After a rather bleak and dull start to the year, it’s always nice when the grey world of winter springs to life. And while Spring has its own charms, things really explode into vividness once summer hits. I have always been fascinated by flowers and plants, not necessarily from a “nature” point of view, but by the wonderful colours and textures of the natural world. I guess the designer and artist in me just won’t quit.

The start of this year has been a bit weird for me, photographically speaking. I haven’t taken a large number of photographs for various reasons. The terrible weather being one of them. However, over the first six months, I have taken a few street photos, and while there aren’t many, I thought I would share them here.

It’s that time of the year between Christmas and New Year when the world seems to slow down, and you never know what day of the week it is. I’ve been going back over old photos in my library and pondering the past year. I actually got out to take photos quite a bit this year, but I have been really bad at sharing the projects that I was shooting. These include photographing a local stately garden throughout the seasons, visiting a national park at sunrise and sunset and a trip to Scotland to see lough ness. So, as they’ll never see the internet light of day otherwise, here’s a quick overview and some images I took over the past year.

Lough Ennel in Co. Westmeath is a pretty unassuming lake in the Irish Midlands. It’s not particularly large by international standards, and if you were to ask the average person on the street here in Ireland, they’d probably tell you they’ve never heard of it. But recently it’s become somewhat famous because of a natural phenomenon that occurs there every evening during winter. A spectacular starling murmuration.

In early January we took a road trip to capture sunrise and sunset in the southeast of Ireland, starting with the world's oldest working Lighthouse: Hook Lighthouse, Co. Wexford, followed by a spectacular sunrise over the estuary of the river Slaney. Finally, we visited a Co. Wexford Beach made famous for being used in the movie “Saving Private Ryan”.

In early January my wife and I decided to get away for a few days to relax before the new work year started. We headed to a nice relaxing retreat in Co. Wexford, and while the trip was mostly for a holiday, of course we snuck in some photography time! The last time we were in Wexford we had visited the beautiful and famous Hook Lighthouse in the south of the county, but we had done so at noon during the summer, so the light was a bit flat. This time we aimed to visit it at sunset, to capture it in better light. So we set off on the drive down the peninsula towards hook head and its namesake lighthouse. We were not disappointed.

Recently, I’ve been on sort of a Landscape and nature photography kick, so on a recent weekend, we headed to one of my favourite places to photograph on the east coast of Ireland, a place called Glendalough. I had posted the video of this a while ago, and I’m finally getting around to sharing the corresponding photographs. Click through to see the full photoshoot

A little while ago, we decided to take a few days break away from the hustle and bustle and headed off on an adventure. We wanted to go somewhere out of the way. Where we ended up was probably about as far away as you can get in Ireland without actually leaving the mainland or going on a ferry. For the longest time I had wanted to visit the top of the island, and so my wife booked us into a hotel on the northernmost peninsula not he northernmost county in Ireland: The windswept and very beautiful Inishowen peninsula in Co. Donegal. And what a place it is.

Back in April my wife and I took a road trip to the northern most region in Ireland, the Inishowen peninsula in Co. Donegal. We were there for a few days and took the opportunity to photograph the northern most point on the island of Ireland, as well as some of the incredible beaches in the area.

I haven’t really been taking that many photos over the past few months for various reasons, which has been a bit frustrating for me. I do have a little collection that has been slowly gathering over the past few months, and so it’s time to resurrect a long-running series, that I used to do ages ago: “Random Acts of Photography”.

When you watch a travel show or even a YouTube video from a far off place, it’s easy to get envy for the exotic locations and fantastic scenery. It’s also easy to overlook some of the magnificent sights in your own back yard. And here in Ireland, we have a truly magnificent back yard. Ever since the pandemic hit, we’ve been travelling abroad less, and are slowly exploring more of our own country. A little while ago, we travelled through the mountains and valleys of the beautiful Connemara countryside, and I was blown away by what we saw there.

Recently, I was trying to record a tutorial on editing landscape photography. In the end, I didn’t publish it because I felt that the edits I had done weren’t dramatic enough for people to watch. In fact, I even had that criticism about some of my editing tutorials before, that the edits I was making weren’t significant enough. This led me to realise the paradox of photo editing tutorials, especially on YouTube or other socially driven platforms. Unless you’re dramatically changing the image or doing extensive edits, people will find it “boring” and not watch or complain. But the reality is, in most cases, restraint will lead to better images.

As spring gives way to summer here in Ireland, and the cold dark rainy days give way to bright rainy days, I’ve been slowly getting back into street photography. I have only really dabbled since the pandemic began and for most of 2020 I didn’t really shoot much at all. I’ve been getting back into it bit by bit, and recently, I headed out with my trusty Sony A6000 to get some street shots

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.