Christmas Day, a time of big dinners and unwrapping presents.

Here in Ireland there is a popular tradition of taking to the water, the icy-cold waters of the Irish Sea, Atlantic Ocean or many inland lakes and rivers.

The sun has set on 2014 and we are now in 2015, Happy New Year!

During a recent trip through the countryside of my native Northern Ireland I stopped and walked along this lane.

Looking back over the crest of the hill there were panoramic views in all directions, most notably towards the distant mountains.

December is finally here and in less than a week the day length will begin to lengthen again, the winter of course provides some of the best days for landscape photography if you know where to go. But here are a selection of some of my favourite landscapes in Ireland, as chosen by Tourisme Irlandais and shared on their Facebook page; they are the official Tourism Ireland for France.

An afternoon in the west of Ireland with sun rays and waves from a Galway lake.

I waited as the camera exposed a few long exposures and afterwards set a faster shutter speed to capture the sunlight bursting through the clouds. Alongside this I captured a timelapse of various lake scenes from the west of Ireland.

This video is a timelapse taken on one stormy November afternoon in 2014.

Autumn is really the time of year to be out there with camera in hand, or on tripod as the case may be.

Colour and character conquer the countryside as leaves turn and fall to the ground.

Autumn is here, the leaves are changing colour, the weather is changing from warm and summery to blustery and showery, the evenings are closing in and it's looking great!

A Western Panorama from Panoramic Ireland

The shadows of two walkers can be seen traversing a ridge between two mountains in the west of Ireland in this image from my Panoramic Ireland series. The shadows belong to me and a visiting photographer, on a photography tour of Northern Ireland initially we then headed on to Sligo, Galway and Mayo in the west of Ireland extending the tour by four days.

Return to Saint John's Point - Northern Ireland's Unusual Lighthouse

The distinctive yellow and black painted lighthouse is situated on the eastern end of Dundrum Bay in County Down, Northern Ireland and differentiated from most lighthouses that are decorated in the usual black and white or just white.

Not to be confused with Saint John's Point lighthouse in County Donegal; the unusually-coloured County Down lighthouse is one of the finest in Ulster with rocky foreshore, the Mourne Mountains in the distance and its bright colour adding to the appeal of the long drive into the peninsula on which it sits.

Cliffs of Moher at Sunset

I previously wrote about my visit to Slieve League in County Donegal, the highest marine cliffs in Ireland, along with the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare are part of the Wild Atlantic Way that runs for 2,500km along Ireland's western seaboard.