On Friday afternoon we finished up a bit earlier being a Friday, then since our flight was only later on, I decided to hang back and play some table tennis in the office to pass some time. After a few games, while waiting for Uns to finish up, I decided to grab a coffee or drink over at Shoreditch Grind, just next to the Old Street Roundabout. After a couple of Savannas outside in the sun, I met up with Uns who had worked later than she planned to, then we jumped on the underground and headed out to Heathrow to grab a bite at The Tin Goose before our flight out to Cork. Over on that side, Michael and Claire met us at the airport and we drove down west, getting in there around 1am and asleep by half 1 or so.

This weekend was my Christmas present from Uns which was a weekend workshop around the Beara Peninsula in West Cork, Ireland with Rohan Reilly who's an award winning fine art photographer based over there. We had booked this in ages ago so was really hoping for a decent weekend of weather, and certainly no rain! After being to bed around half 1, I was up again just after 5 in time to meet Rohan in Skibb at 6am. Declan had offered to give me a lift into town to meet Rohan, and then drive with him (Rohan) over to the Beara Peninsula, about an hour and a half away.

We got there quite early, so took a bit of a drive around the local area and through the farm roads in between the surrounding mountains, which was stunning. We even got talking to a local farmer who advised us (Rohan) on a good photo location which involved a short hike one of the nearby hills. But will be leaving that one for another time. From there we met up with the other two in Adrigole, a small village on the Beara Peninsula, then drove in convoy up to the top of the Healy Pass for our first photo stop of the day. This one was just a scenic landscape photo which Rohan had previously spotted and wanted to start off with a bit of a chat about composition and leading lines. From the top of the Healy Pass we then made our way to Glanmore Lake and then Clooney Lough (Upper and Middle) for plenty of shots at each, before heading over to Harrington's Cafe & Deli in Ardgroom for lunch. After a good morning of photos, we spent some time in Harrington's going over the shots and doing some post-processing work on the computer. Some of the stuff I knew already, and there were a few new tricks I picked up too. After lunch, we made our way out west to the far end of the peninsula and stopped off at the beach by Ballydonegan for sometime snapping the sea. From the beach, we headed back to The Bowl for a good few shots, then thought we'd attempt the sunset photo from around the corner by Cahirkeem.

We had hoped to try get a sunset photo, but with too much cloud cover we decided to call it a day and head back towards Skibb, which we got to at around 10pm, so definitely a full in day of photography, sightseeing and driving. I headed over to Corner Bar and waited there for Uns, Claire, Michael and Theresa who were on their way in. It wasn't very busy, especially for a Saturday night, but settled in there for a couple before heading over to Cahlains, just down the road, which was a lot busier. There were two birthday parties going on in there last night, hence the crowds, but we got ourselves a decent place next to the bar, which was handy. I was exhausted after a full day of it, so wasn't too much company last night. After a beer there, they stopped serving anyone for a short while (a form of crowd control apparently), so we decided to call it a night and head back to the house, where I wasted no time at all in falling asleep!

This morning, after some well needed sleep, I was up at around 8 for a quick bacon and cheese sandwich before heading off into Skibb to meet Rohan again. Today was an individual half day workshop with just myself and Rohan and the plan was to stay a bit more local around the area. We started off by heading out past Rosscarbery and Clonakilty and down to the beach, and spent a good bit of the morning missioning from beaches to caves to rocks and alcoves. A little bit of time at each location, then moving onto the next. Was a good way to see a range of locations and at each point, a few tips and some tricks at taking those shots, specifically the long exposure ones which I wasn't very strong with.

After spending half the day missioning between various beaches and coves, we made our way back to Traguna and then back to the Bawn house. Certainly a fantastic day out, and a brilliant weekend of road tripping, sightseeing and photography. After a roast for dinner, we packed our bags and made our way back up to Cork airport in time for our flight back to London. Definitely looking forward to a good night's sleep later and even more excited to start going over my photos tomorrow in more detail tomorrow after work! Until then, I'm off to try get some beauty sleep...