I am beginning to compile some images to use for a marketing push. I am beginning

to design a "Photo Workshop" that I would lead for aspiring photographers at the amateur level. The workshop would be offered as a learning experience in West Cork and Kerry. I would offer landscape/seascape event and also specifically a portrait

class. I have Ideas for some more sophisticated workshops involving other ares of photography as well. The image in this post is new-just created in the last week. I find it powerful and evocative. The subject is Sean Moriarity, an amateur photographer himself.

I sit here tonight after a day of sideways rain, wind, and the smell of a peat fire. Turf. The fire from turf is warm, fragrant, and lasting. Oh, it smokes quite a bit as well. It's well dark in Ireland at 6:30 pm,(half 6) but the days are growing longer. February 23rd and the daffodils will be breaking into bloom any day now. The fields around my village are beginning to come alive with spring even as the winds howl and the frost continues. This is the first spring since we have lived here and there has been so much frost in the mornings. "Not too usual out wescht" as they say in the west Cork accent. West is the last bit of peninsula to the west of my house in this village. The reason it's "not too usual" is because of the Gulf Stream moving up the globe and crashing into the western side of Ireland and the British Isles. The climate is rather temperate and is evident by the variety of palm tree that grows all around southwest Ireland. Looking out of my window to the view of mine, west is to the right. If you follow the road in front of my house to the right about 10km you come to its end, and the end of Ireland. The body of water I see every day from my window is Dunmanus Bay.
I live on the Sheepshead Peninsula in Co. Cork Ireland. The village is Kilcrohane and the townland is Faramanagh. Across the bay to the southwest is the next peninsula on the Isle of Green; The Mizen. The Mizen peninsula with Mizen head at the extreme western end and beyond that, the North Atlantic and eventually America. I have looked at this view from one point or another for the last 3 years. I have seen the weather come with gales and wind and waves. I've also seen it so warm and clear and calm that it might be French or Italian. I've felt at times like there would never be any reason to live anywhere else but right here. I also wondered how long I would feel that way.

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Life Magazine
07 Feb 2010

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Life Magazine
07 Feb 2010

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Life Magazine
07 Feb 2010

This summers batch... the berries were scarce. It took lots of picking and some help from apples from Geraldine Powell's apple orchard.

New work;soon to the gallery............

fades up from black: click > to start

AVALON:West Cork, Ireland

"There is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you."


I've been looking at this view for months now and It changes every day.
This is how It looked today. It inspired me to create this. Its worth
a glass of wine and 90 seconds.

One year ago when we came to Ireland on holiday, I watched
this man everyday ride his bicycle thru the village, coming and going and I was
taken by him. I knew that if I pushed in on him I wouldn't get the image I wanted, so,I waited. Yesterday, I saw him in a field working, like he does everyday and I approached him. I had been saying hello every chance I could get and it seemed that we were developing a friendship of some kind. When I walked up to him in the field yesterday it was like we never spoke before. Regardless, he was delightful and gave me all the time I wanted to make some images. This is where I am with project.
I'm glad I waited for a year.

This video was made in the village of Kilcrohane,
West Cork on the edge of Dunmanus bay. We
are now living in this small Irish village.

gone global

The age of Aquarius

My first encounter with a REAL photo studio: The awakening.

It was September, or was it April? I can’t remember.
What I do remember is that it was Pgh. Pa and it was 1968. That said, it must have been September. I had been offered an internship with a real advertising photographer. His name was Ed Kubancek. Interesting that his initials are also e j. E J Kubancek. I arrived at the front door of his studio on Penn avenue after having taken the elevator. I remember is was the 12th floor. I heard music coming from behind the brown enameled door. The sound is still clear in my head. The original cast recording of Hair-the musical. The dawning of the age of Aquarius. The name plate said: Kubancek Photography.
I had been here once before for an interview with Ed. I really don’t have much of a memory of that visit other than his opinion of my drawings and doodles on hand towels.
I used the hand towels from the bathroom in the art school I was attending at the time for drawing paper. I'd rubber cement the towel to illustration board. I liked the way rapidograph ink spread on the towel when I drew the images I invented. Mushrooms, aura symbols and faces, and women.
He felt that my photographs were much stronger than my drawings and with that offered me a work study opportunity. It really filled the final 6 months of my stay at The Ivy School of Professional Art. Mr. Morris Kirshenbaum,the school president, was proud.
The door of the studio was opened by a young photographer named Rudy Van Hulton. Rudy became a mentor for me. He was cool, he shot fashion, and the girls loved Rudy.
As I entered the studio the music became louder and on the set I saw a female model, writhing to the music, covered in body paint. The lights flashed, Ed was shooting and giving her direction with adjectives like,” more, more emotion, that's it . softer, softer, ok now sexier.” I was mesmerized. He had total control of the situation. What power. He must really be someone.. I thought.
Truly, I was hooked. It was the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

