HD on Vimeo

Bealach Na Ba, once the only road into the remote western shores town of Applecross. Now a ‘must ride’ road for those that prefer the two wheeled mode of transport. Think of the road like any country road around Wicklow, except on steroids. Oh and with a perfect surface. Oh and with no cow/sheep/pig shit in the middle of the road just as you carve through a bend at speed. Oh and… You get the idea. I’ll spare you from the ‘if we pay so much road tax, shouldn’t the roads be better’ rant.

Just like the panorama you’ve already seen except not a panorama. Next time we go up here, we’re bringing a picnic. Very entertaining watching the bikes sweep around the hairpin bends, followed by the cars almost having to perform three point turns to get around them. Not long before we started the climb up to the top, we all (six bikes) overtook a vintage truck crawling out of a nearby town. Some time later, and while standing at the top admiring the view, a local passed by in his car informing us there was an old truck coming up the road and if we wanted to ride the rest of the road in style (my words, not his), now was the time to leave. I was quite tempted to hang about and see exactly how someone in a 30ft long truck was planning on negotiating the switchbacks. My guess; Slowly.

So you get down to Applecross eventually and you do what pretty much everyone else does. You go to the Applecross Inn for lunch. The above is taken from the car park of the Inn. Apparently rooms are expensive but from what I can see, they’re worth it. The problem now is that as Bealach Na Ba is the only good way into Applecross, it’s also presumably the only good way out. You can travel back the way you came or as we did, you head north about 13 miles, then east about 11 miles until you get back to an A road.

When we came back to Dublin, I checked the price of land and/or houses in the area. Although I think I’d have to change career; I take it there isn’t much in the way of demand for network engineers up there.

Once in the highlands, you could stop pretty much every five minutes and stare at a brand new landscape that has all the right ingredients. Foreground interest (usually lovely rocks, oh yes) and whopping great hills/mountains in the background. You just can’t go wrong. So like the last trip over in 2010, I end up with a few dozen images to heave into photoshop on my return to Ireland. Slightly less this time actually, mostly because we didn’t actually stop every five minutes and that we’d already done (for my benefit of course) all the majorly tourist spots a couple of years previous.

In an attempt to present something other than a series of squished landscape shots that will have any viewers squinting and straining to see what’s going on, I’ve made all the below clickable. A quick click and as if by magic, a better view. Although unless you’ve got the monitor of the God’s, you’ll be scrolling. Sorry about that.

No, I didn’t remember to bring the Lomo/Diana/other contraption. I’m just messing around. I thought the odd flare + photoshop stitching was worthy of a bit of preset madness.

Somewhere on the way to Fort William. I couldn’t swear where exactly but I have vivid memories of trying to get a decent shot (video) while crossing the bridge to the left of the photo. This was taken at a petrol stop.

Ahh Bealach Na Ba. All those photos I’ve looked at and read various reports of people that had ridden this road. It’s like the ring of Kerry on steroids. It was also surprisingly quiet on our trip up there. Unlike the ring of Kerry, it’s no place for nervous tourists in rental cars. Much of the ‘road’ was only just about wide enough for a very small car. Most of the time the narrow road was paired with a drop of 10+ feet on each side. A road made for bikers if ever there was one. Well, one closer to home than the Alps anyway.

After descending from the madness of Bealach Na Ba, one simply has to stop at the Applecross Inn. Seemingly the only pub in miles and happily serving tasty food and what looked like a tasty local ale. No, I didn’t sample it. This time.

When so far from home, it’d be rude not to ride the rest of the way up the coast. Miles upon miles of perfect tarmac winding its way up through the hills and around lochs. I wouldn’t bet my life on it but I think this was Loch Torridon. Either that or Loch Shieldaig. Either way, the photo doesn’t do it justice.

“If you don’t like the weather in Scotland. Wait five minutes.” However, if like in the photo above you do like the weather in Scotland, you’re going to be pretty miffed in about 4 minutes and 30 seconds time. We saw it all on our trip. Sun, wind, rain, sleet and snow. More on this in later posts.

