To watch from a distance
the world settle in for its night
from a bank high up under the Skye Road
where I can make out
comforting lights in windows
cars in their driveways
and the beam of a lighthouse …
Solstice on Skye Road
Day in the life
Last of May, 2017.
One camera, one roll of film, one day: get objective on the reality of being me, here, now, today
Canon F1n, Fuji 200 35mm film. Mostly on 35mm f2 and 50mm f1.4 lenses, with 1 shot …
Short Story: A Fairy Gust
***page title image: Ejiri in the Province of Suruga, by Katsushika Hokusai (1832)***
“A fairy gust,” said the mother to herself in the kitchen.
It had come flung from the Atlantic, down through the low mountains and into the narrow …
Photo Essay: CCAFS-NUI Galway International Conference
Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security – where is the cutting edge?
March 24th, NUI Galway
What is CCAFS? In their own words, “The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) will address the increasing challenge …
Dispatches: How a dog can change the houses along the road
I stick the Hasselblad in one of the pannier bags mounted on the old blue Giant racer, and the tripod in the other. Then I head off a bit aimlessly. Left back the Glann road towards the hill of Doon …
Dispatches, February 2017
I’ve just left Temple Cafe in the Corn Store, and their grilled chicken sandwich on sourdough bread. Two old ladies, walking slowly in conversation along St Augustine Street. A man on the opposite side of the street, going the other …
Short Story: The Suitcase
The Suitcase
“Frankie, you’re for the birds”
Frankie sighed and looked at his watch again.
Annie sat by the range on the well worn couch.
“Not now Mike; give it a rest.”
But they let Mike go on as they …
Poem: Breaking News
This poem is called Breaking News
This is it guys
It’s happening
Clear the decks
This is breaking
I want pictures
Get the victim names
Find them on Facebook
Cross reference with LinkedIn:
We need names, faces, stories, now
Quick …
Hundred Year Ago
“Proclamayssion two yuuroos! Proclamyssion only two yurooos!”
The proclamations are mostly in the plastic bag, but a few are held up to passers by. Outside the G.P.O., under the narrow pin of the Spire, on the wide, fast food epicentre …
A Tuesday
One day, one camera, one roll of film. Point it at yourself. Try to make it an eye in the sky, a documenter of who you are and where you are and what’s going on one randomly selected day. Dig …
Poem: Notifications (5)
The body it waits, all tensed up
For the next sudden ping,
[New message]
And from the top of the stomach,
When it hits,
Nerves spark and jitter.
The body is wired from the mind to the world,
[Permission required …
Berlin by Film
Berlin
Layers of city,
History piled on history
Hills of rubble assembled into calm parks
Segways converging on an Opera square outside Humbolt
Car park treads over Adolf’s final bunker
Trabants and Mercedes and the odd Porsche
The Soviet ambitions …
Lough Corrib and the Owenriff River by Kayak in Winter
Here it comes, there it goes. The Christmas break, with its long buildup and heavily marketed stature, has already left the building before it seemed to even arrive.
The rains barely paused for breath, though the good winds provided enough …
Rising Water, Sinking Home: flooding December 2015, Roundfort, Mayo
It happened before, though the levels this time are higher. In 2006, for the first time in the history of a family home built almost a century before, winter waters reached the doors and spilled into the kitchen.
Nine years …
Storm Desmond: Flooding in Oughterard
Storm Desmond is still battering its way across Ireland and the U.K., having already dumped a month’s worth of rain in some areas. The local radio stations along the west coast have become live feeds of lists of blocked roads, …
I am (Poem)
I am
The car jolts and rocks along the track, as though dragged by chains to a chased beast.
I am the beast.
The indistinct greyed-over bogs and swollen rivers coming down the hills whish by the windows
I am …
A history of Light Capturing Devices, as used by Me
It’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools. But what craftsman has no tools at all? Where would we be, scrawling bison on caves Not that there is anything wrong with that, and indeed your latest work is exceptional and …
Poem: Let’s Get Angry and Call it Like it is.
Let’s Get Angry and Call it Like it is.
Inflame inflame!
There is not enough
Fire in the game,
Or teeth in the trough.
Stoke, stoke!
The peace of your pieces;
Shake from the smoke,
Sparks to the breezes.
Whip, …
Hiking the Maamturk mountains
Summer was a long haul of slosh and soakings, and then finally in Autumn dry stretches fuse into a few weeks of easy goings and comings, crunch of leaf underfoot, mudless soles, no winds worth their leaning into. Come November …
Macnas Parade, Galway, 2015: The Shadow Lighter
It’s a little bit of dark, a little bit of chaos, a lot of imagination, and a stick to shake at the arriving winter. Dwell in the dark, take refuge in the symbols, there is energy and density in the …