In July 2020 when Ireland had come out of a strict lockdown due to the Global pandemic. I jumped into my 1976 Vw Camper Van, along with my trusty co-pilot Riggins and headed to the West Coast of Ireland. My first stop was Castlegregory. It was here that the genesis of Hill Coast started. I took detailed shots of the shoreline. The idea that it is sometimes hard to tell if they were in fact close-up details or taken from high in the sky. Over the course of that summer when we were free to roam, I traveled the west coast from Cork to Sligo. The summer ended and so did our freedom. We were in lock down again. Confined to 5 km from your house I took to the hills and started taking pictures on my walks. Drawn to the same subject matter I started to notice similarities in shapes and patterns that I had seen at the coast. The fact that the hills are only between 500- 900 metres above sea level it was perhaps not a huge surprise. However, the sandstone and limestone of the coast became the granite of the hills. Seaweed became moss and lichen had different hues. These images I took in the Wicklow Hills and on the West coast (Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow is the sole representative of the East coast) form the basis of this book. A comparison piece. Hill left, Coast right. A book was always the end goal.Having taken the shots on an iPhone I didn’t want them to go over a certain size.From creation to completion, it has given me great joy especially to be able to appreciate the land in which I live.
