Fourknocks at night under the stars

I have been visiting the Fourknocks passage-tomb, which is about a 20-minute drive from my home, for over 20 years. For a long time, I have wanted to get a photograph of the monument at night, under the stars. There were challenges with this idea, not least the fact that the monument is in darkness at night, and there is little room for a photographer at the front of the monument, since the public pathway around the monument is only a couple of metres wide and is fenced in.

The challenge was twofold: (1) How do I effectively light the monument, to make it look nice? (2) How do I fit the whole monument into a photograph when I am standing just two metres from it?

Thankfully, lighting monuments and archaeological features at night or in twilight is something I've become accomplished at over the years. I've always found that experimentation during a photoshoot is a good idea. I brought several LED lights and torches with me to light Fourknocks. This photo is my favourite from the night's shooting. I had one LED light positioned off camera to the left, another off camera to the right, and a small torch situated just out of sight in the doorway, to light the entrance.

The second challenge was overcome in a novel kind of way! I still have in my collection of lenses a Samyang manual-focus 8mm fisheye lens which is designed for APS-C (crop-sensor) cameras. Until 2016, I used crop-sensor Nikon bodies to capture my photographs. Since then, I have used full-frame cameras. When I put the Samyang 8mm lens on my Nikon D750 full-frame camera, the resulting image only fills about two-thirds of the frame!

Nevertheless, I knew this was the only way I would be able to fit the whole monument (which is about 18 metres in diameter) into one picture. 

Setup took a few minutes, but after about a dozen attempts, I eventually found the 'sweet spot' in terms of exposure time and lighting situation. This 25-second exposure at f4 was the result!

I can't believe it has taken me 20 years to capture a nice photograph of Fourknocks at night, but I am delighted with the image. It was a lovely experience to spend time alone in the dark at Fourknocks. The only sound was the noise of a barking dog from a house about half a kilometre away. Although situated only a 20-minute drive from Ireland's capital city, Dublin, Fourknocks is in quite a rural location, away from busy main roads. It retains a lovely rustic quality as a result. It was a mild night, with little wind, and the stars shone very clearly. I could just about make out the Milky Way.

I hope you love this image of Fourknocks as much as I do. I like it so much that I have decided to include it in the forthcoming 2025 Mythical Ireland Calendar, swapping out another daytime image of Fourknocks. You can pre-order your 2025 Calendar at this link.

Anthony