Whales, lighthouses and sunsets: the best photos to celebrate World Ocean Day

They say a picture tells a thousand words and nothing tells the tale of our coasts quite like a photograph. Irish Examiner photographers and readers share the stories behind the most arresting images of Ireland's oceans in the last twelve months

Sunset in the west: Spanish Point Co.Clare. Picture Lisa Farrell, Clare

Amateur photographer Lisa Farrell has been taking pictures of the hinterlands of Spanish Point in Clare for many years, but she credits her love of photography for getting her through a difficult period in her life. Following the birth of her youngest daughter, Farrell found herself suffering with postnatal depression and her partner bought her a camera to encourage her to explore her favourite places in nature.

Farrell and her partner own Clare Water Sports and spend as much time outdoors as possible, and she says that living within 10 minutes of four of Clare’s magnificent beaches makes it easy to take beautiful pictures.

Her photograph of Spanish Point at sunset is the perfect example of the beautiful stillness that comes from winter. “I think that winter sunsets are far more spectacular than summer ones. There is far more detail and colour at that time of the year, I find.” The image actually came about by accident – Farrell was intending to take a picture of Ballecloughe bridge as the sunset dipped towards the horizon.

“I turned around and the sun was setting and the colours were just incredible, I had to put my awe aside to capture the shot.”

It is in the unexpected that we get the most incredible pictures of nature. Irish Examiner photographer Dan Linehan says that the canvas he works with makes it easy. “I think I’m lucky to be working in a county which has such a vast and spectacular coastline, one of the longest in the country stretching from Youghal in the east to Dursey Island in the west.”

A sign for Moscow beside the Dursey Island cable car on the Beara Peninsula which closed at the end of March for repairs. Picture: Dan Linehan

Travelling around the county, Linehan often happens upon scenes that sum up the times we are in, and that’s how the image from the Beara peninsula came about. “On a trip to West Cork, I came across the Dursey Island cable car that had featured in the news recently and noticed the sign for Moscow which has also been in the news – but for all the wrong reasons. Thinking it might not last long I decided to record its presence. The picture was taken using a Leica compact Q2 camera.”

The Lagoon at Rosscarbery is home to a plethora of wildlife, and it was here that Dan captured a picture of a heron in flight, with his Nikon 200-500mm lens. “The Lagoon is always a magical place to record wildlife and the light was just right to capture this picture,” he says. On a warm summer’s day there is nothing like the palpable delight that floods Garrettstown, and last summer Dan captured the unadulterated joy in the faces of two children running through the waves. Garrettstown will never let you down for people pictures, he says. “The weather always seems to be good and the temperature of the sea never seems to bother children.”

Kite Surfer enjoying the wild conditions at Garrylucas Beach, Co. Cork.

It was a wilder day in January when Irish Examiner Head of Visual Media Jim Coughlan took a picture of a kite surfer braving the elements of Garrylucas – a vastly different scene to Dan’s just months before.

Cian O’Regan uses his drone to take photographs of his county, and it was on a showery winter’s day last November that he captured this incredible shot of Sheep’s Head Lighthouse.

A faint rainbow finds its end at Sheep’s Head Lighthouse

“As someone who particularly loves taking pictures of lighthouses due to their proximity to the sea and the natural beauty of the seascape surrounding them, I was extremely fortunate that a faint rainbow appeared for just a few seconds while my drone was perfectly positioned to capture it lining up with Sheep’s Head Lighthouse. Some photographers say that it’s hard to take a bad picture when you have good subjects to photograph, and the Atlantic Ocean never fails to disappoint!”

It’s thanks to the expertise of Colin Barnes and his expeditions from Reen Pier in Union Hall that Kevin Murphy found himself almost face to face with a humpback whale last year. Barnes is one of the region’s most renowned experts in sea life, and runs Cork Whale Watch year-round. Though whales are frequent visitors to our waters, it is not often that one breaches the water within spitting distance.

West Cork whale breach while whale watching off Reen pier in June. Picture Credit: Kevin Murphy, Cork

It was a rough day, says Murphy, and his concentration was on keeping the camera steady in rough seas. “There were waves crashing around me and I was concentrating on staying steady and I got lucky, I suppose. There was one moment when everything came together and the whale breached and I got the shot.”

Our waters are a vastly underestimated part of our world, says Murphy, and he uses his passion for photography to capture images that will encourage people to explore the ocean. While we may not all see a whale on adventures at sea, there is always something incredible and memorable to experience.

“When you’re out there looking back at land it’s when you really understand that we are an island nature and we are wasting our greatest resource. The sea is there for us all year round.”