His favorite spot

Along the entire Bandon River, that's his favourite spot. Here one can observe time flowing with the waters, the river shaping its banks, finding ways around harder geologies, carving a winding valley throughout the ages. Here, there's no rush to things. The bird does not force itself upon the river, the bird does not pursue the hunt, the bird calmly waits for the catch, and opportunity layed right beneath him, a fisher at its highest mastery. And this was the closest I ever got to him.

Bandon, County Cork, Ireland

2020, May

Barley Lake

Exhausted, hungry, overwhelmed by a long mountain trekking, yet absolutely grateful for this day. I couldn´t ask for anything else more. But in the moment I returned to the beginning of my trail, I just looked back. What I witnessed was something else. I saw the sunset casting its golden light upon Barley Lake, modifying the same landscape to something else than what I witnessed earlier this day. The shadows, the water reflection, the colour tones, the wind, the smells, everything just transported me to a different world in this moment. Beyond gratefulness, I felt blessed by Nature!

Glengarriff (Gleann Garbh), Co. Cork, Ireland
2018, March

A mountain summit lake

A curious place to find a small lake, in the summit of Killane Mountain! Along with many other bogs, I supposed this was a remaining testament to the previous and now melted snow. From this summit, and with the favouring weather, the landscape stretches beyond Beara´s Peninsula and deep into Kerry Co. Here, I could see Ireland´s highest mountains, the Macgillycuddy's Reeks range (Na Cruacha Dubha), with its peaks still under a snow blanket. Certainly a vision for future trails.

Glengarriff (Gleann Garbh), Co. Cork, Ireland
2018, March

Caha Mountains

While hiking a trail along the Caha Mountains, following the border among Co. Cork and Co. Kerry, and in an absolutely wonderfull Spring day, I was truly grateful for the all-around scenic landscapes I found myself into. Along the trail, I witnessed many unique landscapes, composed by hills and mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, soft patches of golden grassland, extensions of forests and bare dark rock walls. All merging together with different weather conditions, from sun filled valleys to storm clouds over mountain tops. All in the same day, all the same time, all around me, near and as far. Here, overlooking towards the Sheen Valley and Knocknamanagh mountain, a golden grassland turf spreads along the perspective and contrasts with the dark siltstone rocks.

Glengarriff (Gleann Garbh), Cork Co., Ireland
2018, March
 

Forests' Spring tones

The forests are dressing themselves in bright green.

Vieira do Minho, Portugal
2017, April

Spring as arrived series - III

Coming back to the Spring series… and the different perspectives I took from the same subject: an Armenian plum tree in full blossom.

 Armenian plum, damasqueiro – Prunos armeniaca

Vieira do Minho, Portugal
2017, Março

Vanishing point

The moment you know where you’re heading…

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

A dangerous procession in my path

With the trail passing by woodland, I saw an interesting behavioural manifestation of a group of small but quite deadly creatures. Adult pine processionary caterpillars leave their nests up in the pine trees and crawl in large groups, forming a single line. They actually travel for lengthy distances, until finding soft ground to burying themselves, forming cocoons and, later, emerging as moths.

It is also in this later adult stage that they can become deadly as their only defence against predators is their hairy spikes. These, upon contact, can cause severe rashes and even allergic reactions. Moreover, when under stress, these caterpillars eject their hairs which cling to the predator’s skin, eyes and respiratory airways. Dogs, with their curiosity, easily fall severely ill and may perish from just sniffing these caterpillars. Fortunately, this deadly procession only lasts a couple days a year, commonly occurring in the first warm days of spring.

These caterpillars are a devastating plague for pine woodlands. However, they have become a plague because of former agricultural policies which replaced autochthones forests with monocultures of their preferred habitat: the pine tree. Moreover, the natural predators of these caterpillars, crickets, bats and several birds’ species, fail on having natural environments to successfully breed in sufficient numbers to control the population. One major issue of forest farming is that trees are taken down without aging enough to provide natural shelters, i.e. small cavities, for birds to nest. One possible contribution would be to provide, in the affected regions, artificial nests for predators such as the great tit.

