Don't let the sun go down on me

Don't let the sun go down on me, Lyrics by Elton John and Bernie Taupin

Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me

I was at a funeral yesterday of a woman from my childhood neighbourhood. She had suffered Alzheimer's disease for several years and listening to her family reminissing on the fond memories they had of a  wonderful, devoted mother and grandmother made me think of the words of the song above. Alzheimer's must be like a door closing in your mind, shutting out the people you love and cherish or as the song says, 'losing everything is like the sun going down on me'.

This series of photographs is on Sunsets. Two of my daughter's are setting up their own homes next year and have asked me for canvases of some of the sunsets below. Both of them love cows, no reflection on me I hope.  For more cows in the sunset check out my post - http://mfkidneyphotography.blogspot.ie/2014/08/mad-cows.html

I have been told that some of my photographs look like oil paintings. It's amazing what can happen in post production. The good thing is that I won't be arriving at my children's houses with my latest effort at a painting and saying, wouldn't this be only beautiful above your fireplace.

I always remember one of my daughters in her Leaving cert year telling me that she felt like so many doors were closing on her. Leaving school and her friends and the familiar safety of her childhood. So many have opened for her since Thank God. She's getting married in March and opening the door into a new life full of my canvases, only joking Frankie!

I'm dedicating these photos to my neighbour Mary Brady, Late of Closes Road, Fairhill  and her wonderful loving family.
These photographs were taken in Mullinasole, Co Donegal, Ring, Co. Waterford and Cobh Co Cork.

 Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135@39mm, exp 1/250sec, f14, ISO  100

Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@36mm, exp 1/80sec, f18, ISO100

Camera Settings, Camera Canon70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/160sec, f18, ISO100

 Camera settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/13sec, f18, ISO 100

 Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens 18-135mm@22mm, exp 1/30sec, f8, ISO 100

Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@24mm, exp 1/125sec, f22, ISO100

Camera Settings, Camera canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@13mm, exp 1/125sec, f22, ISO 100

 Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@24mm, exp 1/125, f16, ISO100

Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm 24mm, exp 1/125sec, f20, ISO100

A haunting we will go.....

I loved this poem as a child, I could visualise the scene  and every time I photograph a ruin it comes to mind. I find old houses and ruins enchanting.

The Listeners

BY WALTER DE LA MARE

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   

   Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,   

   Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;   

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;   

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   

   Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners   

   That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   

   To that voice from the world of men:..................

    When my parents married in the mid 1950's they moved in with my Grandmother, my father's widowed mother. She lived in a rambling old house on Wises Hill in Sunday's Well in Cork City.

    There had been a tragic death in the house some years before my grandparents bought the place. A young RIC man(Royal Irish Constabulary, who policed Ireland 1814-1922 before An Garda Síochána took over the Irish Free State)was found hanging under the stairwell. My mother said he was the son of a Butcher.

    Mam told us about several occasions when she was alone in the house and she 'd hear footsteps coming to the closed sitting room door. She would be expecting my father to walk in but nobody would be there. Or she would hear footsteps coming down the stairs and the door of the room would open but again nobody would enter the room.

    I was a home birth which wasn't unusual in Ireland then.  Women didn't give the graphic accounts of their childbirths in those days. My mother said the doctor brought me in his bag. Apparently I destroyed his notes. Serves him right for carrying a bloodied baby in his bag. It could have been worse, my brother was found under a head of cabbage, but I digress.

    Mam told us she never felt alone in the house. She said she was never afraid when she was on her own but always sensed a presence. 

    Older family members  had similar experiences and also remember lights switching on by themselves.

   Any member of our family old enough to remember is convinced that the house was haunted. 

   As I was born in the house I feel a bit of a connection with him. I feel that we must have met somewhere in the in-between before i entered the Real World. Who knows!

   My photographs on this theme were taken in 3 locations, some in Cobh, Co. Cork and some in Galway and 1 in Ring Co Waterford. 

Glenmore Cobh

 Camera Settings, Camera-Canon 70D, Lens Canon 70-300mm@80mm, exp 1/80sec, f11, ISO 160

Renville, Galway

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@67mm, exp 1/200sec, f10, ISO100 

 Belgrove House, Walterstown, Cobh

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@11mm, exp 1/400, f22, ISO 100

 Mageen's House, Ring Co. Waterford

Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@16mm, exp 0.8sec, f16, ISO 100, tripod

 Mageen's House, Ring, Co. Waterford

Camera Settings, Camera - Canon 70D, lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/100sec, f7.1, ISO 160

Valley Road, Cobh

Camera Settings, Camera-Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/60sec, f11, ISO 100

 Fota Cottages, workers houses, Fota Road, Cobh, Co. Cork

Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/50sec, f20, ISO200

 Camera Settings, Camera - Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/80sec, f11, ISO 200

Baltimore boatyard/graveyard

What is it about some men and boats? I know i have already written about himself and the other love in his life, Conchita but I live in Cobh and I am surrounded by water on the island of Cobh so there will be a lot about boats in my blog.
Before I married himself he owned a sailing dingy, an Enterprise. He loved it. He used to take me out sailing and in an effort to impress, I tucked my feet into the strap(not sure what it's called) and leaned out over the side to add my weight, which was about a stone lighter than it is today to the balance.
I don't think i'd do the same today in such a small boat.
Call it entrapment if you like but once i married him all that hanging over the side nonsense came to an end so he sold The Enterprise and bought a Laser, he was able to sail that alone thank God.
The Laser was sold to buy a bathroom for our first house. Don't feel sorry for him, he has a fine old wooden sailing boat now and a Rankin which is a smaller wooden boat that can be sailed or used to take me around the harbour under engine. Much more my thing than sailing .

During Celtic Tiger days every Tom, Dick and Harry seemed to be arriving into the Harbour in a boat. There were sailing boats, motor boats and jet skis being  sailed and powered by very inexperienced would be boatmen. It's a lot quieter today, the madness didn't last long enough for there to be carnage. The images below were taken in Baltimore boatyard. I called the Title, Boatyard/Graveyard because the place is full of abandoned dreams.

 Camera settings,- Camera used Canon 70D, lens used, Canon 18-135mm@20mm, exp 1/640sec, f10, ISO 100

 Camera settings- Camera used Canon 70D, Lens used, Tamron 10-24mm@10mm, exp 1/60sec, f11, ISO100

 Camera settings-Camera used Canon 70D, lens used Tamron 10-24mm@10mm, exp 1/250sec, f11, ISO100

 Camera settings-Camera used Canon 70D, lens used Tamron 10-24mm@24mm, exp 1/250sec, f11, ISO100

 Camera settings-Camera used Canon 70D, lens used Tamron 10-24mm@22mm, exp 1/100sec, f11, ISO100

 Camera settings Camera used Canon 70D, lens used Tamron 10-24mm@22mm, exp 1/320sec, f11, ISO 100

 Camera settings - Camera used Canon 70D, lens used Tamron 10-24mm@10mm. exp 1/160sec, f11, ISO 100

 Camera settings- Camera used Canon 70D, lens used Tamrom 10-24mm@10mm, exp 1/400sec, f5.6, ISO100

Camera settings- Camera used Canon 70D, lens used Tamron 10-24mm@17mm, exp 1/100sec, f16, ISO 100