James Joyce once described the sea surrounding Dublin Bay as being "snot green and scrotum-tightening". I took this photograph from the safety of Bray, where the sun is beating down on the stony beach in the foreground, and where the sea is indeed a "snot green" colour. [The colour is more evident on the higher resolution file of this image.] I didn't go for a swim to test Joyce's other contention, but that seems to be a universal truth!
In the far distance however, below the stormy clouds, Dublin Bay is getting an absolute pelting from the rain as the wind pushes this weather system away from Wicklow and into Dublin City, where my fellow denizens are being drowned. I'm glad at this point to be in a very pleasant and dry Bray!
What I think adds drama to this photograph is the vast emptiness of the scene. I took some other photographs almost immediate after this one - with people from this same vantage point - but they just seemed to take the focus away from the landscape.
Date: 16/07/2011
Location: Bray Beach, Wicklow.
Photographer: Colm Keating