Irish Arts Blog

A Sharks Tale

By Patrick Naughton

I forget what time of year it was, a rainy june or a rainy september. But what I do remember clearly is that it was the day a shark came to Killiney Bay. It started with a persistent walk through Irish weather, down past the harbour at Bullock and the Dalkey Island. I followed the road and took a left path, leading me over the railway tracks and into a small shelter. It was during this intermission from the Irish rain that I saw a shark in Killiney Bay. It was an unfamiliar sight at first glance, a fin hovering above the waters edge. "No..but i have seen one of these before". At that moment of realisation I decared to myself that Killiney Bay had indeed been invaded by a shark. I hurried back out into the rain, catching a glance of the fin as it submerged into the dark water. As i ran home to Dun Laoghaire i forgot about the Irish rain, the fin etched into my memory. When i arrived home i told the tale of a sharks tail to my Mothers disbelief. I watched as she scrambled out an encyclopaedia, skipping past the sharks and their fins. Instead, to my utter dissapointment, she pointed to a porpoise and its fin. 

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Bog woman

by cliodhna

 

A card, one of a few I have been doing recently. The photo comes from a walk in wicklow. The water is such an amazing colour up in there! Dark red/black. Especially in the little pools you come across. Definitely fairy country!

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Confession

By Patrick Naughton
Forgive me Father for i have sinned, it has been 1 month and four days since my last photographic confession. Since our last meeting i have being busy trying to balance the madness of Christmas and two jobs. As a consequence, i have unfortunetly been in neglect of those around me. Yes, my cameras have not seen as much of me as they would like. The negatives have not stopped nagging all Christmas and i have finally given in to appease their feelings. We spent a day together watching light and shadows dancing across Howth Head.  We saw a silhouette of the Bailey Light House and winter clouds falling from the sky. The days of neglect seem like a distant memory now; and yes Father, we had a great day out.

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Seahorses

"If you stare out there long enough, you will eventually find what you are looking for". That day we sat, watching the waves beat against the shore. It was the first time I had ever heard of a seahorse. I imagined white, colossal sized horses thundering above the waves. How proud they must be, galloping along the sea, riding the storm. Do they personify the rage and strength or the stunning beauty of the sea? As they approached the shoreline I awaited their destructive destiny, the kamikazes of the sea, one final lenght and they were gone. But it's just a photograph I tell myself. The memory of my Grandfather’s words tells me otherwise.

First Blog

Been my first ever blog, i feel i should start by introducing myself and my craft. My name is Patrick Naughton and i like to think of myself as both an artist and photographer. Although my background in photography in primarily landscapes, recently i have undertaken the art of photographing people. To landscape photographers this may seem a daunting task. When i photograph landscapes the idea is to capture the essence of a particular place. So, the concept of photographing skin tone instead of rock formations is an alien one to me. With landscapes it is just you and the elements. You can take your time, compose the shot, breath and shoot. Add people to the equation and suddenly there are time restraints and bad hair days.

So, to ease myself into this new world i brought my first portrait subject to territory familiar for me. I picked a woodland area in Enniskerry.

The location i picked worked well as an individual landscape photograph although the task at hand was to integrate a body into the image. As my subject Nadja moved towards the centre of the viewfinder, my first thought was "there is somethimg obscuring the landscape, and the light its changing!". I eventually got over the intrusion in the viewfinder and began to shoot some portraits.

When photographing Nadja i tried to shoot several different positions as the light was very limited and was unsure of how the lack of light might affect the details of the face. As it turned out in the photograph above, detail is lost in the face because the trees obscure the natural lightsource. So, after trying several shots Nadja glanced up at the trees and light briefly shone off her face. That moment captured both the essence of the landscape and the human form intertwined. 

Refleceting on the results of my first portrait session i feel i have gained some invaluable experiance in the art of portraits. I have learnt about the importance of communication between the subject and the photographer, how to use a limited light source to your advantage and how to integrate nature and the human form. But most importantly,  I have come through this new photographic experiance relitively unscathed. I am not suffering from post photographic stress disorder and have found a new strand of photography to investigate. Whether or not i shall continue to photograph people, only time will tell.