It had been quite a while since the family had gone back ‌to ‌‌Ireland for a visit and so in 2019 my brother Brian and I headed back to the old country with our families to have Christmas with our parents in Enniskerry, County Wicklow.

With three late-teen children in tow we felt it would make polite sense to give our parents a break from the unaccustomed hordes and head over to the West for a short holiday. We had booked a nice B ‘n’ B in a little coastal town called Clifden, which is just a hop and a skip West of Galway, as we thought the location would be a good staging point for a driving holiday in Connemara and maybe The Burren as well.

After a half-way stop over at the Porthouse Hotel in Athlone we all piled into the 12 seater van we had hired and aimed ourselves at Galway and the West. I had already had a frustrating morning having missed out on an excellent opportunity for a “misty lake shot with geese” and was really hoping that somewhere along the journey another would present itself.

Unfortunately nothing really stood out as we traveled along until we got quite close to Clifden. With sun setting and the light rapidly fading Denise (my better half) shouted for us to stop as she had seen a pretty lake to the North of the road we were traveling. We pulled over, piled out, grabbed the camera gear, climbed up an embankment and down to the lake shore on the other side.

I have never seen such still water...such a perfect reflection. There are plenty of times where one plans a shot for days, weeks, months and even years before bringing it to fruition but with the pressure of a fast setting sun and a concern that the perfection would not last, I entered a state of flow, Panorama, Tripod - Ballhead - Camera - Focus - Exposure and the image was captured!

C‌eltic Reflections is one of my favourite shots to date. I love the calmness that washes over me when I ‌stand and immerse myself in the image but I also love some very specific elements of it as well...

• The warm light of the setting sun illuminating the clouds on the left but then breaking over the central mountain and hitting the peaks on the right as well.
  
  
• The deep, deep purple hue to the water of the lake caused by a fine suspension of peat
  
  
• The tiny little cottages nestling beneath the hills on the extreme right of the image
  
  
• The imperceptible ripples breaking the perfection of the reflection along the mountain edges - broken but yet somehow enhanced at the same time.
  

I guess there is planning as a process which starts long before the event and then there is planning which happens almost simultaneous to the event itself. This photograph is one of those latter types of planning.

In fairness I had been monitoring the sunset time and what light and shadow would be cast on the landscape using The Photographer's Ephemeris but this particular shot was all about taking advantage of a circumstance which rarely presents itself in the West of Ireland in the winter - a calm clear evening with still waters.

Planning in this instance consisted of seeing and then shooting.