A series of
photographs taken in the Glenarm and Glenariff forest parks of County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Of the nine glens making up the "Glens of Antrim", these two are
probably the most famous.
Autumn is my favourite season for the glens, it's
also the best time for "people free" photography since most of
the tourists have all gone home.
The photographs shown here depict the autumn
colours and river scenes, and were taken using a Nikon 950 digital camera
during two weekends in mid November 2000. Weather conditions were quite
wet and windy on the first, which resulted in some very strange effects on
highlight areas in some pictures. Fortunately, some minor desaturation of
selected colours in Photoshop helped to rescue the most badly affected
images. Wind during the second trip was a lot less forceful, but it was still very wet, and most of
the leaves were gone. Sigh! The images have been mixed, so telling
which glen is which will require some detective work on the part of the
viewer. I've made it easy by including a short description of the attributes
of each glen below.
Glenarm is the smaller of the two glens shown
here and is pretty quiet throughout the year. The Glenarm
river is short and meanders slowly between the trees down to the
sea only a few hundred yards from the the forest entrance. The forest
walks are easily accessible with no steep climbs to put off those with
less than perfect health. Although yields are small the river is popular with the locals for Sea Trout
and Salmon fishing in late summer.
Glenariff or "Queen of the Glens" is a much larger
U-shaped glen with steep gorges
and lots of waterfalls, some of which would be inaccessible if it wasn't
for special pathways and bridges. During the summer months heavy foliage
cover requires "low light" photography techniques; even on the
brightest of days. You need to be fit to walk in the parts of Glenariff
shown below and if like me you use a tripod to support the camera then traveling long distances
isn't for the faint hearted. It wouldn't be the first time the tripod
supported me along with the camera. Thankfully, refreshments are
available from a small restaurant which is located at the lower car park
close to the main waterfalls.
