Often, nowadays, I feel I’ve just taken all the photos I can in my local area, in almost every possible weather and light conditions and I’m inclined to leave my ‘good camera’ at home when I go out for a walk. But, being me, I still can’t resist taking a few more photos, although I am really not very impressed with the camera on my phone. But here is a selection of some of those photos; some of them show the same places on different days.
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These are my local Ballyferriter Beaches, Dingle Peninsula, in the South West of Ireland.
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Roadside wildflowers. Here is a link to one of my several earlier wildflowers posts
This is Blennerville Windmill, at Tralee Bay, viewed from the bridge leaving Tralee town for the DIngle Peninsula. It’s some time since I showed some photos of the Tralee area, so here is one of my earlier posts, from when I temporarily lived there.
Photos from an evening walk across two of my local beaches – Cúl Dorcha and Béal Bán, in the Ballyferriter region of the beautiful Dingle Peninsula. Not my first photos from these beaches, some of you may notice and probably not the last, but as I have often said, conditions change and the same place can look very different. Light, tides, clouds, wind and water turbulence can all create a very different picture.
On this evening it was quiet and calm on the water surface and the tide was low. I was taken with the way the light was reflecting on the surface of the water and the incoming gentle waves.
This little hut is actually a sauna! How nice to have your own personal sauna beside the beach! I’m amazed that the storms haven’t taken it away.
A look back at the view behind me, as I walked along, showed an entirely different kind of picture, with the light from the opposite direction.
Thanks so much for viewing my photos. Please check out my website for loadsa images of the Ballyferriter area. Also see these earlier posts of Ballyferriter beaches.
Here are some more photos from my garden. They are fairly random, depending on what shows itself to me as I wander about with my camera.
Butterflies always attract my attention; they’re a very attractive subject to capture, although they can be rather shy.
This peacock would either pose with its wings closed or upside down – if it doesn’t fly away! Patience is needed. Often, when I’m in the garden without my camera, the peacock will be posing beautifully; I run in to get my camera and as soon as I return, it flies away. There were times when I was working in the polytunnel and all sorts of butterflies were swarming around the place, even landing on me. I had to fight them off many times!
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The peacock likes this leopard’s bane flower as well as the buddleia.
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Both the peacock butterfly and the tortoiseshell took a liking to spreading themselves on the cut lawn (more like a meadow than a lawn in my garden!)
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A red admiral above, on a buddleia and below is a meadow brown butterfly on a thistle flower.
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This meadow brown is not one of my most frequent visitors
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Sharing a buddleia flower – below.
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I suspect this bee-like creature is one of the many bee mimics that come to my garden.
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In my wild area this wild angelica has appeared with no help from me. There are so many of these umbellifer flowers it’s hard to identify them and sometimes I get it wrong. I’m always open to corrections from my readers.
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Below , the great hairy willow herb has also appeared here this year. I haven’t noticed it in previous years
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The montbretia needs no help from anybody in this area. The roadsides are ablaze with it now and tourists love it but the downside is that it’s one of the most invasive species we have here. I wish I could get rid of it from my garden. It is lovely, but it just takes over. It’s not a native flower, being a hybrid of two African species, I believe.
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One of my favourite wildflowers – meadowsweet. I used to think it had a lovely scent, but I can’t get much of a smell from it now. I’m not sure whether to blame Covid or getting older. I’m actually not aware of having had Covid at all, but I understand it can diminish your sense of smell.
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Loose strife.
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Well, I hope you like my garden images. I’ll have to publish this as soon as possible because I have had enormous trouble saving this post as I have been working on it and have had to re-start it a number of times. On this last attempt all my saved images except the final two insertions just disappeared! I can’t imagine why it has been so problematic on this post. I can tell you my patience was stretched on this. I wonder if anyone else has been experiencing this recently?
Last year I wrote about my WILDFLOWERS FROM A SEED PACKET and posted many photos of the delightful flowers that graced my garden from that seed packet. I really looked forward to those flowers seeding themselves and popping up again this summer. But not everything goes according to plan in a garden, and only a few of those colourful specimens appeared this summer so far. However, it’s not all bad news, because my wildflower area has become populated with these tall white and pink flowers, which I’ve discovered are biennial, and that explains why they didn’t show last year. I believe they came from that seed packet but they would have remained low and leafy last year.
