography some months that a few of these images are here only to satisfy a strange loyalty to that capricious idea, not because they’re any good.
And on that cantankerous note, here are my twelve from 2022!
January
An abstract scene from a calm morning at Loch a’ Dúin. The spectacular sunrise I hoped for never materialised so I ended up zoning in on the smaller details and enjoyed it. The results aren’t all that special, but the process was absorbing. Which is arguably more important, at least to me, if not the viewer.
February
A shorebird working the tideline at Ocean Beach, San Francisco. I took a last minute trip to California in late February, and though it could be from anywhere adjacent to an ocean, this is one of my favourite photos from that visit.
March
Another abstract image, this time from Mount Brandon. At the tail end of an unusually mild winter a brief cold spell cloaked the upper slopes of my local mountain in snow for a day or two. It was my only snowy trip to the hills all year, and I spent much of it with my head down looking for patterns in the ground. Snow is a magical thing to photograph and be out in, all the more so in Ireland because of how rare it is here.
April
The month of April had me back to my seasonal summer work, and it started well. Basking sharks were plentiful around the Blaskets this spring, and having missed their seasonal influx for the last two years due to covid lockdowns it was nice to see them so regularly again. I made this drone image in the Blasket Sound. The boat is 43ft long. And this wasn’t the biggest shark around during those few weeks.
May
I had to resort to a photo from my phone for May’s entry, such was the dearth of ‘real’ photography I did in that month. But it’s quite a nice scene in fairness. Below and right is a small ash tree I was gifted early in the year. It was the first of about a dozen little replanted saplings to come into leaf, and judging by the lush greens and wildflowers in the scene it landed in a decent spot. I’m hoping it won’t be affected by ash dieback, and that I can enjoy seeing it as a decent sized tree in time to come.
June
Some brilliant blubbery action from an overcast evening off the Kerry coast. It’s not often that moments like these offer a clean composition. I have countless similar photos where one or more of the highly dynamic elements of the image is either ‘out of place’ or out of focus. There’s so much outside of your control at times like this. The chances of multiple different animals arranging themselves in a balanced way in the frame are slim at best, and that fact combined with the difficulties of predicting their behaviour in the first place, and keeping a camera steady while floating on the ever-shifting sea means even the best photographers often come home with few uncluttered compositions. That none of the birds here are overlapping one another, at the same time that two humpbacks surfaced between my camera (in a small, moving boat) and Skellig Michael on the opposite horizon feels like a very fortuitous aligning of the stars.
July
Some mountain magic for July. This was the view to the southwest on a particularly stunning evening on Mount Brandon. A low fog had blanketed much of the lowlands but the higher hills were clear, offering an overview of the mystical scenes. It's hard to make out if you're looking on a small phone screen, but the white farmhouse that's visible left of centre makes this one for me, adding a sense of scale to the scene.
August
Moonset over An Tiaracht. I could be waiting an awfully long time before seeing this kind of thing again. To get totally clear horizons in the west of Ireland is a rare thing, and to get them coinciding with an astronomical event that happens to line up with an iconic landmark is rarer still. There’s no great skill in making this kind of photograph, just good luck. But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy with it. And I wasn’t the only one making use of the exceptional conditions – check out Cian Ryan’s photo from a little further south along the coast. Certainly one of the best photographs I've seen this year.
September
This year saw the devastation of many gannet colonies in the northeast Atlantic thanks to a new strain of avian flu. Far from being a naturally occurring event, this particular disease originated in the mid 90s in an overcrowded poultry farm, and has since caused the deaths of an incalculable number of wild birds (sound familiar?) Though this new variant arrived in Ireland a little later than elsewhere, it still took a toll here, with a depressing number of dead gannets seen at sea and washed up on our shores through the late summer and early autumn. It felt especially heartening then to see good numbers of seemingly fit and healthy birds fishing in Dingle Bay through much of September. The gannets (and lots of other marine animals) show up as shoals of sprat move inshore at this time of year, and despite this new threat to their populations I don’t think I ever saw such big flocks of these fine birds for so many consecutive days in any other of my ten years of working on wildlife tour boats.
