I joined the Light, Land, & Sea team of John Dunne & Athena Carey for 2 workshops in Ireland on successive weekends in October 2017….the first one spent in County Kerry followed by a second the following weekend on the Copper Coast in County Waterford. Little did any of us know ahead of time we’d be experiencing a ‘once every 50 years’ weather event as part of the trip. As it turned out, Hurricane Ophelia decided to find her way all the way up to Ireland just as the County Kerry workshop was ending….and Tropical Storm Brian decided to make an appearance the day prior to the start of the County Waterford event. And though neither weather event occurred smack in the middle of either workshop, their arrival/departure made for some challenging conditions nonetheless. As any experienced landscape photographer knows, it’s good to have a plan. Equally important is to have a Plan B in your back pocket. Well, we blew through Plan A, Plan B, and I don’t know how many others. By the time the end of the trip was drawing near, I started looking to see where John & Athena were hiding the hat and all the rabbits stuffed in it because every time I thought we weren’t going to get any shooting in, they pulled another rabbit out of this mysterious hat of theirs and found us a location. And not only did they find a location, the ‘backups’ could all have qualified as Plan A sessions. It was clear they had done their homework for shooting locations. And while the photography is THE big attractor of any such trip, it’s always good to reboot with a good meal and a comfortable place to lay your head when the day’s shooting is done. The various eateries John & Athena took us to were excellent and the B&B’s we stayed at for each workshop were far more than ‘adequate’. Suffice it to say, I lost no weight on this trip. And the sandman had no problems putting me down for the night.
So, would I recommend Ireland as a location for a photographic adventure? In.A.Heartbeat. Iceland seems to be THE ‘in’ place for landscape photography trips these days. But if you replace it’s ‘c’ with an ‘r’, and pay Ireland a visit, you will have had a terrific adventure. The hardest part of shooting in Ireland is traveling from location to location and not giving in to the urge to stop around every other bend in the road to shoot….a castle, a lighthouse, the sea p-o-u-n-d-I-n-g the shoreline, or a gaggle of other possibilities.
Would I also recommend planning your adventure with the Light, Land, & Sea team? Well, I’m an old man, and those heartbeats are starting to get a little precious, but I’ll sacrifice one more and add a second In.A.Heartbeat.