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See Ireland with a Creative Eye
What Is A Photo Tour?
What is a photo tour and is it different to a photography workshop? This is a question we get asked a lot. There is no real difference but simply, a tour is more focused on seeing the place with a photographic emphasis while a workshop is specifically designed to concentrate on one or more aspects of your photographic technique, equipment or composition. Both tour and workshop are interchangeable and there is a degree of overlap.
Because we tailor each tour to suit your needs, we choose the appropriate locations and times to maximise your time in Ireland and help you to improve your photography.
If you would like to know more about our photography workshops in Ireland please contact us here and join an Irish photographer for a day in your favourite part of Ireland.
Don't forget that we offer Gift Vouchers for Christmas and all year round for birthdays and other occasions. A photography gift voucher entitles the holder to the same benefits as a direct booking: one-to-one photography tuition, a choice of locations in Dublin, Wicklow and the rest of Ireland, morning or evening photography workshops, follow-on advice and critique on images. To buy a Panoramic Ireland Photography Gift Voucher for a friend, relation or even for yourself please follow this link or Contact Us.
Find out more about our Dublin Photo Tours here, for our Northern Ireland photo tours click here and Galway and rest of Ireland you can find out more here.
What makes Ireland so special? Perhaps it is the landscapes, the history, the people or a combination of all of these that bring 7 million visitors every year to this little island.
Dublin is the capital of Ireland and the chief city on the island, Belfast is the second largest, and the chief city of Northern Ireland. The island has two currencies and two governments but there no border controls between the north and south; indeed it is quite easy to drive from one side to the other without knowing it.
It is true, in Ireland it rains a bit (isn't that why it's so green?) but don't let that put you off because it doesn't rain as much as you think. With some good luck there will be fine weather during your visit. The best months to visit are April, May, June and September. The days are long, the weather is often perfect and it isn't high season. Is there any better place to be than driving along a country road somewhere in Ireland on a warm, sunny day?
Ireland makes a perfect location to improve your photography or to enhance your image collection. Contact us today to learn more about our bespoke tour options.
Panoramic Ireland (that's me) Meets Irish President Michael D. Higgins
Here I am (just so you know that I am actually a real person) meeting Irish President Michael D. Higgins at the Festival Interceltique du Lorient in France.
Image of the Month
Summer 2023
The west of Ireland, boats on lakeside sandy beach between mountains on a sunny day.
For 2023 take one of Panoramic Ireland's private photography tours in Ireland from Belfast to Cork to Dublin to Galway - perfect for avoiding the large crowds and finding scenic seascapes, landscapes and cityscapes to photograph. Bookable now for 2023 and beyond.
Find out more by going to the Contact page.
Seven Essential Places to Photograph in Ireland
- Dublin - home to Guinness, Croke Park and The Book of Kells; you can't miss Dublin, a city that has improved over the past 10 years.
- Wicklow - mountainous and empty yet less than an hour from Dublin, Wicklow is home to the most famous hermitage in Ireland at Glendalough.
- Belfast & the Antrim Coast - the land of myths and legends, saints and scholars, Northern Ireland has some of the finest landscape photography. The stunning landscapes are now easy for all to see, Game of Thrones has added to that appeal.
- Dingle - the furthest west that you can get in Ireland, and a peninsula that has as more pubs than you could ever visit. Visually stunning.
- The Burren - a unique geological landscape, The Burren is home to arctic, alpine and mediterranean plants.
- Connemara - rugged and wild, full of bogs, sea and sky as well as a few ponies of distinction.
- Donegal - the most northerly county in Ireland, the Atlantic coastline is second to none in Ireland with the sea cliffs of Slieve League and miles-long sandy beaches.
Have a look at the blog section of the site for more stories, events and information on the places mentioned here.
Enjoy the site, we hope you learn something and when you come to visit us here in Ireland/ Why not book a photography tour with us, learn something about the real Ireland and learn how to make better images.
LATEST POSTS FROM OUR BLOG
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Razorbill Pair, Alca torda, Black, White and Yellow - Isle of Mull, Scotland
Written by Darren McLoughlinIrishman and International travel photographer in search of the best bits of Ireland. Leading photography tours and experiences in Ireland.
Contributor to New York Times / Sunday Times / Irish Times / Echtra Echtra and Eonmusic
Cancer survivor.
Ask me about travel in Ireland or about photography in Ireland.
Written on Friday, 19 July 2024 00:21 in Photo Tours
The razorbill is a native seabird to Ireland and to Scotland which is where this image is from, over on Mull just up the coast from my home county of Antrim right in the north east corner of Ireland.
Related to the puffin, the razorbill can often be seen nesting and breeding in colonies that include puffins, as well as fulmars along the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Scotland.
Unlike the puffin, the razorbill is usually only seen as a plain black and white bird, with its distinctive line running from the bill back to its brown-iris eyes as seen in the image above.
But, when it opens its bill there is a flash of bright, almost golden yellow on the bird's palate.
This pair are engaging in mating behaviour but the bright yellow can also be useful for chicks being fed and razorbills often quarrel with each other with bills wide open in what is known as bill-gaping.
Each pair will only have one egg and both male and female feed the chick for approximately three weeks.
At around twenty days old the chicks follow the male into the ocean, leaping from the cliff and are fed by him until old enough to become self-sufficient.
Like fulmars, razorbills can live to forty years or more.
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Fulmar Flypast, Fulmaris glacialis in Flight
Written by Darren McLoughlin
Irishman and International travel photographer in search of the best bits of Ireland. Leading photography tours and experiences in Ireland.