Photo:©ejcarr (made shortly after my first encounter)

the family of mushroom

What I did

After I left Hawaii,(??) I drove across the country with my Mother and Father.
Stopped in LV for a shot of Tom Jones. (thier idea)
Got to Pgh
Went to Penn State U for two semesters
Transfered to Brooks Institute, S.B. CA.
Graduated 1976
Took a job in a studio in Dallas Texas.(not the best move)
Lived in Dallas for 2 years.
Got married to first wife
Moved to Houston for less than year
Moved to NYC Jan 1979.
Worked as an assistant photographer for a Still Life Photographer.
Not much assisting. walked his dog. picked up his laundry.Got frustrated.
Quit.
Wallked across the hall. Plunked down 200.00 and started sharing
a studio with about 4 other photogaphers.
Not the best idea, but what was I to do?
One camera,3 lenses, one strobe unit and $1000.00.
First real client, Leggs Panty Hose.Can't mention
the "real" first one.
A flurry of various fashion and catalogue clients for a few years.
Moved into own studio with ONE other photog.
Got divorced.
spent a few years in a spin.(like 5)
Moved studio again. 3 photographers.
Did some personal improvement seminars.
Met Sarah Regina Mary O'donoghue White.
We call her Sally.
Gave the Catholic lots of money for an anullment.
Finally got my own studio. FAB!
Got married 1990
Got reading glasses 1990
Lived in Brooklyn.
Moved to New Haven, Ct.
(loved it there)
Long range commute to NYC
My buisness thrived. Entertainment,portraits,fashion,celebrity.
Bought a house, Maplewood.
Went to BC to fish for steelhead.
Improved My golf game.
Adopted Chloe(Xiaoxiao), 1997, from China
golf game went down
Gave up my studio in NYC.
Rent studio when I need it.
Adopted Maggie(Runying),2002,from China.
Yikes! 7 months apart!
Worked for awhile at the CC cutting grass 3 mornings a week.
Gave it up. Got in the way of my real deal.
Golf game got better.
It sure was fun.
etc, etc, etc.
Wrote this note.
Wish I didn't need glassses.
!
E T R W B
t x a r e v
o d b r e

What I still have to do.

Fish for atlantic salmon in New Brunswick

Fish for rainbow trout in Alaska
Surf on an obscure break in the south pacific
Fly a fighter Jet
Play a round of golf at St.Andrews
Golf at Pebble Beach
Play in a pro/am golf tournament
Get my hadicap into single digits
Photograph a president
Do an assignment for the New York Times Sunday magazine
Shoot a movie poster
Have a one man show in a gallery
Build my dream home
Buy the car of my dream
Fish on the border waters
Get an assignment from SI

Go to Yale Art School
Take a sabbatacal and make large prints from my images in a
rural setting.
Go to a Studio School and study sculpture
Get a Masters Degree

It is quickly approaching. Fat Tuesday. I couldn't
resist making this picture. Especially since
I got so much co operation from Maggie!

Roscoe Orman as Step n Fetchit.
Production still from a stage production opening
in Montclair, New Jersey. Roscoe better known
for playing Gordon on Sessame Street.

Another one. I know, one is enough. I made it
so here you go. Sort of musical I think.

Happy Valentines Day to all. I struggled to find a graphic
solution to saying this. Here you go. I think it's original
and a little edgy.