It's been such a horrible stormy day today across much of Ireland and even worse in the UK so I thought I'd lighten the mood with some nice images of the beautiful Autumn sunshine from last week. Autumn is my favourite time of the year. Apart from the odd storm (and we're getting a doozy today) we generally get milder weather than we do in Summer. But what makes it special for me is the combination of Autumn light and the beautiful colours on the trees. Because Ireland is so far north the sun starts to get lower in the sky during Autumn and winter, and you get lovely cross light and more contrasty images until mid morning. You get a similar effect to shooting at dawn (in terms of shadows and low angle of light) well into the middle of the morning. It's not the same of course, but it has its own unique charm.

This is taken along the Grand Canal in the heart of Dublin City. The canal is always lovely this time of the year, but the trees were only beginning to turn when I shot this. Amazingly enough, I returned to this spot a few days later and the trees were already noticeably browner.

I had dusted off my 5D Mark II for taking these shots. While I primarily shoot using my Nikon D700 I like taking the 5D out every now and again as I like the film like colours which have their own unique look. I know people can get caught up in the whole "my camera is better than yours" argument, but this isn't a case of one being better than the other, it's just different. It's like using a different kind of film back in ye olde film days!

This was a cool shot that I was delighted to have come across. The man was a piece of street art on the pavement and the "bars" were the shadows cast on the ground from the railings by the side of the canal.

Gorgeous lens flare as the sunlight shines through the trees. For those who don't know this, if you want to get a nice star filtered shape like this (or even stronger) you need to stop your lens down a bit. It depends on your lens as to how good an effect you can get, and if you're shooting hand held you have to make a compromise between stopping down and your shutter speed getting to low. This was somewhere between f/8 and f/16. I'm not sure exactly, but the effect worked well.