It's an exciting time here in Ireland, Saint Patrick's Day has just finished, the Irish rugby team won the Six Nations and remains at number one in the world.

It is also the equinox, so we now move into the six months of the year when daylight is longer than darkness.

And while there isn't much in the way of summer colour just yet, the bright and fresh green of spring is on the way.

We're big fans of sunsets here at Panoramic Ireland, you'll find plenty of images of the evening golden hour throughout the site.

It seems that someone with artisitic skills and a spray can in Dublin is also a fan, after painting this sagely advice on a wall in the city centre of Ireland's capital city.

Join Panoramic Ireland to photograph more sunsets and get yourself away from too much Netflix, all you need is your camera.

High in the Irish mountains, three rocks sit overlooking an empty mountain landscape of peaks, ridges and valleys offering a good spot for a break to take in the view.

Okay, Ireland has no real height when compared with many other countries, but still for this island it's a high point with majestic views.

Perfect, you could imagine, for the three bears from the famous folk story to stop here and have a picnic whilst enjoying the scenic view.

Sometimes when working with images in Adobe Lightroom Classic, it is preferable to group similar images together into a stack so that all of the images are on top of each other with one on top.

In this case, I have been working on images taken in an exposure bracket or maybe if you had a sequence for focus bracketing.

Here there are five images taken with different exposures to give a final image with a wider dynamic range, or HDR and after processing these to create the HDR image I don't need to see the five source images.

Usually when processing in this way it is possible to have Lightroom group the images into a stack automatically.

But on occasions, either when forgetting to do so, or as in my case Lightroom failed to create the stack automatically, it is possible to add images into a stack manually.

Here are the steps to group images into a stack in Lightroom with Grid view (images below):

1. Select your images, here I have the five source images and one HDR image so six in total

2. Right click on the selection

3. In the context menu choose Stacking, then Group into Stack

4. That's it, or you can use the CTRL-G shortcut after selecting images

5. To expand the stack, click on the number badge at the top left

6. Right click on the number badge to bring up a context menu that offers options to manage the stacks

The Olympia Theatre needs little introduction to Dubliners having been in existence for 100 years this year, with its famous canopy standing over the footpath on Dame Street.

In 1879 it opened as Dan Lowrey's Star of Erin Music Hall on the site of Connell's Monster Saloon. Undergoing several name changes it was rebuilt and reopened as the Empire Palace Theatre in 1897.

Opening finally as The Olympia in 1923, a whole century of touring and local artists have happily performed at the venue.

Generations of Irish people have returned to the Olympia to see the most famous actors and musicians in the world performing at the venue including David Bowie, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hady, Noel Coward, Alec Guinness, Blur, Foo Fighters, Florence + The Machine, Hozier, Dua Lipa and REM to name a few.

Picture the scene, we're a year ahead and it's May 2024, a beautiful sunny day and below us the Baily Lighthouse and Dublin Bay with RTE, Ireland's national broadcaster on the other side.

RTE are preparing to host Eurovision, after Ireland's 2023 entry, Hawaii by Public Image Ltd (PiL) fronted by John Lydon, won the famous music competition in May 2023.

Well, that is the possibility as tomorrow night, Friday 3rd of February 2023 Lydon and PiL will be performing on RTE's The Late Late Show as part of a competition to find the country's entry for this year.

Hawaii is a paean to Lydon's wife of almost 50 years, their life together and one of their happiest moments together, in Hawaii. Nora now is living with Alzheimer's; the song, video and artwork are "... dedicated to everyone going through tough times on the journey of life, with the person they care for the most,” says John Lydon. “It’s also a message of hope that ultimately love conquers all.”

You can never guarantee snow in Ireland but it does snow a little every year even if only in the mountains.

Here, the famous MacGillycuddy's Reeks with Carrauntoohil the highest peak at 1038.6 metres above sea level, it is Ireland's highest mountain and only one of three peaks that top 1,000 metres.

The snow line can be seen easily and the tops of the peaky mountains almost match the clouds moving out of scene to the left.

These mountains sit on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, home of the famous circuit scenic drive the Ring of Kerry but are seen here from Dingle, the peninsula that brings you as far west as it is possible to go in Ireland.

The foreground is bathed in a golden glow, typical of the clear winter light on sunny days in Ireland.

Panoramic Ireland are running photography workshops and tours in Dingle, County Kerry in 2023. Use the Contact page to find out more or visit: https://panoramicireland.com/photography-workshops-ireland/book-a-dingle-ireland-photo-tour

This week has seen plenty of cold weather again, nothing too cold but enough for ice, frost and, in some parts of Ireland, snow.

So we headed into the mountains, to photograph some of the ice and frost, no snow here.

Here, on the climb towards the ridge and peak there was plenty of white on the hard forestry road.

And with the late afternoon sun was dipping just below that ridge, the perfect time for a starburst.

Adobe's Lightroom, known as Lightroom Classic to distinguish it from the cloud-based Lightroom CC, is one of the best image editing programs to be found. Undoubtedly, Lightroom Classic (Not Lightroom CC) is the best image management software by far with no rival to its combined functionality.

Despite this, there is no easy way to find all black and white images in Lightroom Classic, the closest method is to use Smart Collections.

Collections are one of Lightroom Classic's best ways to organise images, Smart Collections automatically find and add images based on criteria you set.

Here I'm going to create a Smart Collection for images that have been marked as Black and White in Lightroom Classic, so all of the images that I have converted to black and white using the program.

Here's how:

• In the left hand side panel, scroll down to Collections

• Click on the + to the right

• In the context menu choose Create Smart Collection...

While researching new locations for photography workshops recently, I found this very scenic woodland for the first time.

Not a famous location, and all the better for it. This woodland is quiet and has a mixture of native and non-native broadleaf trees.

Unfortunately it is increasingly being surrounded by large conifer plantations that often result in the decline of these deciduous arboreal islands and the life that exists therein.

I don't think it is an ancient woodland, rare places in Ireland, but it certainly is old and has the look of a very pretty wood indeed with narrow, twisting paths, a river, moss-covered rocks and trees, as well as plenty of wildlife.

I will be back here to photograph and to lead photography workshops so if you would like to join me to learn how to photograph woodland scenes, contact me to improve your photography in 2023 in Ireland's fantastically scenic woodlands.