13 Nov 2016

Labour of love: This time-lapse of Irish skies makes for soothing viewing

“When you go to places like Wicklow, Kerry, Galway or Mayo and you have some of the clearest skies in Europe.”

AN OBSESSION WITH astronomy and photography, (plus a desire to prove that it doesn’t always rain in Ireland) inspired this photographer to compile this beautiful time lapse of different landscapes across Ireland.

Outside of work hours, Gareth Nathan is a light artist and astrophotographer “with a passion for adding colour and vibrance to ancient Ireland abandonments using long exposure photography”.

He says he chose to undertake this project, which requires a lot of dedication and time, without really knowing what he was getting into:

“My job involves a lot of long and late hours in front of the computer, so spending nights creating light art and astro-photography time-lapses became a means to balance out time away from the screen.

“Little did I know it would take two years to gather enough footage.”

Despite his intentions, Gareth says that one of the things that shocked him the most was the weather: ”It rains a lot in Ireland – and it might be hard to believe but it’s often quite cloudy in Ireland too!

Weather is very location dependant and travelling just a couple of miles can have completely different conditions.

“It was hard not to notice the level of light pollution in Ireland – in places like Dublin you can count the stars visible on your hand, but when you go to places like Wicklow, Kerry, Galway or Mayo and you have some of the darkest/clearest skies in Europe.”

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