Sometimes I am leading photography tours in the flat streets of Dublin and Belfast, taking it easy at the coast but on this occasion there was a lot of hiking through the mountains, packing a backpack with plenty of provisions was necessary as was taking plenty of camera equipment. Water and weatherproof clothes are two essentials that you must bring into the mountains as the clouds can roll in so quick as to leave you cold, wet and potentially stranded for a few hours, at least hampering your progress down.

A bright sky and soft ground underfoot made it diffucult to make quick progress but on reaching rocky outcrops our pace quickened, slowed only by the need to photograph many of the scenes we encountered.

The need to stop and photograph each scene that we surveyed meant that the increasingly steepening inclines weren't as challenging as would otherwise have been the case, providing respite from the climb.

Here the colours of the winter landscape in Ireland's mountains are visible, the yellows and browns of vegetation with the greys of quartzite rocks; a bright sky in this scene but blue as the winter sky can be in other directions.

Pressing on we reached our vantage point high up in the mountains, unfortunately the weather closed in and the grand scenic views weren't available for our viewing.

In general landscape photography can be like that. Sometimes it's perfect, and sometimes you make do with what images you can take and plan to return another day.

The image above is a panoramic, created from multiple images to make one larger, wider image.

To join me for a half day or day's photography anywhere in Ireland contact me via the contact page, multi-day tours are also available.