In Cork two weekends in a row (a rare treat) and the promise was made to seek out some bluebells to photograph. Currabinny woods has nealy always been a good spot, something I believe I pointed out on the morning we were setting out to go and take some photos. Without knowing I’d already jinxed the operation completely. Although there were bluebells, there was nowhere near the amount I’ve seen in previous years. So instead, I contented myself with using the remaining frames on the roll of God knows what that was in the A-1 while Julie tried to make the most of it.

When the film counter rolled past 24 with no sign of it stopping, I imagined that the loaded film (which had been in the camera for months by now) was a lovely roll of black & white. Just the ticket for bluebell photography. So I pretty much rattled off the remainder of the roll. I shot the sky, trees, the ground, Julie, grass, more sky. You get the idea. Having rewound the completed roll, it was a nice surprise to open the camera and find a 36 exposure roll of ‘that expired film’ staring back at me.

My distaste for scanning is intact and as such, expect to see spots, lines, hairs and other foreign bodies lurking in the scanned negatives above. It’s only the very special photos these days that get the full spit polish in lightroom. Again the DSLR sat in the bag and the above is a product of my two (and only) gorgeous lenses for the A-1; the 50 ƒ1.8 and the 135 ƒ2. There is a shopping list but it’s better not to explore that too much in case my bank balance gets wind of it and goes into hiding. Let’s just leave it by saying there’s a couple of ƒ1.2′s on there. Or, if I was feeling extra flush, maybe one of those ƒ0.95′s you don’t really see many of anymore.

I could go on and spitball at length about how my love of the FD lenses has led me onto the notion of selling an unused EF lenses and buying a Sony NEX-5N but then I’d just be waffling. And that wouldn’t be like me…

I’m still pretty much in the testing phases with these drift cameras, their first big trip will be in a couple of weeks time to the highlands.

The above is the first part of the Easter weekend trip to Cork. We took the road to Cork less traveled by riding down to Carlow, into Wexford and onto Waterford before hitting Cork from the east. A surprise attack on a Friday afternoon to get the weekend off to a flying start. The reason for the detour was to get some otherwise pain in the ass photo rally points in the bag, namely the ones in Wexford near New Ross and the slightly less pain in the ass Waterford point just outside Dungarvan. From Dungarvan it was a straight run (via the perfectly twisty main road) to Cork.

As before, until I pay my $60 a year dues to Vimeo, the above embedded video is in bog standard SD. If you want to view it the way nature intended, go to the video page on Vimeo for some HD lovin’.

Part 2 will be along shortly and will be a much less time lapse affair. Off into the wilds of west Cork & Kerry for that one.

It’s a while since I was last down in the War Memorial park taking photos. In fact the last time was probably some time in 2010 on a trip down there with Julie to photograph all the trees shedding their blossom. It’s somewhat appropriate to post this now given that I’ve we’ve gone back on the ol’ running (or at least shuffling along at slightly faster than walking pace). The War Memorial park is one of the top locations for such activities.

So there ya go! War Memorial park. A great location and only down the road too. Couldn’t ask for more. Well, I could, but I won’t just yet.

With the included mounting hardware, I ended up with a camera on the engine bars (more on that later) and one on the side of my helmet. That still left me with oodles of spare hardware, velcro pads and elastic straps to play around with so I’m going to need to come up with a few more mounting locations. The helmet was the winner, video (shot at 720, 60p on both cameras) turned out smooth. The engine bar location, if I decide to reuse it, will need some work. Perhaps a kind of shock mount. Thankfully the cameras have standard tripod mount screws on them so I can spoil myself with the myriad of mounting options out there.

Things I learned
1. I don’t need to check that the camera is still on the side of my head every 5 minutes. The velcro is strong and all the bobbing around to look at the camera in the mirror just screws up the footage.
2. Nodding or generally acknowledging other bikers on the road leads to further footage foul ups. I think I’ll have to adopt the standard European leg waggle. Not that many bikers in Dublin return the salutation these days anyway.
3. Mounting on the engine bar is generally going to be a no-no. There are certain speeds it works beautifully at and if I continue to use that point I need to become aware of those speeds. Otherwise it’s a rolling shutter fest.
4. Syncing footage between two cameras is a bit harder than I previously imagined it would be.

Another interesting thing I learned is that the majority of car drivers behave a lot better when they spot a camera on the side of your head. Some even slowed down to stare.

