Every time I look at this photo, I sigh. It was such a bitter sweet adventure. I lost my mum in 2019 and as a way of focussing on something else and also hiding my pain from the kids I hid away in this, the loneliest of the Glens of Antrim, Glendun.
I concentrated on the work of shooting a silent documentary about a lonely cottage deep in the glen that had stolen my heart.
It sat high above the other groups of cottages that lined the glen. Now tumbledown, and surrounded by massive Ash trees it called to me. Absolutely the sort of home I could happily disappear to spend my sundown years.
I’d of course, made a total mess of my footage. Every mistake that could be made, was. Most of this was discovered in the edit so rather than feel worse, I revelled in the fact that a re-shoot meant spending another few weekends over in Glendun. Camping and shooting and silently reflecting.
This shot is from one of the re-shoot evenings, where everything had gone well. No forgotten batteries, or incorrect frame rates or any of the other school boy errors had been made. Even better, I’d made steak with Mac n Cheese, remembered my unbreakable wine glass and had the fire blazing.
It was late April, but as the evening progressed the air cleared. As the temperature dropped below 0°c a light frost covered everything. When the full moon was high in the sky it started to make the whole glen glimmer and shimmer in a magical way.
Standing up to take a few shots, I looked over my shoulder towards my camp, and saw this scene, which blew my wee mind – pure country camping bliss.