The walk towards Lough Foyle from Ballykelly begins on Station road, and offers an almost perfectly straight line to the water. It's flanked by hedges and farmland, with opportunities for some stuninng photography throughout. The flat landscape gives a sense of expanse and freedom, while the mountains and forests in the distance guide the eye easily. In short, you spend very little time looking where you're going.
Half way down the lane, the road is intersected by a train that runs frequently to Belfast. Its arrival is signalled by the customary flashing lights and sirens, warning walkers and, more commonly, my dog, away from the tracks, which stretch off into the distance. While I have never ridden this train, I envy the scenery to which its passengers are treated.
More than once, I've found that in my musings I'm stood still, facing out into a field, or a creek, absorbing whatever replenishing energies are abundant in such a beautiful place. Most of my life is spent in front of a screen, and the sudden removal of the often violent blue lights of an LCD monitor give me a sense of peace, those "blue remembered hills" as Hausman put it.
All of this is typified by the repeating nature of the conversations on this trail. When the weather is fine, which in Northern Ireland means an absence of rain and an ambient temperature north of 15c, the same remarks are made. We're very lucky to have this on our doorstep!
The scenery evokes a kind of solitude, that makes me want to ignore my phone and go for a wander. I return from my excursions lighter, as if the ennui only needed space to lift, caught by the wind and up, over forests and hills, to disappear amongst the heavy clouds that circle the flat peak of Binevenagh.
The Photography
My photographs from Lough Foyle are a study in aperture selection. For images that require sharp focus throughout, a narrower aperture is most appropriate. For images where the foreground should stand out against a blurred background, a wider aperture is best. I greatly enjoyed using the 18-200mm f/3.5 IF-ED VR lens, which coupled with my Nikon D7200, gave me the reach for distant objects, like the looming sight of Binevenagh, while also enjoying a wide angle vision at 18mm for those swooping landscape shots.
And when I was seeking to capture something more dramatic, the use of a wider aperture with a very close focal point gave a really beautiful sense of depth. It is a testament to the scenery and the area, that all of these photos are so effortlessly possible.
Editing
A place like this doesn't need much editing, so anything I did edit was very minor. There are some power lines and road signs that get in the way of the natural beauty, so where composition failed, I simply cropped the photos. Beyond that, a few points of saturation (but only slightly) and a small adjustment to white balance, leaning over to the yellower end in the spectrum. These edits were designed to enhance what was already evident in the photo. Too much editing would spoil the honest feeling that the photographs had.
