Water Photo Challenge Results 2023
Our call for images with a water theme was met by a wonderful collection of entries – see all of them in this video – and then our exhibition curator, David Diebold of Skerries News, had the hard job of selecting ten to make up the Skerries Eco Festival Water Picture Exhibition. During the opening night, he shared his thoughts on each of the selected ten images – and he agreed to share them with you here now!
If you were at the festival, by the way, please send us your feedback now!
David Diebold’s Comments on the images he selected
EITHNE LAIRD (railings)
A man-made structure that blends seamlessly into the natural environment, the sea beyond and the seemingly infinite horizon. And something finite, fleeting — shadows of railings stamping their silhouette into the concrete. A single boat representing our reliance on the sea in so many ways. The infinite and the finite. I can’t think of a better way symbolize humankind’s complex, often dysfunctional relationship with water and the natural world.
CORMAC O’LEARY (big clouds)
The ominous beauty apparent in this image is so perfectly apt in trying to wrap our heads around the sheer power of nature. Interestingly, the entire cycle of water is almost represented here – sea to vapour to rain and back to sea.
Ultimately, it’s just a bloody beautiful photograph.
TOM BALCOMBE (happy dog)
It feels like we’re in deep with this dog when we look at this photo, and it could easily be interpreted as representing the rising waters of impending doom – in fact, I think this dog is in his happy place.
What’s beautiful about this photo, in which water is everywhere, is that I was able to zoom right in and appreciate every fibre on that dog’s head and drops of water frozen mid splash, all in crystal clarity. Outstanding.
MIRIAM CARROLL (springers)
Rushing waters, action, urgency – nothing speaks to the potential for imminent environmental catastrophe quite like the tide consuming a man-made structure. What’s interesting is how that movement contrasts so nicely with the calm sea beyond, as though it’s all spilling over the edge of a bowl, and there’s the life buoy standing out so stark in the middle of it all.
Look how the horizon dips on one side like the whole image is a sort of sinking ship. It’s a familiar place to most of us, yet sort of scary in this context. Nice work.
RICHARD MARSH (rainbow)
One of the best rainbow shots I’ve seen – and I’ve seen a lot, second only to photos of sunrises and sunsets when it comes to Skerries – yet this image is phenomenal.
Sand sea, islands, horizon, mist, clouds and sky, layer upon layer of sumptuous detail and colour, all tied together by this perfect ark that in any language says hope, change, renewal, themes that chime so well with what this festival and what the Sustainable Skerries group espouses. A fine photo.
JULIE BLUNDEN (blue sand)
The blue of this image is so rich and deep, like a cold blue light in the dawn of a new day at low tide, green seaweed on the rocks emerging from the wave-textured sand.
For the colour contrast alone this exhibition needed this image, but the way it is structured and how it brings our eyes from bottom to top and into the skies beyond the island is ingenious if it was intentional, or it was a very lucky, beautiful accident. Well done.
ERNESTINE WOELGER (Ladies’ Mantle)
I didn’t want seawater to predominate this exhibition, when fresh water is so vital to the living environment on land.
I thought this image, again a strong addition to the palate of the overall ten, perfectly encapsulated how precious fresh clear water is, whether this is rain or dew, and also the simple beauty that is the very fragility of the life that water sustains.
MARY COURTNEY (clothes pegs)
Not a great day for drying. But I loved the simplicity of this shot, and how the photographer saw something interesting, even beautiful in its own way in these three old fashioned wooden clothes pegs – hanging on, which I think would be a good title, amid the drips of rain.
It’s an image that almost holds its breath waiting for one of those drips to drop.
EUAN O’DONOGHUE (reflection)
A moment of reflection, literally. I’d be a fan of John Ford’s statement, so perfectly characterized by David Lynch in Spielberg’s Fabelmans, horizon at the top, interesting, horizon at the bottom, interesting, horizon in the middle, boring. But I’d certainly disagree with that sentiment here.
The perfect split between sky above and sea below has the eye trading off and comparing beauty with beauty. The calm silence in this image of seaweed floating on the surface. Frozen clouds. The blood red meridian.
Another photo that seems to hold its breath.
ANNA POPOVICH (sunset)
Like I say, sunset photos are no rare thing around these parts, but this one is truly something special, reflected in a sea that feels like we’re up to our necks in once again.
Simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. Rather like nature itself.
Sustainable Skerries 