While my wife and I have travelled throughout the world, there are large parts of Ireland we haven’t visited. People often ask us about various famous locations around the country and we have to respond that we’ve never been. When Covid struck, and the world turned upside down, we aimed to fix that and began exploring our own little nation that much more. Last year we visited the southeast, and a few weeks ago, we decided to spend a little time exploring part of the west coast, and drove some of the famous “Wild Atlantic Way”.

Every year we like to get up early on New Year’s day and head to the beach to watch the first sunrise of the new year. It’s a little ritual to start the year, but unfortunately, it hasn’t always gone exactly according to plan. Last year, we couldn’t actually get to the beach, because of a strict covid lockdown, as it was outside the permissible distance. This year we did get there, but instead of a glorious sunrise, we were treated to stormy seas and winds. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but it led to some cool photos anyway.

I’ve recently been going over some old photographs and trying out some new treatments on them. A few years ago, while on a trip to Germany, we were staying on the outskirts of Darmstadt, and right near where our hotel was located, was a fairly large forest. I had taken lots of photos there at the time but I was never really happy with them.

Near to where I live is what is a rather remarkable place to find in a city. Called “Airfield”, it is a 38 acre site which features a 19th century estate, gardens and a fully working farm. Recently, on an overcast and rainy day, my wife and I paid a visit to the estate for a walk around the gardens, to get away from the outside world for a few hours and I ended up taking a ridiculous number of photos.

On my recent photo essay from Hook lighthouse in Ireland, I was editing the images, and wanted something a little special for the cover photo. I had tried lots of different things, and in the end, the image I used went through several steps to get it to where it was for the final use of it. In this video I talk you through the steps I took from the starting raw photo to the finished image.

On the last day of our recent trip around the southwest of Ireland, we stopped at a Lavender farm in Co. Wexford. My wife and I have always been a fan of Lavender, and it featured in the flowers at our wedding, so it was nice to see where it comes from. It also always makes for good photos.

Like many people, while I’ve been lucky enough to travel abroad quite a bit, I haven’t actually spent much time exploring my own country of Ireland, and I’ve actually been to surprisingly little of the island. With Covid making international travel complicated and not something I particularly want to partake in right now, we recently decided to take a few days holiday in the southeast of Ireland. One of the most interesting places we visited was to the Hook peninsula to visit the famous Hook Lighthouse

This weekend we visited a stately home and gardens in Co. Wicklow (in Ireland) that has opened up to the public. Funnily enough, this was near to where I grew up, but I never even knew it was there. The Kilruddery estate, which has a “Tudor revival” style mansion based on a 17th-century foundation, and is also a working farm, and has beautiful grounds and gardens.

At the weekend we decided to go on an expedition in the car to the seaside. While we don’t exactly live inland, travelling around has become something of a chore now. On a July weekend, you might be thinking the beach would be packed, but at the height of a typical Irish summer, that wasn’t going to be a problem, as the temperature barely got above 16 degrees Celsius for the day, and the sky looked like something out of a science fiction movie. It did make for some nice moody photographic opportunities.

In this video I take you through my process of editing a landscape photo in Capture One, showing you the tools that I use and my thought process. The photo is one I took a while ago using my old Canon Eos 5 and it was a long exposure shot.

Autumn is by far my favourite time of year for taking photos, but sometimes I feel like I’ve done it all before. I’m always trying to do something different, to shake things up a bit, and so recently I had an idea. Instead of doing the usual and focus on the autumn colours, I would instead see if I could make some interesting images of autumn textures.

I was returning home from a week in a sweltering London last Friday, and we had taken the boat home. I was never so happy to see cloudy skies after the month plus long heatwave. As we approached the shore of Ireland, the moody sky and sea made for some great images. From my Streets of Dublin Blog…

The last time I went to Glendalough to shoot has ended up being the gift that keeps on giving. Every now and then I go back to my collection of images from the day and discover something else, or rediscover a shot that I’d dismissed. In this case I discovered a series of shots of the tree line that I had previously glossed over. 

A few weeks ago I wanted to photograph something a little different, so we headed out to a place in North County Dublin where you can see Dublin Port from the far side, as well as watch the boats come and go. We timed the trip so that we would arrive as the sun begins to set, and I was only travelling light camera wise. I went equipped with the Sony A6000, with the only lens being the kit lens. I also had the Canon G7XII with me, which I had initially brought just to shoot video, but I ended up shooting stills with it too.

Last Saturday we decided to go for an impromptu drive into the countryside around Dublin and north County Wicklow. We headed for the picturesque area of Blessington, and the famous lakes, which are nestled in the Wicklow mountains. The lakes are actually artificial and were formed 50 years ago by the creation of a dam which flooded the valley. They now provide hydroelectric power and drinking water to parts of county Dublin.