Stormfront over Ballintoy #1

In January this year I returned to one of my favourite stretches of Coastline in Ireland, the Causeway Coast. A relatively short stretch of coastline it offers up dozens of fantastic locations for the landscape photographer including rugged cliffs, sandy beaches, ancient ruins, sea-stacks, a Fishermans pier, and of course the famous Giants Causeway itself.

On this trip I wanted to focus on some of my lesser photographed locations and ended up shooting a select number of places repeatedly across the week. To say the weather was challenging was an understatement. I was hammered with a storm that brought a lot of rain. But with great challenge comes great opportunity and I got to witness locations like Ballintoy Harbour under very high-tides and windswept seas.

This photograph is from my 2nd visit of the trip to the harbour and the conditions couldn’t have been any more challenging (ideal perhaps?). The high-winds were whipping up the sea, and even at the high elevation this photograph was taken my lens and filters were getting blasted with sea-spray. It also rained consistently during the few hours I was here, with some very heavy downfalls. It was all very… exhilarating. 🙂