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Alex Boyd: Last light, Dún Briste

Scottish photographer Alex Boyd on making this photograph:

 'I had travelled 350 miles to get to this point, a lonely cliff edge on the edge of the West Coast of Ireland, the Atlantic roaring a few hundred feet below. I had spent the previous evening staying in the local town of Ballycastle in County Mayo, having packed my darkbox, chemicals and camera into my car, heading off the next morning along the winding coastal road. 

'Having arrived at the base of St Patrick’s Head, a dramatic sloping headland which contains the ruins of a church said to be founded by the Saint himself, I began to make my way uphill to the place which would be of most use to me, a small concrete look out post built during the war which would serve as a temporary studio and shelter from the worst of the elements. 


'I had come to Ireland with the intention of making wet-plate collodion images, a decision I was starting to regret as I began loading a small iron hand trolley provided to me by an amused local for the purposes of dragging my equipment a few hundred meters up the hill. It would take between 1-2 hours to make the many return journeys over the uneven terrain of the headland, dragging my heavy equipment behind me, along with my chemicals and about 40 litres of water required for the process.'