Artist Statement
I like to capture Ireland’s pristine and vibrant land- and seascapes the way I see and feel them. To achieve that, I use two or three exposures, taken of the same scene and angle within seconds of each other, and blend them together in post-processing. My aim is to create the natural look our human eyes can see, that even the best camera can’t accomplish on its own. I use MEB as
a tool and not as an effect to prevent
its typical halos, over-worked, over-saturated and
depth-less looks. While using editing software, such
as Photoshop, to enhance my images as described
above, I do not use it to manipulate the scenery
captured in the photo. I want to display Ireland the
way it really is and not an illusion of several locations “photoshopped together” to create one fabricated scene. If the place is missing an interesting fore- or background I simply move around until I find a good viewpoint, instead of copying trees, skies, lakes, etc. from other images. I always publish the locations I photograph, and I know that when people go to those areas they will find the exact same mountains, lakes and rocks that appear in my pictures. Shooting long exposures enables me to create a sense of gentle movement within a static photograph. It also adds a calming ambience to the scene. The most important thing for me is to get the light
to be just right. It is not uncommon for me to set
up the camera and wait for several hours until the
position of the sun, the length of the shadows and
the colours are exactly what I had envisioned. And
if that doesn’t happen that day, I will come back
another time. When I am on a photo trip I only cover a very small
area at a time, so that I can focus on one or two
particular locations for as long as it takes me to
capture them, rather than spending a lot of time
in the car and only getting snap shots before it’s
time to go to the next location. Sometimes I might
get lucky and shoot about three good photos in
one session, but usually it takes me an average of
six hours on location and up to three attempts to
capture just one image that I will proudly exhibit in
my gallery.
