The plan
Fanad Head Lighthouse had been on my list for some time.
As an Advanced worker within CB Camera Club, I help mentor other photographers within the club. A photography day at Fanad offered an opportunity to work together at one of Ireland's best-known coastal locations.
In the early hours of 3 February 2024, we left Belfast for the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Fanad Head in County Donegal.
We arrived while it was still dark.
First light
We waited for daylight before beginning to scout the rugged coastline around the lighthouse.
As the landscape slowly appeared, one thing became obvious immediately.
The Atlantic was in no mood to be quiet.
The waves were ferocious, crashing into the rocks beneath the lighthouse and giving us exactly the kind of conditions that could produce a dramatic photograph.
Fanad offers an enormous number of possible compositions. I moved around the location, exploring viewpoints and working through different ideas throughout the morning.
Walking away
Despite the conditions, I wasn't satisfied with what I had made that morning.
Rather than force an image simply because we had travelled so far, we decided to move on.
We spent part of the day photographing other locations nearby, with an agreement that we would return to Fanad later and hope the conditions would give us something stronger towards sunset.
Sometimes walking away from a location is as important as knowing when to press the shutter.
The photograph
When we returned, this was the frame I had been looking for.
The lighthouse stood above the rugged coastline while the Atlantic swept through the rocks below. There was movement, weight and energy throughout the scene.
I ultimately chose to process the photograph in black and white.
Removing the colour gave the scene greater drama and allowed the flow of the Atlantic waves to become a much stronger part of the composition.
The lighthouse became the still point within all that movement — standing above the sea while the coastline took the full force of the water below.
Guardian of the Atlantic
The photograph came from returning to a place I had already decided wasn't working.
We were back in Belfast before 9pm, one of the small benefits of photographing during the shorter winter days.
What remained was an enjoyable mentoring day, some great memories and, eventually, the image I had travelled to Fanad hoping to make.