A return to the Lough Corrib sunset for long exposure photography

After the spectacular pre-sunset light scattered by the clouds in the skies over Galway Bay that I captured from Salthill Promenade yesterday, this evening was always looking to be a winner when it came to sunset – have a look here.

It was cold and free of clouds all day, by evening cars still had a discernible layer of frost over their windscreens and anyone working outdoors would have known that winter was making its presence felt.

A journey to Galway with Sunset in Sailthill

A long day today saw me in Galway, known as the City of the Tribes it lays claim to being the festival city of Ireland. Almost every visitor to Ireland talks about Galway in such ways that it makes you wonder why all Irish people don’t move there.

Home to many a brilliant festival including the Galway Film Fleadh, the Oyster Festival and the Galway Arts Festival amongst others; with a thriving social scene with some of the best pubs in Ireland Galway has always had a reputation for being the liveliest city in Ireland.

Although I do not consider myself to be a street photographer because I prefer other styles, I do practice this style of photography regularly, in Ireland and in Italy where I have spent some time photographing nuns in Assisi, the calli of Venice and the hill-top towns of Umbria. I do enjoy street photography, the interactions and looking for that fleeting image, to capture a moment in time is exciting.

Mayo and Galway - my favourite part of the west of Ireland, is it yours?

I have written recently about leading photo tours in the west of Ireland and it being one of my favourite places on the island of Ireland. By the west of Ireland in this case I mean Galway and Mayo as distinct from the southwest which is Cork and Kerry or the northwest which comprises Donegal and Sligo.

Galway is Ireland's second largest county after Cork and Co. Mayo isn't small either. Driving across both of these counties you really do get a feel for their large size. The differing landscapes between Ballinasloe in the east of Co. Galway and Clifden, capital of Connemara in the west are obvious to the traveller.

Panoramic Ireland’s photo tours have been listed on Discover Northern Ireland’s website in the activity section complete with some information on what Panoramic Ireland offers in photo tours and workshops throughout Northern Ireland.

The information is specific to Northern Ireland where I have created photo tours in Antrim, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone. Strangely, despite Derry City being the City of Culture 2013 I have not yet led a tour there, any takers?

I was in Ballinrobe recently, a small market town in south Co. Mayo that had a population of 3,682 in 2011.

Like a lot of small towns in Ireland it is an attractive settlement with a colourful streetscape, impressive civic buildings and a decent sized river.

Nearby the countryside contains some of the best views in Ireland, the mountains of Mayo (have a look here for a winter panorama in Mayo with snow, mountains and a rainbow), the unique lakes of Lough Mask, Lough Corrib and Lough Carra are all within easy reach today. There are forests, waterfalls, ancient remains and mediaeval tower houses sitting in the green, drumlin-dominated landscape.

After leading a photo tour in the area I stopped in Ballinrobe for some dinner. In the town square or diamond, I noticed a Stars and Stripes flag flying over a statue that, on previous visits had not been there.

I was not sure if I would go to the coast this morning.

Late to bed last night and a forecast that suggested the south of Ulster would have better weather today was making me reluctant to bother.

Today was one of those days, I had nothing big planned but I had a meeting in Belfast scheduled for the afternoon. And as always I had a plan to head to the coast for sunset even if today’s weather was not going to be kind in providing warm sunset colours.

The meeting in Belfast was cancelled at short notice, postponed by mutual agreement to later in the week. So instead I headed towards Wicklow for some landscape photography.

Wicklow is known as the Garden County and is situated south of Dublin. Home to some of the best locations for landscape photography in Ireland it is an easy choice, mountains and valleys, lakes and rivers make up this county.

A recent photo tour booking took me to Belfast and Co. Down for a photo tour with Barbara from Maine.

Barbara had been to Dublin before and wanted to go somewhere different, having spent many vacations in the usual tourist spots like the Cliffs of Moher, Dingle and Galway she wanted to see a different part of Ireland.

I suggested Northern Ireland as an alternative when she first contacted me. I grew up in Northern Ireland and I still know it very well just like the rest of Ireland. She thought this was a good idea, on visits to Ireland in the seventies and eighties she would never have considered going across the border. ‘It was never a consideration’ she told me.

She still wanted an urban based photo tour so I suggested Belfast; I described it as a changed place from what she knows it as. Like any city there are places to avoid, but tourism has really gripped the city and the rest of Northern Ireland. Belfast has a real character of its own, Barbara thought it was a good plan and we decided to meet in the early afternoon.

Today I took a good long walk through Dublin on a photo tour with an out-of-towner, Jeff from Toronto, Canada.

Jeff booked a few weeks in advance, something I always suggest you do to guarantee availability and we planned to start early in the afternoon. With sunset at 16:45 we made a plan to get some low light and night shots in the city centre.

My favourite images today came from Christchurch, it is a location that almost all visitors to Dublin visit. I usually come past here on a photo tour, and it brings me to an interesting point that because Dublin is quite a flat city it is an easy city to walk around.