D Kilfeather Photography

“Just a sandy wind-swept island!”

What more would you have it be,

With a turquoise sky above it,

Around it a sapphire sea?

A low grey sky, a purple moor,

A sullen surf, a beaten shore,

A glint of gold at the far sea-line,

A glimpse of heaven – your hand in mine.

~ Mary Starbuck ( circa 1911) Nantucket

As I find myself organising Summer 2012 I am increasingly aware of the dearth of pictures from summer 2011…apologies to all family members…situation now amended. I procrastinated in an effort to only work on the perfectly composed and most visually pleasing images…oh Doreen, for God’s sake just show us the pictures…so here they are…gloriously haphazard, some overworked, some underworked, some completely without any artistic qualities at all (Tony?…I didn’t say Tony!)…but all of them full of the life and the fun that filled the days on that beautiful island they call The Grey Lady.

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The music was always there in my head. Even when taking the pictures, in the wilds of Connemara last summer, I knew this was the song. Play it loud and don’t be afraid to let out the odd whoop or two – It kind of has that effect on one – it brings to mind these words below. By the by, these images were taken within a radius of only 15 miles of each other and over only two days. But such is the diverse nature of the spectacular wild and rugged  grandeur that is the West of Ireland. A white sandy beach with azure blue water lies not 4 miles away from a craggy wind blown rocky outcrop, onto which banks a grassy stretch of land which when bathed in evening sun looks something more akin to a prairie…and in between lies the most glorious expanse of wild and lonely bog road….which, strangely enough, is called…The Bog Road. Now there indeed is a place that one could go wild with a camera…anyone fancy joining me on the old bog road next summer? Now then…about that poem…

“Irish Poets, earn your trade,

Sing whatever is well made…

Cast your mind on other days

That we in coming days may be

Still the indomitable Irishry”

~ WB Yeats

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(Note: music might not be long enough for all the images so you may need to allow the song to play through twice in order to view all the images). Enjoy!

When it comes to this boy words either fail me…or there are too many! He never features as much as his sister in the photography department. He never allows it. Until this summer. Something in him just opened up, chilled out, steadied…I don’t know…but the outcome led to some truly rewarding shots. He’s a straight talking, tell it like it is kinda kid…and for that reason there’s nothing feigned here. He has an ability to ignore the camera, as well as everybody else if it suits him. There’s an inner light burning, burning, burning…a tremendous freedom of spirit about him…an outside the boxness about him…he exasperates, confounds and demands but equally entertains, amuses and illuminates the days. So baring this in mind about the boy, and given that these pictures were taken in the land of the free, and home of the brave…how could I not think of Jack Kerouac.

“[...] the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”    ~ Jack Kerouac  {On The Road}

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OK – so the parents of these two little ladies are possibly the most well informed music heads I know – they seriously know their ‘toons! So I trawled through my own music library, picked the brains of friendly music officionados and musically left no stone unturned. Still nothing seemed…right. Songs were too short, too long, too romantic, too twee, too rock, too country (although nothing can be too country for me). Then there was the question of taste…maybe they can’t stand jazz, maybe they have an aversion to all things folksy…holy cow, the possibilities and the limitations were equally endless. What to do! And then I heard this song…totally sentimental, utterly uncool and more than a little schmaltzy…but somehow…when you listen to the words…it works. Enjoy!

(Note: the music is not long enough for the images in the slideshow, so you’ll need to allow the song to play through twice in order to view all the images). Enjoy!

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May has to be one of my favourite months. Everything is flourishing in crazy abundance and the promise of three more months of long days and no school is too good to keep the smile from one’s face. This time last year, almost to the day, the weather took a turn for the best. So again this year we headed for the park, armed with picnic, dog and camera. I noticed how this wall of purple Wisteria was almost identical to how it had been last year. So for comparisons sake I tried to replicate a picture I took last year. The first one in this series is from  this year, and the final picture  is from last year. What a difference a year makes!

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