Last year I got up early with the aim of capturing the sunrise for the first day of the year. I took some nice shots of the light before dawn but it clouded over too much before the actual sun rose. Still, I wanted to make it a tradition, and so, once again, I headed to the same spot in order to catch the first rays of sun for 2018.

Autumn is now in full flow and it really is my favourite time of the year for photography. The Autumn light in Ireland is beautiful. The slow change of the seasons starts to bring a warm and golden light to the country as the sun is lower and lower in the sky. Throughout the season this effect becomes more and more profound. Combined with the colours this can make for some great Photography. 

Last weekend I went to one of my favourite spots in Ireland, the Glendalough National Park, which is home to some spectacular scenery and is a glacial valley in the Wicklow mountains. Along with the spectacular scenery, there was some spectacular light too. The weather was changeable, to say the least, and a continuous series of clouds and showers danced across the scenery.

I happened to be in the right place at the right time the other day to capture an amazing sunset. While travelling back on the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, the sea was calm and the sky was beautiful, and as we reached the middle of the journey the sun set on the horizon, in a beautiful display of reds and golds.

I was in Galway yesterday, which was the longest day of the year, and I wanted to capture the sunset over Galway bay looking out to the Atlantic. As it was the longest day, it was kind of a special sunset, marking the end of the lengthening evenings and the start of the long march back to winter. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but there was still some nice light, and the beach at Salthill in Galway is dramatic in and of itself.

During my recent stay in the German city of Darmstadt, I was scanning google maps one evening looking for places to go, when I noticed that down the road from where I was staying, there seemed to be a rather large area of forest. This was strange in and of itself, because where we were staying was in an industrial estate, with big modern buildings, but just down the road was a huge forest. 

One of my photographic new year's resolutions is to take a more project-based approach to my photography this year, rather than the somewhat haphazard approach I took in 2016. With that in mind, the first idea that I came up with was to shoot the first sunrise of the new year.

At this time of the year, the days can get very dark and dreary here in Ireland. With the short winter days, when it’s sunny it’s actually quite beautiful, but when it clouds over, it becomes very dark and dreary. On days like this, it’s often tempting not to bother shooting, and certainly, I’ve been put off by what seems like bad light. However, as Jay Maisel once said, there’s no such thing as bad light, just difficult light. 

I was walking through a nearby forested park the other day, and I caught an interesting sequence of images. There is a large lake in the middle of the park and there’s always lots of ducks and seagulls there. At this time of the year it’s especially beautiful, as the autumn colours on the leaves give the waters of the lake a patchwork of green and gold. 

I recently had the opportunity to borrow a friend’s Sony A7II and I was keen to try some Canon lenses on it via a Metabones adaptor. I had borrowed the camera off him before, but that was using an older firmware. Since then Sony has added the same autofocus update for adapted lenses via a firmware upgrade (v.2 I think) from the A7RII and A7SII, and I wanted to see how good it was. I had read lots of reports about the performance on the A7RII, but not many on the upgraded A7II, and I was really pleasantly surprised by the results.

I've said this many times on this blog, but Autumn is my absolute favourite time of the year. I love the golden leaves on the trees and the Autumn light. While the season is only beginning here in Ireland, already the trees are starting to turn. The once dense green foliage has started to thin out and the canopy of leaves has gone from a deep lush green, to a speckled patchwork of green and gold.

In the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, just outside of Dublin, is a beautiful old 18th century estate and gardens, called Powerscourt. The estate features a restored mansion and some pretty impressive stately gardens that are kept in perfect condition. The house and gardens have been used in several movies, most notably the Count of Monte Cristo. Images taken with X-Pro 2 and 18-55mm f/2.8-4 Lens.

One of my absolutely favourite places in Dublin City is on the banks of the Grand Canal between Portabello and Mount Street. It is a beautiful stretch of walkway, with leafy green trees and gorgeous benches. I spent a bit of time there recently in the gorgeous summer sunshine and I captured lots of photos of the place.

I look forward to the sight every year. It's a fleeting moment, but worth the wait. The pink and white beauty of the cherry blossoms that burst forth every year, announcing spring to the world is one of my favourite sights. When the cherry blossoms bloom, the bleak months of winter are finally at an end, and this year more than ever, I've been eagerly anticipating the blooming of the cherry blossoms.

I had an interesting experience on Saturday. We had decided to pay a visit to Dublin’s Phoenix Park, a place I hadn’t ever actually been to before, which is probably considered a cardinal sin for people who live in Dublin. The Phoenix Park is a huge park land just outside the centre of Dublin. It’s one of the biggest public parks in Europe and houses the Dublin zoo, as well as the residence of our President, among numerous other attractions. I had been years ago to the Zoo, but I had never really been around the park.