Contributor to New York Times / Sunday Times / Irish Times / Echtra Echtra and Eonmusic
Cancer survivor.
Ask me about travel in Ireland or about photography in Ireland.
Written on Thursday, 18 July 2024 01:19 in Guide
I have written about the fascinating fulmar before on Panoramic Ireland, here. The seabird is not native to Ireland nor Scotland, where I photographed this one.
Originally confined to a few islands in the Atlantic, off Iceland and Saint Kilda - a remote Scottish island the birds have now spread across Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. Scotland is still home to 97% of the British population.
Young fulmars spend five years fully at sea, coming back to land to choose a colony after that but even then they won't breed for another few years. They can live for over forty years.
In this image you can see the tube-nose from which the tubenose family get their name, the birds possess a gland which helps to process, store then eject saline through the tube - salty water collected when diving for fish in the north Atlantic.
Fulmar comes from Norse, it means foul gull and relates to the stinking stomach oil that the bird regurgitates in order to deter threats. It matts the feathers of other birds and it covers other animals (humans too) with the stinky non-soluble fluid that can destroy clothes.
You've been warned - keep your distance! Enjoy these majestic fliers from afar.
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Bend in the River, a Patchwork of Fields - Green Irish Landscape in Summer
Written by Darren McLoughlin
Irishman and International travel photographer in search of the best bits of Ireland. Leading photography tours and experiences in Ireland.
Contributor to New York Times / Sunday Times / Irish Times / Echtra Echtra and Eonmusic
Cancer survivor.
Ask me about travel in Ireland or about photography in Ireland.
Written on Thursday, 18 July 2024 00:24 in Guide
The Irish summer is a strange thing, one day can be hot and sunny and then the next day is cloudy, cold and raining.
And of course we can get all of that in one day too.
Here, a lush scene of Irish farmland ringed by mountains, a river runs through it. All under a cloudy sky.
It's a patchwork of 1,000 fields, trees line the river and tree-filled hedges mark the boundary between fields all helped by the long daylight hours in summer, plenty of rain and gentle heat.
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Aurora Borealis, Astrophotography in Ireland
Written by Darren McLoughlin
Irishman and International travel photographer in search of the best bits of Ireland. Leading photography tours and experiences in Ireland.
Contributor to New York Times / Sunday Times / Irish Times / Echtra Echtra and Eonmusic
Cancer survivor.
Ask me about travel in Ireland or about photography in Ireland.
Written on Monday, 08 July 2024 20:38 in Guide
May 2024 saw some of the finest displays of the aurora borealis or Northern Lights over Ireland and lower latitudes ever witnessed.
After a long and busy day photographing in Dublin, word was coming in from all sources of an amazing light show and even in the city I could see and photograph the stronger portions of the celestial display.
But it wasn't until I headed far from the city, into the Irish countryside that I was able to truly enjoy and photograph the unpredictable lightshow.
Still I didn't manage to make to some of my favourite locations over on the west coast of Ireland where the night sky is darker, thus more suited to astrophotography and night sky events.
It doesn't take much to see the difference, in Dublin and other large conurbations only the brightest stars are visible, in the countryside the sky can be so dark that it seems like you are staring into, literally, the vast reaches of the Milky Way and beyond.
I was reading recently of a ranking that lists the best locations for astrophotography in Europe and, interestingly, eight out the top ten sites were in Ireland!
Travel booking site, Omio analysed over 1,400 locations in Europe using factors such as clear views to the southern horizon, light pollution and the Bortle Scale that measures the astronomical observability of celestial objects.
Ballinskelligs in County Kerry ranks at number one, followed by Ashleam in County Mayo.
RANK LOCATION COUNTRY 1 Ballinskelligs Beach Ireland 2 Ashleam Ireland 3 Tormore, Clare Island Ireland 4 Glosh Bay Ireland 5 Silver Strand Ireland 6 Robert Lloyd Praeger Centre Ireland 7 Saint Finian's Bay Ireland 8 Murray's Monument Scotland 9 ICAstronomy Spain 10 Ballycroy National Park Ireland So what are you waiting for, now is the time to get to Ireland, use Omio to book your travel here and why not book a photography workshop with Panoramic Ireland when you're in Ireland.
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Montague Lane, Dublin - Street Art by Joe Caslin for Charity Samaritans
Written by Darren McLoughlin
Irishman and International travel photographer in search of the best bits of Ireland. Leading photography tours and experiences in Ireland.
Contributor to New York Times / Sunday Times / Irish Times / Echtra Echtra and Eonmusic
Cancer survivor.
Ask me about travel in Ireland or about photography in Ireland.
Written on Friday, 21 June 2024 23:59 in Guide
The gable end of 12 Montague Street, Dublin as it faces onto Montague Lane is temporarily home to an artwork by Joe Caslin which aims to highlight the work of charity Samaritans.
The street artist, who is also a teacher, uses pencil drawings to highlight societal issues in contemporary Ireland, has unveiled his latest artwork in Dublin to bring attention to Dubliners of the work carried out by Samaritans.
Utilising the concept of the Japanese technique of Kintsugi in which broken pottery is repaired using gold, Caslin's artwork of a male figure with the Kintsugi gold holding his face together suggests the idea that people may appear whole now but might have been broken before.
Samaritans do amazing work for those who need help, operating a 24 hour helpline for free via this number: 116 123 from anywhere in Ireland - from Antrim to Wexford and it's free to call.
