Photography

Uinta-Wasatch-Cache II

This is my last post about our Uinta-Wasatch-Cache trip.

Some of Aspen, Gambel Oak and Maple trees started turning red and yellow early in September. Scenic canyon roads that run through Wasatch and Uinta mountains repeat the U-shape of the glacial-carved canyons characteristic for Wasatch range. There are seven such canyons. Little Cottonwood Canyon takes you to the Snowbird and Alta ski resorts, and Big Cottonwood Canyon – to Solitude Mountain resort and Brighton ski resort. If you want to visit famous Park City, home for the very successful 2002 Winter Olympic games, take the equally famous historical Lincoln Highway from Salt Lake City, and turn right at Kimball Junction. If you drive from the airport, it will take you about 40 minutes.

All the ‘bald’ spots on the mountain slopes in the picture below are the future skiing tracks, when they will be covered with the best snow in the world. The Park City Base Area was opened on November 18 ( some other areas on November 23), and it will be close for the summer season on April 16 2017.

On our way to Uinta Forest we took the Mirror Lake scenic drive that parallels Provo River. If you don’t know it yet, Steven Shaw resides in the cabin high in the mountains. He is hunting and gathering wild berries, but he loves to have a sandwich now and again, and kind little children always bring with them a sandwich for Steven, and leave it on a rock.

Steven Shaw is very shy. He won’t show himself and you won’t notice him come and take your offering. We admired Provo river deep beneath our feet, and when we turned around, the sandwich was already gone. True story 😉

After driving another few miles, we stopped at the Upper Provo River Falls. With seven rainless weeks, there was very little water flowing, but we could imagine how impressive this three-cascade waterfall might look.

We drove to the campgrounds. I have no idea what is this mountain. All of a sudden the sky darkened and the colors became unusually saturated in the low sun. I rushed to take a picture.

The storm was short living, and after a couple of minutes it was warm and sunny again.

The wildlife in Uinta is abundant with species like Moose, Mountain Lion, Bear, Lynx and even Wolverine, but we didn’t see any of it. In my previous blog I posted two pictures of Mule Deer, and here is another wild beast – a Chipmunk.

I won’t tell you how many pictures of this Chipmunk I brought home. For many of you it is a waste of time and disc space, but it was a stellar day for me. We don’t have chipmunks in Ireland.

Look what he was doing! I didn’t know they eat flower seeds.

We had a great time and answered many questions like Who has cut the rock??

On they way back, most of us were sound asleep 🙂

And here is my last picture. After taking off, our airplane made a turn, and we flew over Antelope Island I wrote about last year. How cool is that 🙂

Thank you for traveling Northern Utah with me. I am linking this post to the blogs that feature wildlife photography: NATURE IN THE FOREST OF DEAN AND BEYOND, Travel and Wildlife Adventures and Victor Rakmil Photography. Please visit and follow these blogs!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Uinta-Wasatch-Cache I

Summer is long gone, but I still have some pictures from my holidays that I haven’t shared yet. I will mix and divide them between two blog posts.

This canyon road goes through Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest all the way from Utah to Wyoming. There are countless opportunities for hiking, but with our newborn baby we only did what we could 🙂 These pictures are simple snaps, our family memories.

Jordanelle Reservoir is a good place for landscape photography with all those mountain layers that change the view as you move along the road. This picture was taken from Kamas side of the reservoir, on the go, from the car window. Water level is too low this year, which is not good at all.

This cute barn in Kamas looked more beautiful than ever adorned with sunflowers.

There are many lakes of all sizes in Uinta forest. I am not sure but I think this is the Trial Lake.

Somewhere around the Mirror Lake Drive we saw a family of Mule Deer.

More finds 🙂 A Hawk Moth caterpillar …

… and a wasp nest.

Young explorers had a field day 🙂

Uinta forest and mountains are home to moose, elk, mule deer, black bear, cougar and many other smaller animals and birds. There are more than 1700 miles of trails, and people of any age and ability level can find something suitable to spend a day in the wild.

I will share more Uinta pictures in my next blog.

Big Cottonwood Canyon Road takes us to the Silver Lake.

The trail around the lake is only a mile long, easy and family friendly. Half of the trail is a boardwalk, and the other half goes through the forest. If you are in wildflower photography, Silver Lake is the place. There are more than 100 species of plants, among them Shooting stars, White bog orchid, and Elephanthead orchid. I took a picture of wild Columbines…

… and Aspen trees, still green.

Sunset over Silver Lake, the end of the trail.

On our way back home we were lucky to observe Mammatus cloud. I was absolutely stunned and almost forgot that I had to take pictures. It is all I have got as we had to turn.

I am linking this post to the blogs that feature travels and far away land : Global Sojourns Photography, Adventures , Two Brown Feet, Image Earth Travel. Please visit and follow!

Seasons and horses

This post was written in May 2015, but something new came up, and the post was left in draft until I found it this week, and rewrote it, and added some new pictures to fit the season. The opening photograph was taken in Kilmokea Country Manor House, the best place for event photography around here.

The real horses belong to Kildalton Agricultural college. The college offers 18 courses, including Farm Management, Horsemanship, and my favorite Plant Identification & Use. I took the pictures in spring – the time of rejuvenation of life.

This Wisteria grows in beautiful College park.

I am not sure if the rapeseed field is a college property, but it lays right across the road.

Short Irish summer is not worth to mention 🙂

You wouldn’t notice a difference between July and October anyway 🙂

This horse is posing in front of a cottage in Connemara in the end of October.

These two snack on hay in the paddock at the foot of Slievenamon mountain in December.