October
Easily the most conventional ‘landscape photography’ photograph in this list, but I still quite like it. I’ve not seen many holly trees as magnificent as this one, and it sits nicely in view of one of my favourite mountains. I have to thank Alan Cronin for this image, because this composition was his find, not mine. Took me five years to get around to it, but I finally made my own version. I always feel a bit strange about shooting compositions that other people have discovered. Obviously we all do it to some extent, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting your own photograph of a frame that works. But at times it feels too much like plagiarism to me. I think that’s because, for me, the best kind of landscape photography involves getting immersed in an area and the eureka moment of finding an arrangement of features that combine to make a pleasing scene. Just rocking up to somewhere already knowing what you’re going to photograph takes some of the magic out of it for me. Of course there’s still the critical ingredient of good light to contend with, and chasing that elusive element can be very rewarding too. It’s not realistic to expect to be able to find new compositions and amazing light every time you head out. So I’ll cut myself some slack and try to be content with having a little help with this one.
November
Probably my favourite of my own photographs from 2022. Though yet again there’s a catch. I robbed this composition too, this time from Thomas Greenaway. A few days previous to this I headed out for a walk with Thomas, who wanted to film this brilliant scene. It’s an inspired idea, rewarded after his many trips scouting this particular stretch of coast. It therefore feels like cheating to me to have come along a few days later and made this photograph. I really like it. And that only increases my sense of feeling like I don’t quite deserve it. Thomas did the work that led me to end up making this photo, and having not gone on that journey of discovery myself this image feels a little shallow. Maybe that sounds like nonsense to other photographers out there, but this is how my head works. Originality in creative endeavours is far more important to me than technical mastery. I realise that many people think differently, and that’s ok too. But I do think it’s basic good manners to credit other photographers when you photograph a scene they put the work in to find. It’s not uncommon on social media to see repeat images of novel compositions pop up within days of the original photo being published. It’s less common that the first photographer gets credited. A first world problem if ever there was one, but it’s never a bad thing to be courteous.
December
Another long lens lunar landscape to close out the year (yes, I realise that alliteration is enough to make ‘real’ writers want to puke, but I enjoyed it). I almost walked away from this scene when the cloud seemed to close in before moonrise, but I’m glad to have been wrong. I actually prefer this to how it might have looked with a totally clear sky. Landscape photographers famously dislike blue-sky days because clouds can add so much texture, colour and extra interest to a scene. Though that idea is generally spoken about in terms of sunrises and sunsets, it’s no different with the moon involved; it just makes things so much more of a lottery. The beauty lies in the fact that wins mean all the more when the odds are against you. Now if I could only apply that sentiment every time an early alarm rings and I hit snooze instead of heading out for sunrise...
Thanks to everybody who engaged with my photography this year. Though I’m feeling quite disconnected from it, I still very much appreciate the kind words and constructive comments, the book reviews and print sales, the times spent chasing some magic with other photographers, and the bizarre fact that this thing I was doing anyway has become something that brings in money to help pay the bills.
I hope you all have a peaceful and meaningful new year.
Comments
By Jasmine: Lovely photos and words rich, as per usual! Some great shots in there! Happy new year x By Marie Silard: Beautiful photos and I enjoyed the commentary. Thank you for sharing. By Suzanne Byrne: Fabulous photographs and compelling narratives. My favourites are January and August. By Helen Lawless: Enjoyed the photos and the commentary, thank you! I received a copy of Ireland's Islands for Christmas, a lovely book, which will prompt an island visit in 2023, best wishes for the year ahead! By Bridget: My favourites are January ( which is like mid-air writing), May, June. I also got your Ireland’s Islands books for Christmas, and I’m loving the stories and history as much as the photos. My favourite there is the sea arch at Pointe na Boilge. You’re a great writer as well as a photographer.