A note on the music is perhaps required. When I go out on rides like this, I never fail to default to two albums. “Between Two Lungs” and “The House That Dirt Built”. It’s proven to be great back road riding music. So before I get takedown notices from and/or sued by Florence And The Machine and The Heavy I invite you to play the above at the appropriate volume.

Also and somewhat vitally, the above is standard definition but the footage is actually in 720p. I can’t currently do HD embeds from Vimeo because I haven’t paid my dues to them for a ‘plus’ account. ($60 seems a little overkill at the moment and I may just end up using Youtube). So if that kind of thing bothers you and you want to view it as I intended it to be watched, you can get the 720p version on the video page.

Next stop, Austria.

Or “a not so brief description of what I’ve been up to” possibly. Buying and drinking beer apparently. I have also been making it though. This was the fridge a couple of weeks ago after a particularly interesting visit to Sainsbury’s outside Belfast. I’ve tasted about half so far and there’s only one I took an instant dislike to. Yes, it was the Badger. I also took the opportunity to further my home brewing exercise with the purchase of a couple more kits. While doing so I realised that I’ve outgrown kits. It’s all just too straightforward. Boring maybe. Open a can, whack the contents into a bucket. Fill the bucket and stir. 5 weeks later you have somewhat acceptable beer. If I’m going to be going through the motions in the first place, I want a good result. So with that in mind, I’ve decided that once my last kit is out of the fermenter (in a few days time) and half the batch of St Peters Golden Ale I’m currently bottle conditioning is consumed, I’m going all grain. That being, making beer from scratch. As in, here’s a bag of grain and a couple of bags of hops; Now go make some beer. I briefly toyed with the idea of moving from kit brewing to extract brewing but I know I’d only end up a few weeks into that and I’d want to move onto all grain anyway. I’ve already taken the OCD step of building a portable activated charcoal water filter (which, by the way, does a bloody brilliant job on the tap water) so I figure going all grain is the next step.

I did the two kits I wanted to do when I was thinking about getting a homebrew kit. Those being the St. Peters ale and Coopers Irish stout which apparently tastes like stout made from coffee if you make it with dark malt extract, which I did). So next I guess it’ll be scouring the internet for recipes or God forbid, masterminding my own.

Ah but the camera. Or the cameras even. I almost forgot them. I took out my 5D to take the above photo and had to think for a few seconds how to use it. It all came rushing back after taking the first frame however. I find, like many I suppose, I’ve been tending to do most of my photography lately with my iphone. It’s the camera that’s always with you I suppose. I think I just need to throw the X100 into the car. Now that I’ve thought of that, I’ll charge the battery and put it in there tomorrow. There’s been a distinct lack of photowalking so far in 2012. Maybe I just haven’t been aware of any walks that were happening. Either way I need to get my arse in gear and get out with at least one of the cameras. Perhaps that’ll entertain me while I’m busying myself not getting the bike serviced because I know it’s going to cost me a few hundred quid. But roll on August and the trip to the Alps. There I’ll be able to combine all my loves; photography, motorcycling and drinking fine beer. Oh, and Julie of course.

No sooner had we parked up at Ballyteige Castle (that was the rally point) and taken a few photos that I noticed some rather menacing clouds coming our way. Bit of rain, no big deal. No. Horizontal snow/sleet/ice and lots of it. Admitting defeat fairly early on in the snowstorm, we packed up and headed back to Dublin, stopping occasionally to wipe the one inch accumulation of snow off the windscreen of the bike. Fun times.

So we tried again the next day. The weather was significantly better.

Capard ridge trig pillar near Mountmellick. I still don’t have a good understanding of what a trig pillar is or was but I imagine it’s for measurement or performing some kind of calculation. If anyone wants to enlighten me, feel free. This point was reached by a fairly easily traversable muddy path. No fecking about avoiding the huge puddles, just roll on the throttle and power through them. Glad I hadn’t spent a couple of hours the previous week polishing the wheels and engine bars. Oh wait, I did.

The best was yet to come. One that we’d heard was abandoned when the group arrived at it. One that, now that we’ve done it, I’m sure will be abandoned by many who don’t wish to get half of north Tipperary encrusted onto their shiny machines. It’ll be equally abandoned by those who have an overwhelming fear of dropping their bikes.