Pine processionary / Lagarta processionária do pinheiro - Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiff. 

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

Salamander’s Pool

[EN] And then I realized I was not truly alone. This fire-salamander passed by, swimming upstream just to find a steady spot. Then it stood there, gently floating and holding itself by a grass leaf, while warming up with the sunlight. I was truly witnessing the undisturbed Nature’s most peaceful beauty. I found no given name for this specific part of the stream. Thus, and at least for my records, I hereby claim it as The Pool of The Salamander.

[PT] Foi neste momento que me apercebi que não estava sozinho. Uma salamandra-de-pintas-amarelas passou por mim, nadando corrente acima até encontrar um local calmo. E ali ficou, a gentilmente a flutuar, segurando-se por uma erva submergida, enquanto se aquecia ao Sol. Eu estava, realmente, a testemunhar o lado mais pacífico da beleza da imperturbada Natureza. Não encontrei um nome para esta poça em particular. Desta forma e pelo menos para os meus registos, baptizo este local da “Poça da Salamandra”.

Fire salamander / salamandra-de-fogo ou salamandra-de-pintas-amarelas – Salamandra-salamandra

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

Ode to the skies

The day as awakened with a perfect and very deep blue sky. No clouds in sight, temperatures rising above 25ºC, and a slight breeze, nothing else. While this weather would be perfect for walking a trail, it dulls landscape photography by filling the upper composition with a rather monotonic and texture-less blue. Well, I said to myself, just dedicate your compositions to the mountains. Fill in those two thirds with rocky landscapes and patches of grass. That’s what matters.
And then this happens… the sky fills in with all its glory, steals all the protagonism from the mountains and, essentially, draws poetry in motion. I just stood there, witnessing it, and holding the camera and pointing it way to high, above the horizon…
[PT] O dia acordou com um céu de um profundo azul. Sem qualquer nuvem à vista, temperaturas acima dos 25ºC, uma pequena briza, e nada mais. Embora estas condições sejam óptimas para percorrer um trilho, acabam por empobrecer a fotografia de paisagem por encherem a parte superior da composição com um azul monotónico. Dediquei-me a encher as minhas composições com montanhas, enchendo os primeiros dois terços de rochas e vegetação. Era o que interessava.
E depois isto acontece. O céu enche-se de glória, rouba todo o protagonismo às montanhas e, essencialmente, desenha poesia em movimento. E eu fiquei ali, a testemunhar algo de extraordinário e a segurar a câmara, apontando-a bem acima do horizonte….

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

Horizons – Laje dos Bois Panorama

The greatest gift I could receive in my birthday is… myself! And then make use of this day to walk a beautiful trail in the mountains and get my own ego crushed by the magnitude of these landscapes.
Laje dos Bois is a very small plateau, in the Gerês Eastern Mountains. It holds a patch of grassland, encircled by human laid rocks. This ancient grazing area is used to keep and feed cattle at high-altitude and very rocky landscapes. This is a 360º panorama of the horizon observable from its center.

Serra do Gerês, Portugal
2017, March

By the way, my “spring has arrived series” was suddenly interrupted by a 30ºC summer day in March. I’ll return to it…

Spring has arrived series - II

How many ways you can observe the same phenomena from the same subject. This photographic series, entitled “Spring has arrived”, is exactly that: how many perspectives am I able to take from one single subject: an absolutely astonishing Armenian Plum fruit tree with its early spring’s blossoms. From this rather simple photographic exercise, I can extrapolate to society: exploring and looking at things from different perspectives is an effective form to avoid adopting dogmas or limiting our knowledge to certain ways of thinking. In a side note, I must say that the first photograph is, clearly, one of mine most chaotic compositions. And it, actually, works…

Armenian plum, damasqueiro – Prunos armeniaca

Vieira do Minho, Portugal
2017, Março

Spring has arrived series - I

One of the local fruit trees has informed me that spring has arrived…

 

Armenian plum, damasqueiro – Prunos armeniaca

Vieira do Minho, Portugal
2017, Março