Ireland revisited

Just back from Ireland where I spent a couple of days walking with the family. Connemara is much wilder compared to the Dingle peninsula which we explored last year. A highlight was a fairly short walk in the Burren, Co. Clare: a vast, desert-like expanse of limestone the like of which I have never seen in my life.

It felt good to burn some film again. I took the XPan with three lenses and 10 rolls of Neopan 400. The aim was to build on the little series started on our trip of last year. Whilst I didn't have a specific plan back then, now I consciously tried to explore the parts of what looks like a tryptich: 1) the "traditional" Ireland of grandiose landscapes and celtic lore, 2) the modern Ireland of soulless and seemingly uncontrollable urban planning, and 3) the sea as timeless element.

Connemara provides plenty of opportunity to explore wild landscapes and seascapes. It was harder to cover the excesses of urban sprawl as we had to rush trough interesting locations such as Galway and Ennis. Nevertheless, I hope to have three or four interesting pictures on that part of the tryptich.

Ireland needs to be explored on foot. Roads are generally very narrow and the Irish drive like mad. So, driving around with a car is frustrating as you just can't get rid of it when you would like to explore an interesting motive along the road. Needless to say, cyclists are in perpetual mortal danger.

It was a great pleasure to be on the road with the XPan. It is a very fine camera. I took about 75% of the pictures with the 30mm lens. The remainder was split between the 45mm (15%) and the 90mm (10%). The 30mm has a great, sweeping angle of view which allows for very dynamic compositions. I often compared the frames for the 30 and 45mm - which is easy to do as the 30mm requires an external viewfinder on top of the camera - and almost invariably opted for the wide angle. Maybe it's just that my eye has grown accustomed to the 120° angle of the Horizon and Widepan.

The image above was taken last year, on Dingle peninsula, Co. Kerry. Taken with Hasselblad XPan, 30mm, Fuji Neopan 400. Negs of this year's trip will be ready soon. More to follow.