Tag: Northern Ireland

Volcanic Dike

A Bactrian Camel (?)

MichaelStephenWills

The entire northern Antrim coast is the remnant of an lava flow hundreds of feet deep, the depth corresponds to cliff height today. It made a great location for a defensive fort, or dun, featured in an earlier post. I say today because on a time scale of 50 million years the late Bronze age, 3000 years ago, was yesterday.

Here is another view from the Giant’s Causeway walk, wonders presented at every step. This lava dike, now surrounded by water, formed when flowing lava entered a crack though a layer of basalt from an earlier eruption. The lava cooled, over eons the surrounding material eroded, leaving a wall of rock. This formation has an irregular surface that resembles a two humped camel from some angles.

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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Labrador

2,400 miles distant

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Next stop Labrador, Canada, North America in this view from the Giant’s Causeway Walk.

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The attraction has miles of footpaths, every inch with stunning views such as this.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Broken

Enormous and Personal Scale

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Volcanism formed much Ireland landscape and can be credited with a huge tourist attraction near Bushmills, Northern Ireland, UK (Click me for another post of volcanic Irish landscape). The opening of the mid-Atlantic rift and movement of continents dwarfs the origin story of a roadway built by giants to connect Ireland to Scotland.

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On a prosaic scale, the granite curbs stones proved my undoing. On the walk out of the Causeway, in the falling light of dusk composing a shot, eye to the viewfinder, I fell off the curb. The camera fell, breaking the mount on both the flash and camera. To this day, I need to hold the flash in wireless mode when using the Sony.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Dunseverick Castle Ruin, roadside info

Pride of History on display

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On Causeway Road there is a turnoff an information placard for Dunseverick Castle near a cottage. This is the left side of the placard with the historical context. The right side is natural history of the area.

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  • This is the right side of the placard.

Click me for the first post of this series.

Reference: Wikipedia “Dunseverick Castle.”

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Dunseverick Castle Ruin, closer

Recollections of Saint Patrick

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Slight pangs of regret recalled in my first Dunseverick Castle post are recalled this morning on remembering the long Slige Midluachra (aka “High King’s Road”) of which Dunseverick Castle was the terminus, beginning from the Hill of Tara. Walk the High King’s Road, “why not?.”

Here we can see the two partial wall, remains of a gate house, destroyed in the 17th century. I can imagine making the climb up the foot path, examine the earthworks from before the Viking invasions, middle of the first millennium A.D. Recall a visit by Saint Patrick, trodding the path from his Easter fire on the Hill of Slane.

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Explore my photography on Shutterstock for use with your blogs

Reference: Wikipedia “Dunseverick Castle.”

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Torr Head Photos

My latest photos accepted into Getty IStock

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Click me to view the latest batch of photos accepted into Getty….these are from Torr Head..

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Cushendun Published

Photography accepted this week by Getty

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Click me to visit Getty, my recently accepted Cushendun photography.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Beauty and Infection

Cutting Trees to Fight Disease in Glenariff Forest Park

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White Hawthorne tree blooms grace hedgerows of the rural hillside facing Glenariff Forest Park. The other white is grazing sheep. The North Channel of the Irish Sea is visible at the foot of the glen, with the shore of Scotland just visible.

Foreground are the stumps of mature trees cut by the forest service to control the oomycete plant pathogen Phytophthora ramorum. We visited June 2014, the year before, October 2013, the Belfast Telegraph reported “Northern Ireland is close to the point where it will be impossible to eradicate a virulent disease from the forests where it has taken hold.” Glenariff Forest part was one of those forests and the tree stumps are victims of that struggle.

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Here is a link to this photograph on Getty.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Getting My Work Out There

A Blessed Easter to Everyone

MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

Comparing this view with the first of this series, first glance, with the camera held steady on a Manfrotto studio tripod, it is identical but from the play of light and cloud. My model Pam walked a few feet to sit in quiet contemplation of the beautiful surroundings.

To produce stock photography I research the details of the image, to write an informative caption. For example, in the post “Another Glenariff View” my identification of the Rowan was from a two volume atlas, paging through page after page.

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Here is a link to my Glenariff photographs on Getty.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Glenariff Green

a closer look

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Walking around the park trails with a handheld Sony Alpha 700 dslr, a Sony DT 18-200mm variable lens mounted. Sorry to say, I was selective and have only these three photographs to supplement the grand views of the previous two posts. Click me for the first post of this series.

These are from the upper portion of the Red Trail, we did not wander far from the car park. Such a funny term for a parking lot, a park for cars. The cafe offers pick me ups and we indulged.

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Here is a link my Glenariff photograph on Getty.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills