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.
A case in point, here in the northwest, in County Donegal this landscape of granite mountains covered in a soft, boggy carpet with just delicate highlights and shadows across the empty scene.
This, a glaciated valley features steep sides hundreds of metres in height.
Join me, Panoramic Ireland, to photograph landscapes like these.
And yet it is how Ireland often is, not the bright sunshine and blue sky of typical postcard images. The landscape is sympathtic to the soft weather of an Irish day.
There's a poetry to the landscape in such conditions as here in Donegal and although I typically head for woodlands in grey weather, I do still enjoy photographing the open landscape with the distant grey of mountains melding in with the grey of the sky.
Recently I was asked what Ireland is like in October, is it worth coming to for photography and of course my answer was indeed it is worth visiting in October.
Here are some of my favourite images from Octobers over the years, a small selection but waterfalls and woodlands make up a lot of the locations.
Date & Time: 17 August, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
Location: Colgan Hall, Carndonagh, Chapel St, Gort Glebe, Carndonagh, Co. Donegal
Date & Time: 12 August, 9pm - 10pm
Location: Roscommon Castle, Loughnaneane Park, Roscommon Town Centre, Co. Roscommon
Date & Time: 12 August, 1pm - 5pm
Location: Westgate Park, Abbey Street, Wexford, Co. Wexford
Date & Time: 12 - 13 August, 11am - 4pm
Location: Nano Nagle Place, South Presentation Centre Ltd, Douglas Street, Cork City
Date & Time: 19 August, 2pm - 4pm
Location: Meeting at RSPB West Light Seabird Centre, Rathlin Island, Co. Antrim
Also On: 19 August, 2pm - 4pm at Car park at Portmuck, Island Magee, Co. Antrim
Date & Time: 18 August, 6pm - 8pm
Location: Martin Wilson Workshop, Crockacullion, Beltra, F91 PY83, Co. Sligo
Date & Time: 12 August, 4pm - 6pm
Location: Corliss Fort, Corliss, Crossmaglen, BT35 9AY, Co. Armagh
Date & Time: 16 August, 6pm - 7pm
Location: Emmet Street, Clonmel, E91 YW66, Co. Tipperary
Date & Time: 14 - 17 August, 12pm - 4pm
Location: Strokestown Park House Visitor Centre, Strokestown Park House, Co. Roscommon
Date & Time: 20 August, 3:30pm - 4:30pm
Location: Duiske Inn (outside), Main Street, Graignamanagh, Co Kilkenny, R95 DH00
Date & Time: 20 August, 2:15pm - 3:15pm
Location: Outdoor Activity Hub, The Docks Graignamanagh, Co Kilkenny, R95 EKN5
Date & Time: 12 August, 9am - 6pm
Location: Muff Cross, Kingscourt, Co. Cavan
Every year for the past 13 years Electric Picnic have run the Tour de Picnic, a charity cycle that gives you, and others like you who have missed out on tickets, the opportunity to fundraise for good causes and challenge yourself.
Entry is still open for the Tour de Picnic but you need to be quick as the cut off date for fundraising is the 18th of August.
This year you can partake in an 80km cycle or, for those of us lucky enough not to have shin splints, a 17km run.
The charities supported in 2023 are Children's Health Foundation, ISPCC, and Jack and Jill Children's Foundation.
Each participant will need to raise €450 and in return will receive a three-day ticket to Electric Picnic that includes camping.
All the information is up on the website at: https://www.tourdepicnic.ie/faqs-info
It should come as no surprise too that for the workshops and tours that I organise throughout Ireland, I recommend the coast often and get asked about the coast.
Here, a scene from a cloudy evening. After finishing up photographing some more well-known scenes from the Irish coast we set our sights on a tranquil scene of a calm Atlantic Ocean.
This image is one of my favourites from the evening's workshop.
To say Adobe are making a right mess of this Photoshop Beta would be an understatement.
I was editing some images from Dublin, and this one of city's fine City Hall, it opened in 1779 as the Royal Exchange but functioning since 1851 the city hall. Unfortunately I ran into problems with editing the image.
The solution in most cases is simple, this is a known and acknowledged bug by Adobe.
Likely it is because you have also installed Adobe Photoshop (Beta), the newest version has an incorrect reference to Adobe Photoshop 2024 when in fact you have Adobe Photoshop 2023 installed.
This fix will work even if you are using Photoshop for external editing.
For me, on Windows 10, the error started after updating Photoshop Beta to the latest version (25.0).
CTRL+E in Lightroom, even with the official Photoshop app already open, caused the program to hang for several minutes after which Lightroom showed that error about Photoshop 2024.
After clicking OK, Photoshop did then open the image but it also instantly created a .tif version in the Lightroom filmstrip (normally when editing in Photoshop this tif wouldn't be created until you saved the file).
To fix, open Creative Cloud Desktop then go to Apps, scroll down to Beta apps and click on the three dots beside open for Photoshop (Beta)
Choose Other versions then go to the previous version, in this case I reinstalled 24.7.
You don't need to uninstall Photoshop (Beta) 25.0 as installing 24.7 here will uninstall the offending most recent, offending version.
Afterwards, Lightroom correctly shows the external editing in Photoshop to be Adobe Photoshop 2023 - Edit > Preferences... > External Editing > Photoshop Version:
Normality resumes, with Edit in Photoshop 2023 bringing the file instantly into Photoshop and loading it as a .CR2 file and only saving it when choosing to save.
I have read elsewhere of people uninstalling Lightroom and Photoshop but the simple fix is to try this first.
I visited Kildare Town recently and the grounds of Saint Brigid’s Cathedral and round tower. See more about one of Ireland’s three patron saints, Brigid, here.
Having recently read about a visit to Kildare by a descendent of one of its most famous citizens, William ‘Squires’ Gannon.
Squires Gannon was captain of Kildare’s Gaelic Football team and won two all-Ireland finals, in 1927 against Kerry, and in 1928 against Cavan, becoming the first captain and first team to lift the GAA’s Sam Maguire Cup.
Interestingly Kerry are playing in this year’s final, aiming to retain and lift the Sam Maguire tomorrow, Sunday 30th July 2023. Kerry have won the All-Ireland 38 times, Dublin 30 times. But Kerry have won the Sam Maguire 31 times, and Dublin only 16 times.
That of course means Dublin won the All-Ireland more times before 1928. As a native of neither place but a visitor to both I will be watching the final with interest.
Saint Brigid’s Cathedral is one of the finest buildings in Kildare Town, the building itself dates to 1223 but the site is much older and earlier churches would have existed here. Most of what you see though dates to the 1890s. The round tower though is older, dating to the 1100s is Ireland’s second tallest at 32 metres and is climbable, when open. The crenellations or battlements were added in the 1730s having originally been a conical hat like with most original round tower design.
Kilmacduagh in Galway is the tallest round tower in Ireland which I have visited and photographed so expect an article soon.
Anyway, I found the story of Squires Gannon to be interesting, his place in history recently commemorated by a statue in Kildare Town.
The famous and controversial musician died today 26/07/2023.
HEIC was introduced in 2015 by the MPEG. It's a part of MPEG-H Part 12 (ISO/IEC 23008-12) and was largely popularised by Apple, who started using it as the default format for photos on iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra in 2017, replacing the JPEG format.
A window will open with lots of options, for this we simply:
That's it, Photoshop will run, process the images and create the folders such as JPEG / TIFF / PSD with those files added.
You now have your HEIC images converted to other formats.