I have identified these flowers as Queen Anne’s Lace. I love the grand display they make, although I have certain concerns about how invasive they might turn out to be in the long term. They certainly seem to have choked out some other smaller species.
But wait – what are those other very similar flowers? Similar, but more delicate. At first I thought they were the same, but close inspection showed me that they are a different variety. I haven’t been able to identify them, but they must also have been from that seed packet.
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This globe above is Queen Anne’s Lace; I think this is before it opens out, although the same ball is formed when the plant goes to seed (below).
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Some close-ups of the flowers, below.
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Another concern of mine is that there appears to be far fewer bees in the garden this year. These umbellifer white flowers do not appear to attract many bees, just lots of flies, including these bee mimics – I suppose they’re all pollinators.
I love this walk, up a hill on one side of Croagh Mharhain. It leads to the site of the village that was built for the set of the film Ryan’s Daughter, released in 1970. I have written and posted photos about this walk a couple of years ago, see here.
Actually I have these photos for a few months now, so they are slightly out of season.
The walk up the hill has wonderful views of the Blasket Islands – when looking behind. I took many photos of the views of the islands, too many of them, in fact. They vary a little, depending on which features of the landscape are included in the composition. It was difficult for me to choose which photos to include here.
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This headland above is Dunmore Head.
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All that remains of this village now is the cobbled street and a few concrete blocks strewn about..
Kirrary was the fictitious name of the village.
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The current inhabitants appear rather shy and timid. They seem extra unfamiliar with humans.
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After one look at me she legged it!
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Another shy one, trying to decide which way to go.
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She’s off!
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The walk takes one through the village site, and over a hilltop, not at the top of the mountain, but a lesser peak. Up here there are wonderful views of familiar coastal landmarks like Sybil Head, Clogher Beach and the Blasket Islands. It’s a great place to stop for a while and look around, and perhaps, like me, take lots of photos.
I could imagine the actors and crew taking their lunch breaks and having picnics up here while enjoying the sights that changed with the weather every day. I think perhaps that they used to say things like – “Hey – didn’t we strike it lucky getting to come here to make a movie!”
Of course the locals struck it lucky too. Local guys that needed the work and the money built the village or got some other job here. Many locals were extras. It was a very exciting time for the people and it’s still talked about. After the film was released it created a big boost to the tourism business in the Dingle Peninsula.
Several more films have been made here since then. The most recent was Star Wars – The Last Jedi. The film set was on the top of Sybil Head, that headland on the photo above. The set was a replica of the stone beehive huts on Skellig Michael, in South Kerry, where they had made The Force Awakens. Due to concerns about the damage to the ancient buildings it was decided to create a life sized replica of the Stone settlement and place it on Sybil Head for their next movie.
The Sleeping Giant, (Inis Tuaisceart), one of the Blasket Island group.
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Slightly different views of the same landscape features, above and below.
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Sybil Head on the right and Clogher Beach to the left.
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A closer view of Sybil Head.
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The Tiaracht Island, which is also one of the Blaskets. There is an amazing lighthouse and associated buildings on the west side of this steep rocky island. But then – I think all Irish lighthouses are amazing!
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Clogher head above.
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Clogher Beach
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Back down the hill again. The sun had moved more to the west, creating a dazzling light on the water and creating a bigger challenge for photo exposure.
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I did need to make some exposure adjustments to different areas of the images.
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Thank you for viewing my post. Enjoy the summer (or winter, down under!) and keep cool in those crazy temperatures that are affecting some of you.
Here is one of many photos I’ve taken of Clogher Beach. This is a summery view – the water is calm and the sea thrift or sea pinks are growing on the left of the picture. Previous photos I’ve posted of this area were taken in different kinds of weather conditions, including some very wild weather. How different it can be!
It really doesn’t seem so long since I posted photos of this walk with the thrift in bloom, but I’ve just found that it was three years ago – see Atlantic Summer I think I got better shots back then. So much depends on the light and weather conditions at the time.
