Small Steps for Giantkind
A black and white rendition of Giant's Causeway in County Antrim along the coast of Northern Ireland. I had a stopover in Dublin for a meeting on my way to Munich in October, and I've always had a fascination for this formation of Basaltic columns protruding in to the ocean, so I fought off the jet-lag and decided to take a bus to Belfast after landing in Dublin, and then found a guide to take me to the causeway for some sunset shooting.
As with many locations, I found it difficult to get a satisfactory composition my first time there. I fumbled my way around the columns and tried to get some angles that really showed off the column formations. There was some sunset color but it wasn't great and I struggled to get comps that both showed the columns and had some nice color. So here I went to the opposite extreme, an LE from higher up to isolate the columnar formations as best I could. I will definitely have to come back some day and give it another shot.
There is a fantastic folk tale that goes with the Giant's Causeway as told by my tour guide en route. There is a matching set of basaltic column steps on the Scottish island of Staffa (which are part of the same lava flow that formed the Thulean Plateau during the Paleocene era). The story goes that the Irish giant, Finn MacCool, and the Scottish Giant Benandonner decided to fight and so built the causeway so they could meet up for the battle. When Finn spots Benandonner he realizes the Scot is quite a bit bigger, so he hides and his wife dresses him as a baby and he lies in a makeshift cradle. Benandonner goes to the house and the wife tells him that Finn is away. Benandonner spots the baby and figures that if the baby is that large, his father must be an enormous giant, and runs away in fear, destroying the causeway behind him so that Finn could not follow.
Small Steps for Giantkind
A black and white rendition of Giant's Causeway in County Antrim along the coast of Northern Ireland. I had a stopover in Dublin for a meeting on my way to Munich in October, and I've always had a fascination for this formation of Basaltic columns protruding in to the ocean, so I fought off the jet-lag and decided to take a bus to Belfast after landing in Dublin, and then found a guide to take me to the causeway for some sunset shooting.
As with many locations, I found it difficult to get a satisfactory composition my first time there. I fumbled my way around the columns and tried to get some angles that really showed off the column formations. There was some sunset color but it wasn't great and I struggled to get comps that both showed the columns and had some nice color. So here I went to the opposite extreme, an LE from higher up to isolate the columnar formations as best I could. I will definitely have to come back some day and give it another shot.
There is a fantastic folk tale that goes with the Giant's Causeway as told by my tour guide en route. There is a matching set of basaltic column steps on the Scottish island of Staffa (which are part of the same lava flow that formed the Thulean Plateau during the Paleocene era). The story goes that the Irish giant, Finn MacCool, and the Scottish Giant Benandonner decided to fight and so built the causeway so they could meet up for the battle. When Finn spots Benandonner he realizes the Scot is quite a bit bigger, so he hides and his wife dresses him as a baby and he lies in a makeshift cradle. Benandonner goes to the house and the wife tells him that Finn is away. Benandonner spots the baby and figures that if the baby is that large, his father must be an enormous giant, and runs away in fear, destroying the causeway behind him so that Finn could not follow.