As far west as you can get in West Cork is the Beara Peninsula. A stunningly beautiful, rugged and relatively remote part of Ireland, bounded by Bantry bay to the south and Kenmare “river”/bay to the north. The Slieve Miskish and Caha mountains run down the centre with the latter separating Cork and Kerry for a part. Three inhabited islands, Bere, Dursey and Garinish can be found surrounding the peninsula. Interestingly, Dursey island has Ireland’s only cable car transporting visitors and livestock, yes cows and sheep to and from the island.
The peninsula is full of photographic locations, if you spend the time exploring and don’t mind the drive, especially on the narrow roads. The winding Caha pass near Adrigole, Mare’s Tail waterfall reputably the highest in Ireland, Glanmore Lake, Gleninchiquin Park, Garinish Island and its Italian gardens along with Ireland’s first Martello tower, neolithic stone circles and any number of places along the long coastline. The purpose for my visit this time though was to explore some new locations and to capture an image of what is commonly known as the ‘Beara Bowl’. This unusual geological formation made from the black folding rock strata is found north of Allihies, an area known for its photogenic multi-coloured houses and historic copper mines.
My previous visit to the Beara peninsula was a number of years and despite a positive weather forecast, the conditions turned out to be extremely poor with constant torrential rain, wind and fog thus ensuring that no photographs were taken. On this occasion while the rain held off, the weather was somewhat overcast, but thankfully the sky contained some light and interest. Certainly perfect for the style of image I had in mind. Not being a colour landscape photographer mostly due to the fact that I’m colour blind (perhaps the topic of a blog post some day!), I find that the quality of the light is more important to me that the colour of the light.
The soft mostly diffused evening light together with the low cloud cover over the distant Lambs Head and Dursey Island lends itself to creating the moody image you see below (click on it for the larger sized image). I’m very pleased with the image and feel its the strongest of those I captured at the location. I do think that with different tidal conditions there are other interesting compositions to be had.
More trips to the Beara are planned for later this year where I hope to revisit this location and a number of newly discovered locations. I look forward to sharing what I capture with you here on the website.