It’s a beautiful coastal walk at anytime.
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The Tiaracht Island and the Island of Inis Tuaisceart (SleepingGiant) are on the horizon.
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Definitely a good year for the thrift!
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Sybil Head, above and below. A rocky headland with a kind of presence! Not surprising that it was used by Lucas Films for one of their Star Wars movies.
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No doubt I will continue to take many walks along these cliffs, but it will be another year before I see the thrift again.
Thank you for viewing. Photos are available through my website. Images (paintings and photos) of the Clogher area on the Dingle Peninsula can be seen here
I just love these long summer evenings. It’s so nice to take a walk and be able to enjoy the warm sun up until after 10.00 pm.
This is probably my most well trodden walk, being very near to home. So of course I have taken many, many photos here – so many, in fact that I often don’t bother to bring my camera with me any more. Then I often regret it!
On this recent occasion, I did have my camera. So here I am at Wine Strand, the place where casks of wine were washed ashore after the Spanish Armada was shipwrecked in 1588 (or so they say!)
It’s a small sandy beach, with large charismatic rocks at the far end. I posted images of these in a previous post Rocks Rule
These images are looking between these rocks towards Mount Brandon.
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Closer views of Mount Brandon.
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From Wine Strand I walked across the small strip of land to the next Beach, known as Cúl Dorcha, meaning something like dark area. Sometimes it’s difficult to make a literal translation and I’m no expert on the Irish language, sadly.
On my way over there i saw these two lovely yachts, moored in the unusually calm water. There was nothing spectacularly different from my previous photos of this area, so I was glad of the little bit of added value provided by the boats.
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Of course I took full advantage, taking far too many shots.
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Now on Cúl Dorcha beach, with another view of Mount Brandon…
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and lots more captures of those boats.
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Moving to the end of this beach, with its sharp little rocks, catching the late evening light.
Now on my way back home, thinking how nice it must be to spend the night on this gentle calm water in this lovely summer weather. I’m a poor sea traveller, so I don’t do sailing.
Thank you for viewing my post. I hope you have enjoyed my evening walk.
Photos like these and others of the Dingle Peninsula are available to browse or purchase from my website: Photos of the Dingle Peninsula
This is my 3rd and final post on Venice, unless, of course, if I return there some day! I mainly want to show the photos that I didn’t show in my previous posts, I don’t have a lot more to say.
A beautiful entrance to a passage. Sotoportego porton dei mori. I’ve been trying to work out what this means. I’ve looked up both the Italian and Latin translations. Sotoportego apparently means passage, but – porton dei mori – could mean something like God’s gate to death, or gate of the Moors. Perhaps someone out there could enlighten me?
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Just looking at some of the details that appear on the walls of the houses and other buildings, some religious, some not.
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This piece of relief artwork was embedded into the side of a building. It looks like it was previously a window.
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This one above is one of the many quiet Campos (Squares) in the less touristy areas, with one of the many Church buildings.
I appreciate your visit, thank you. If you have not seen my two earlier posts on Venice, Please take a look.
Here is my second post on photos of Venice. I had difficulty whittling it down to 30+ photos. I normally don’t like to show more than 20 photos in one post. I’ve tried not to use too many similar looking images, but I’m not sure if I succeeded in that endeavour. There are still several more I may show in one more post, although I don’t have too much more to say about them I just mainly want to show the images.
The Grand Canal
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Just some detail of the beautiful architecture
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Many of the buildings bear some little bit of surprising detail, like the image above. Religious images are common, but not all are religious
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Before my trip I had read that there are no seats in Venice. They like people to keep moving and not sitting down eating and probably feeding the pigeons etc. That must be very hard on some people I thought. Of course you can go into expensive restaurants and sit there. I was then pleasantly surprised to find that in these squares or Campos that aren’t in the most crowded areas there are seats and you can eat your sandwich and drink your flask of coffee without getting arrested!
