The great thing about a modern digital camera is the ability to capture things that one can hardly see with the naked eye. The picture above was a grab shot, taken just before the clouds obscured the moon completely. I t was taken as I was driving out of Spiddal back towards Galway city. I saw only the moon in my rearview mirror and pulled over. Only after I got out of the car  could I see the faint outline of the fishermen [and I only noticed them because I could hear their voices ]. The picture was taken at ISO1000 with a 100-400mm zoom with a Canon 5D DSLR. The settings were f6.3 and 1/20th of a second. I lost a few seconds setting up the tripod but I wouldn’t have got the shot without it. I used Lightroom 3 to clean up the grain a little (but not much).

2010 has been a very eventful year in Ireland, though most of the ‘events’ have been entirely self-inflicted. Personally, I had a very busy year, so much so that I didn’t get many chances to take pictures, or climb hills. I had my first public exhibition this year – in the Town Hall Theatre in Galway – and only 2 of the 27 pictures had been taken in the last 12 months. I’m hoping that, in 2011, I’ll have more time for photography. In particular, I had a couple of photographic projects planned for 2010 which never happened – hopefully they will go ahead in 2011.

I’m also hoping to do more hill-walking in 2011. I have to confess that I don’t particularly like climbing hills – if there was a way to get fresh air and great views without plodding up boggy, midge-biting hills lugging camera gear, I’d be first in line for a ticket. But until someone installs escalators in the Connemara hills, I’ll have to walk and climb instead. This resolution is already behind schedule (and it isn’t even 2011 yet) – my right ankle is strapped up so I can hardly climb stairs at the moment [it is only a temporary thing].

I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by on the site over the year – I appreciate the support and comments (even if I don’t always get time to respond to them). Thanks to everyone who visited my exhibition in Galway  and a very big thanks to those of you who bought a picture. Thanks also to the crew at the Town Hall Theatre for their help and encouragement and a very special thank you to Deirdre who organized the whole thing – as I said at the opening night, the planning will be good practice for her in organizing our upcoming wedding (provisionally planned for April – see, some planning still to do). I will have another exhibition in February, in the art space in the University Hospital in Galway.

The picture above was taken on Christmas Eve, just before the sun begin to peep above the horizon, and while the moon was still in the sky. The mountain in the foreground is Corcóg, the first of the Maumturk mountains – the rest of the range stretches out behind it. To the right of the picture is Tonalee and the back of Leenaun Hill. It was taken from the top of Lackavrea – a hill I had often photographed (usually from Corcóg) but never climbed. You can see a bigger version here.