Monaincha Abbey, just outside Roscrea. Not much to say except ‘holy shit’. Last year the ‘off road offering’ involved getting your bike from a car park on the top of a hill up a dry stony path. The stakes have been well and truly raised this year. If you make it through the first muddy path, through all the puddles, past all the ruts and avoiding the branches that want to smack you in the face when you ride by, you’re in for a treat. Through a gate into a field where the path as you knew it pretty much disappears. Instead you get muddy rut A or muddy rut B. Pretty much nothing to do except put down the power and see if you can keep the bike upright. Then you get to step off the bike and sink down to your ankles. Now this is photo rallying at it’s finest! I was almost tempted to sit at the abbey and wait for someone to turn up on a Goldwing. Yes, us GS owners are a smug lot. Self-entitled too!

I will freely admit to preferring the sweep and camber of a nice bit of bone dry tarmac over a soggy, torn up farmers field any day. This mostly comes from riding into said soggy fields, dropping the bike and realising it’s not that easy to pick back up. My off roading is henceforth to be put on the back burner until such time as I get a bike that weighs about a third of the GS and has knobbly tyres on it. End of story.

From Roscrea, back onto the N roads and toward Carlow. My favorite town in all of Ireland. Oh yes. Sarcasm, me? After trying to get around the road works and truly awful drivers (of which there were many) in the town, we headed to the Carlow/Kilkenny point at Old Leighlin. Time was pressing on so this was a quick one. The locals also seemed to be puzzled at our presence. Someone better tell them to expect hundreds more bikers before the year is out.

The evening was drawing in and our plan (well, my plan) of squeezing in the Wicklow point (near Blessington) before night fall was doomed. Thankfully it’s on a route we regularly take for a Sunday spin anyway, so no harm done. The rest of the journey was spent avoiding nyctalopic idiots driving at 40kph and of course the flurry of people you usually get when out riding that are unusually and unreasonably aggressive towards bikers.

So, 4 points down, 20 to go!

It’s probably as much about the pilgrimage to the end of the world as it is about the photography, but Sheeps Head is one hell of a location. It’s almost always as windy as hell (or as windy as I imagine hell might be on a windy day) down there, soggy or even sinky under foot for at least 30% of the walk and you never really know if one of the animals roaming the headland is going to take an instant dislike to you and formulate some kind of velociraptor styled attack. Having said all that, I wouldn’t change it one bit. If it’s not my favorite location in west Cork for the last few years, it’s certainly in the top three.

As with many of my favorite locations, it did eventually receive the Bronica coverage. PanF+ was the film of choice. This all happened a couple of years ago. Then the film sat on a shelf and greeted the full extent of the morning sun every morning for months. The only reprieve it got was when it was wound clumsily onto a spool, thrust into a tank by a ham-fisted operator (that’ll be me by the way), developed incorrectly (most likely) and hung up to dry in a dusty spare bathroom. So if you see some spots, water marks, hairs and some light leaks in these pictures, you’ll understand how they got there. Having said all that, I still intend on printing at least two of this set. I think it’s got less to do with being happy with the photos because they’re technically good (which they obviously aren’t) and more to do with the location.

Until I actually produce some new images in 2012 (I haven’t picked up the camera at all this year yet), I’m not going to stray too far from safe ground. The safe ground is currently Velvia. Going back over the old images I should have blogged months and sometimes years ago, I found these images from Powerscourt in Wicklow that sat in Lightroom being tweaked and fiddled with every now and then. Velvia has always been, for me at least, quite difficult to get right colour balance wise. Sometimes I hit the nail on the head and replicate exactly what I recall from the day and other times it ends up being too blue, too green or too much like nuclear fallout.

Remembering finer days; Because now that I’ve dusted off the motorbike for 2012, I’d like to see some blue in the sky again. Maybe even temperatures above 4-6 degrees in the middle of the day. I don’t ask much really.

Maybe now that I’ve dusted the bike off, I’ll take the opportunity to blow the dust off at least one camera and actually get out and press the shutter button. Oh and get to west Cork on it (the bike, be surprised if you see me riding around Bantry on a Bronica).