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I really must comment on the bridges. Most, if not all of Venice bridges have steps and I saw only one that had a ramp along one side. I saw a lot of parents with buggies (push chairs, go-karts), having to drag them up the steps on these bridges. Tourists have heavy suitcases with wheels and there are people – tourists and locals alike, who may not be as mobile as they would like to be, with dodgy aging knees etc. It’s tough on elderly people who have been walking around sightseeing all day. Also local people would often be moving goods around with those stair climbing trolleys. How much easier it would be for everyone if all the bridges were fitted with ramps, like the one I did see. Surely – with all that tourist money they could manage that?
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I took a lot of these photos looking down these narrow streets. Sometimes they give an interesting composition.
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So – until next time! Thanks so much for your visit. Please come back again. My Photos of Venice are available to view or purchase from my website: https://www.helene-brennan.com/c869-italy
I feel I am probably one of the last people I know to visit Venice. I read many years ago that Venice was in a sad state of decay, and I knew I would have to get there before it disappeared. Thankfully, its demise is not as rapid as I thought from reading that item. I’m happy to say that I finally did go there for a few days recently.
My intention here was to capture this amazing place with my camera, trying to be just as sympathetic to the decay and damp, as to the splendour and elegance of the buildings and architecture – to capture it just as it is.
As everybody knows Venice is a really unique place and is built on compacted silt and wood, around a system of sea canals, with boats being the only transport around the city . I’m so impressed that these buildings have stood for hundreds of years.
The first people settled on this place around the 6th century AD. Their buildings were made of wood and reeds. Wooden poles were driven deep into the silt and sand to the hard clay deep below, and wooden platforms were created to take the weight of buildings on top. A few hundred years later they started to construct heavy stone buildings. More timber poles (piles) were driven deep down to take the heavy weight. The timber poles do not rot, but with immersion in salt water and no exposure to oxygen, they are preserved and even harden like stone. Stone was laid on top of the timber to create the foundation for the heavy buildings.
The Grand Canal
I have noticed that many buildings appear to be leaning. Indeed it is a fact that Venice is sinking slowly, and it appears that some buildings sink more on one side. The vertical lines of the buildings are not parallel, and this presents a bit of a challenge for the photographer.
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Gondola workshops.
I understand that a new gondola can cost at least €40,000 +
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The Bridge of Sighs
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I was totally impressed with this amazing building – such splendour, such opulence, such a creation and – such extravagance!.
I loved the beautiful marble tiles on the walls, each with a different colour and pattern. The detail over the whole building is mind boggling.
I must be the only visitor to St Mark’s Basilica who didn’t get an image of at least most of the building. I also didn’t go inside. I was intending to get a guided tour that passes the queue, but it just didn’t happen this time – a good reason to go back again….
However, at home I remembered I had some ancient photos, some of them are photos of Venice. A couple of them bear the name of the photographer P. Salviati. Here is a hand tinted old photo of St. Mark’s, I guess it was also taken by Salviati, but I don’t know for sure because this one had no name. My research tells me that Paolo Salviati lived from 1818 – 1894
Below is Doge’s Palace, the Palazzo Ducale. There was a lot of scaffolding on it so I’m just showing this little bit I captured without scaffolding.
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Rising damp usually affects the lower meter or so of a building, but many Venetian buildings appear to have damp walls rising to two or more meters. I would like to know about the type of damp courses they might have used – if any. But the problem here is that not only is there a rising sea level, but Venice floods about 100 times in winter, with rising and falling tides being affected by weather and climate change. The highest flood was, I think, a couple of years ago and that reached nearly 2 meters. Any damp course in a building would have been breached and the walls impregnated with salt. My lay-person’s head thinks that this salt in the fabric of a building would continue to attract moisture from the atmosphere and rainwater too. Most of the buildings are in a significant state of decay, with remedial work ongoing.
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A floating market.
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I enjoyed capturing the images looking down the very narrow streets, some of them less than a metre wide.
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The Rialto Bridge
This is the most famous bridge in Venice, also the most crowded. It was difficult to get a shot near the bridge. Also, on the bridge it was almost impossible to get an unobstructed view down the Grand Canal, with so many people taking their selfies etc. This was April, I dread to think what it’s like mid-summer.
I have so many more photos I will have to show them in another one or two posts. Thank you for your visit, I hope you have enjoyed my photos and that you will come back for the next posts.
helenebrennan 