Author: Oliver Nares

It's all about photographs.....

Exhibition update

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It all seems to be happening so suddenly now! Tomorrow (Friday June 17) at 6.00 is the opening at Working Artist Studios in Ballydehob. It runs until July 8. There are 21 framed prints, mostly 12″ x 18″, and 21 unframed prints at 10″ x 15″, all part of a limited edition of 50 of each image. There is also a slideshow running on a computer monitor showing images of the musicians at work, accompanied by recordings from some of the sessions.

Exhibition

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Not only have I put my head over the parapet but I seem to have jumped…… Pól and Marie at Working Artist Studios in Ballydehob have given me a three week slot, starting June 17th, to show some of this series of images.
They came about because my wife, Susie, was a member of a collective of free improvising musicians. They would meet once a month with absolutely no preconceived ideas about what they would create. It was all about listening to one another and going with the music that would emerge. A small group of artists, and occasionally a dancer, would come along to be inspired by the music. I took my camera and because the lighting was generally too low for conventional photographs of the musicians I decided to try to capture the music as an image. A selection of these will be on display in the gallery.

The grass is greener?

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We always think of Ireland as the “Emerald Isle” and not without good reason. However, those beautiful green grasses can, at this time of year, turn a spectacular gold.

The first photo was local to us at Derryconnell. The next two were taken this week in the Borlin Valley on our way up to Tralee.

An excursion along the Dingle peninsula took in some beehive dwellings…

… and some rather spectacular sunbeams viewed from the long beach at Inch.

A New Year

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Over the last few months I have been trawling through the thousands of images on my hard drive and publishing some of those that I find interesting. As we enter a new year I find that I am beginning to “scrape the barrel” for a regular weekly post with a theme of some sort! I’m going to start this year with a different approach (which may or may not work) and post at random intervals when I find something I would like to share.

Over Christmas we had family visiting from UK and USA. We went for a walk at Three Castle Head on a stormy day – it is an amazing place, steeped in history.

The grass around the base of the castles was blown into patterns resembling both tree roots and wave forms.

A good day out…

Some colour for a grey day

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On a dull grey day like today, I thought it would be an idea to add a bit of colour to brighten things up!

Horrific as it is to find such concentrations of plastic waste washed up on a beach, I couldn’t help being drawn to the vibrant colours….
The “Dumping Strictly Prohibited” sign has somehow become incorporated into the offerings left on this wishing tree in Connemara.
Adding graffiti to a wall in Prague.
A lovely selection of produce in a store in Brooklyn.
In Hegarty’s Boatyard on the River Ilen, “Cally Marie” in need of a lot of work.
An outhouse door in Kerry.

Water

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Water is the thing that this group of otherwise unrelated photos have in common. Sometimes still, sometimes flowing, sometimes frozen…..

The frost on the grass stems looks almost like flower heads and the shard of ice is intensifying the coppery colours from the bottom of the pool.
A very hard frost in the New Forest at dawn.
This water was cascading down a weedy rock surface. A lot of motion blur but such rich colours.
More cascading water – this time it’s the Roaringwater River which flows into Roaringwater Bay.
Out in Roaringwater Bay, a view of Kilcoe Castle that you can only get if you have a boat….
In Union Hall on a very still night.

Visualising the music

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I have another batch of photos of musicians creating music. As in previous posts, my intention was to try to capture the feel of the music in a visual format.

This last one could do with some explanation. Adrian was using a specialist input device (a grid of square keys, each with its own programmable function) to generate some very unusual sounds in his computer……

Skies

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I have a few shots of the sky doing wonderful things. They could fit into several categories so I’ve placed them together here…..

These mammatus clouds formed over our farm in Dorset one evening – it felt almost apocalyptic!
A dawn display over snow clad Snowdonia, viewed from the southern end of Holy Island, Angelsey.
This was a peculiar combination of moonlight and sunset afterglow, again at our farm in Dorset.
The rainbow seems like a giant glass bowl inverted over our house, here in West Cork.

The Solent shore

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We used to live near the coast on the Hampshire/Dorset border. Our local beaches were on the western approach to the Solent, the body of water between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. It is a varied shoreline, beautiful for walks and full of visual treats.

On a rare wind free day the diminishing salt marsh catches the evening sun. This valuable and diminishing habitat is under threat from human activity and rising sea levels. Once gone it can’t be replaced.
That is more salt marsh on the left but it was the seaweed caught on the barbed wire that grabbed my attention.
There is always evidence of human activity….
….but the sea usually wins in the end.
The smooth round “boulders” in these last two shots are washed out of the clay based cliffs along the beach. They normally become buried in the sand but, after a storm, the sands can shift and leave them exposed. They look a bit like an army of turtles swarming up the beach!

Nature taking over

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When we abandon or neglect the structures we have created, nature will inevitable reclaim them. This process has a fascination that combines the beauty of the original man made and exuberance of the incoming vegetation.

The ivy on this house in Co Clare reminds me of an unkempt beard.
The mossy trees here look like they are about to march through the ruined cottage.
In this example the ivy looks like it is wrapping the house in a warm blanket.
Here, the vegetation looks like a river in spate, crashing through the old gates.
This elegant window is in the walled garden at Bantry House is a building where plants would once have been prepared for the big gardens.
Lastly, I have an example of a case where nature didn’t eventually win, at least not for the time being. It is the house we bought in 2014 and have now renovated. It is a joy to live in it.