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Some 20 years ago a passage in a biography of JRR Tolkien turned my life into a new direction. Back then ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ were by favourite books and I was especially intrigued by the detailed descriptions of the landscapes of Middle Earth. Naturally I wanted to know more about JRR Tolkien and what inspired him to create this fictive world in such detail. The little passage that got stuck in my mind described a landscape in the west of Ireland that allegedly was the inspiration for many of Tolkiens landscapes: The Burren. If this claim is true or not still is widely disputed but 20 years ago I took that statement at face value and all I wanted was to visit this real life Middle Earth.
What followed were regular visits to Ireland and today I only live an hours drive away from the Burren and the place is playing a vital role in both my personal and professional life. It is the place where I started my first real photographic project which eventually became my first book and which again lead to various assignments over the years. But even after more than a decade exploring and photographing the Burren for both commercial and personal projects I am still not tired of the place and even manage to discover new treasures on a regular basis. You probably could call the Burren my muse.