Local photographer makes CNN news
James Crombie from Rahugh is featured in a CNN article
A local photographer has made CNN news. Multiple award winning photographer James Crombie from Rahugh, who has once again been named AIB Press Photographer of the year for the third year in a row, is also currently featured on the American Cable News Network website in between articles on Trump and Zalenski.
In a write up entitled 'You get one split second': The story behind a viral bird photo, Oscar Holland of CNN describes how James came to photograph starling murmurations over Lough Ennell.
He says James knew ''very very little'' about starlings before Covid-19 struck'.
He goes on to tell how the iconic photograph came about after a friend suffered a bereavement. Together they went to Lough Ennell and James brought along his camera.
On the first evening they saw about 100 starlings in the sky. Over the following nights the pair travelled to Lough Ennell which became a type of retreat and one night the magic happened. The birds began to form shapes and eventually James captured a configuration that itself looked like a giant bird in the sky.
This was on the 50th night. The shape lasted just a fraction of a second before changing again, but James who is a sports photographer is experienced at speedily capturing seminal moments and was able to take the fantastic shot before it disappeared.
The image has been shown all over the world and even appeared on Fox weather.
James has since written a book called Murmurations which features many of these wonderful images over Lough Ennell. It is published by The Lilliput Press.