My wife and I spent a week in southwestern Ireland in May of 2017. It was a spectacular week of amazing weather, awesome food, and beautiful countrysides that we drank up with our eyeballs and even more importantly, my camera.
I learned a very important lesson during that trip - there are times when you should listen to other people, but there will always be times to go your own way and follow your instincts.
I learned this lesson especially on one evening near the end of our trip, when my wife and I drove from the town of Dingle to the top of Conor Pass for sunset. The pass is a narrow, 1-lane road (R560) that weaves high up into the mountain on the Dingle Peninsula. We had driven up through the pass a day or two earlier, heading south towards Dingle, and it can be a bit nerve-wracking to drive that direction. The road is very narrow but I was happy to find, contrary to what I had been told before the trip, that there is a rock wall along the entire road so you can’t just drive off. There is a parking lot at the top, where you can get out and look at the amazing views and then the drive down the other side, towards Dingle, is a much less intense road.
For those a bit more faint-hearted, you can skip the Conor Pass by driving around the Dingle Peninsula on N86 - but the views are well worth the anxiety of the drive, and truth be told, it was not nearly as scary as I had envisioned.
A view from the top of Conor Pass during the day.
The Conor Pass has such a commanding view of the surrounding area, and I was hoping that the golden evening light would really make the valley meadows glow. Unfortunately, when we got to the top, I found that much of the plain below was in shadow. As I stood there, taking the few meager photos that interested me, it started to get quite cool. My wife and I began to talk about heading back to Dingle when a gentleman came down from a nearby hill with his camera.
A view of Dingle in the evening light.
As he approached the parking lot, I asked him if there was anything good to shoot at the top, and he told me that there wasn’t. He then began to wax eloquent about his world travels, his new photography hobby, and his former career in Germany that he had recently left. While he talked, all I could think about was trying to take a few more shots before the sun was completely gone.
He finally drove away. I looked up and saw some sheep standing part of the way up the hill from which the man had just come down, so I told my wife that I’d be back in a minute.
I headed up to the sheep and began to shoot. A few other sheep farther up the hill caught my eye, standing against the beautiful clouds in the evening sky. I headed farther up the hill, feeling the cold really set into my hands.
Sheep continuously graze on the hillsides high on the mountain pass.
Before long, I had walked/run most of the way up the hill, as I hopped from one interesting sight to the next. When I arrived near the top, I just stopped in amazement. The hill that the man had just told me had nothing to see provided a viewpoint of an absolute torrent of golden light.
The valley next to the hill looked like a river of glowing yellow light, just pouring down through the gap. A fence ran up the edge of the hill, and looked like a scene out of a magazine. There was a bare section of rock nearby with a cairn of rocks silhouetted against the amber sky.
My wife, waiting by the car, was forgotten. My bitterly cold hands were out of my thoughts. I snapped away, as quickly as I could - different compositions, various shutter speeds and apertures, furiously clicking the shutter before the light was gone.
A river of golden sunlight cascading down through the mountain pass took my breath away!
That was an evening I’ll never forget. I don’t edit photos on the road typically, and hadn’t brought my laptop on the trip, but those photos were the ones I could not wait to look at and edit when I arrived home. What had started as a wasted sunset on top of the Conor Pass had turned into one of the most memorable evenings I’ve experienced, and many of the shots from that evening are some of my favorites from Ireland.
I learned my lesson….listen to what people say, they often have good advice. But don’t miss out on an amazing experience because you followed what someone said without listening to your own heart as well.
I will have more posts coming soon about our trip to Ireland so stay tuned!