The last leaves are still hanging on.

Sometimes an occasional sun beam breaks through the fog…

… but ‘Winter turns all the Summer’s love to grey… Winter takes what the Summer had to say’…

Seasons come and go.

I took pictures of a semi-wild horse in winter. These are less fortunate – hairy horses with narrow eyes live outdoors most of the year.

This post is supposed to be about horses, as the title says, but you know how it is with the internet – many titles are misleading, and many contents cannot be trusted.

The truth is that there are other farm animals grazing on the mountain slopes. Like cows. Some of them spend nights under the roof in a warm shed, but some stay outdoors for almost a year. The ‘wild’ cows grow a coat to stay warm.

These cows live at the foot of the Comeragh mountains in Clonmel, and walk up and down the steep slope every day.

There are also sheep in the mountains, white dots. They look so very lonely in this picture, taken in the middle of February.

I used to hike for hours, but I have never seen different kinds of animals fight with each other. I mean, I have never seen a horse kick a sheep, or a cow attack a deer, or a sheep give chase to a rabbit. If it is not food, they let it be.

I wish all of us were wise enough to control our tendencies towards hate and aggression; towards being irritable, demanding and petulant. I wish we didn’t waste our time on being a smaller individual than we have the potential to be.

I also wish that all political leaders demonstrate the best in judgment as they govern their countries, and never encourage their people to raise a hand against another human being, regardless of their race, political views, or anything else.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! xx

Blaa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A blaa /blæ/ is a doughy, white bread bun (roll) speciality; particularly associated with Waterford, Ireland... 12,000 blaas are sold each day.

There are four bakeries making blaas, two of them in Waterford city – Hickey’s Bakery, and M & D Bakery. The Waterford blaa has been around three hundred years, since the Huguenot settlers introduced this simple bread to the locals. Never cut a blaa with a knife! It has to be torn apart by hand and eaten with butter or any filling of your choice, like rashers or chicken filet.

A student who preferred to stay anonymous, kindly gave me permission to take a picture of his blaa and rashers.

Blaa has a very special place in the heart of Waterford people.

The graffiti in my opening photograph is not a blaa advertisement though. The other side of the river Suir in Waterford – Ferrybank – mostly belongs to County Kilkenny, and traditionally, some Kilkenny people risking their lives leave teasing graffiti on The Flour Mills or on the high vertical cliff behind the railway station to annoy Waterford folks.

The Flour Mills, as they look in my photograph from 2015, don’t exist anymore. This summer the grain silos were taken down first, and the derelict buildings followed.

There are a few more photographs of the Mills taken in November 2015.

Tall Ship Festival 2005. Russian four-masted barque Kruzenshtern with the Flour Mills in background. Happy days.

The Mills were always there, ruining pictures 🙂

The nine storey building constructed in 1905 and listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as ‘an imposing building of national importance’, has been preserved.

The rest of the mill will have to go.

There is another ghost on the other side of the river in Waterford City – the Ferrybank Shopping Centre on Kilkenny/Waterford border, that was completed in 2008 and has never opened. Its cost is € 100M.

ferrybank

And one more ghost is hidden behind the Joe Caslin’s mental health artwork – abandoned Ard Rí hotel.

Ta-da! This picture was taken in 2005 with Ard Rí already abandoned five years prior.

But the ghosts are not easy to rid off. Especially in the internet. There still is a booking page for Ard Rí! 🙂

Hope this beautiful Sumac that grows in Ferrybank brightens the story of this less fortunate suburb of Waterford city.

And here is my latest picture of Ferrybank on the other side of the river Suir – with the Supermoon shining through the clouds 🙂 I didn’t have enough enthusiasm to camp by the river and wait for the clouds to clear away.

Thank you for walking around Ferrybank with me! I link this post to Milford Street , Equinoxio and Geezer 94 – the blogs that are often showcasing history and old buildings. Please visit and follow.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Waterford Walls 2016

It is too late to write about this festival, but I wasn’t in the country in August and took my pictures only last week. An artist from Toronto created a mural for this festival, and I am happy to mention one of my favorite blogs Graffiti Lux and Murals that belongs to amazing Resa from Canada. If you want to see breathtaking street art, please visit and follow her blog.

The first two images are the most impressive. Smug One, a Glasgow based artist, created these two photo-realistic works just a block from each other.

Very detailed artwork by AOW, Ireland.

Work by ESTR, Ireland

Blue Tit by Danleo, Ireland, is about to snatch a student 🙂

More works in the New Street Park. I am pretty sure the Fox is created by Brendan Butler, but have no clue who is the author of that Happy Girl mural. Lisa Murphy, may be? Her work was in this exact spot last year.

This is one of my favorite works by Serbian artist Vunik.

Two fantastic murals by London-based artist Louis Masai are dedicated to preservation of wild life. Hammer sharks in Barrack street…

… and Elephants in Barker street.

Around the corner, there is a dreamy work of Kathrina Rupit (KINMX) from Mexico.

Next to it is a surreal piece created by Jerry Rugg (Birdo) from Toronto, Canada (sorry for the obstructed image!).

This work of Joe Caslin is dedicated to mental health. You can see it in the previous image, far in background, because it is on the other side of the river. I shared two of Joe Caslin’s works in my blog last year. In my next blog I will tell you what is hiding under the mural 🙂

I am sorry I didn’t share all the murals scattered around the city centre. There are more, and they are all beautiful. Murals often cover unattractive walls, but some buildings just have to go. We will talk about such buildings in my next blog 🙂

Have a wonderful weekend!