Sometimes I get asked if the non-summer months, or at least October to March, are good for photography in Ireland.

And of course the answer is yes. The autumn, winter and spring months hold some fantastic clear light days, moody overcast conditions, fog, burst of colour and often storms.

These months also typically have fewer tourists around and so make a perfect time for landscape photography.

A case in point; travelling through Northern Ireland's Mourne Mountains in March I found this scene of large fields bounded by huge-granite-stone walls so typical of County Down, an old cottage the only sign of habitation here.

And in that field, an arrangement of sheep.

39 legs in all, if you count my two of course, and one for the monopod supporting my camera.

Strong sunlight is evident here with those short well-defined shadows and bright folds of wool.

Northern Ireland will reopen soon and Panoramic Ireland's tours and workshops will be available to book as soon as possible but in the meantime I am still taking no-deposit, fully cancellable and changeable bookings - just send me an email to enquire about locations and dates.

I have written about Slieve League or Sliabh Liag before, Ireland's highest mainland coastal cliffs.

This is one of Ireland's finest landscapes with its indented, steep cliffs constantly battered by the Atlantic Ocean hundreds of metres below.

Bright, golden light catches each of the rocky indents.

Join me, in 2024 and 2025, to photograph in Ireland's most scenic locations including Antrim, Donegal, Galway, Wicklow and Waterford.

Water falls over the waterfall, that's what a waterfall does; but sometimes in dry conditions, here during summer, it loses its scale.

In full flow, the waterfall fills this rockface with a powerful force of continuously falling water, flowing fast from the deep rock pool below.

Where water doesn't regularly flow vegetation can be found, green mats of bryophytes and bunches of ferns - sometimes tucked away in niches behind the falls as seen in the images above and below.

In full flow waterfalls are difficult to photograph, often generating a spray that can mist a camera lens in less than a second. Below the same waterfall with much more flow as autumn ends.

Join Panoramic Ireland in 2021 to photograph scenic Irish waterfalls and landscapes.

Northern Ireland's vaccination program for COVID-19 is gathering pace, with over 700,000 or close to 50% of the population having had at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Some restrictions are lifting or easing soon, for instance an opening of many shops and businesses with schools also returning from the 12th of April.

However, tourism remains restricted with Panoramic Ireland's tours unavailable since mid-October 2020. Hotels are not currently open to non-essential guests. Close contact services also remain restricted and only up to ten people from two households can currently meet up outdoors. And from 12/04 there will still be recommendations to "stay local".

This means that, for the moment, Panoramic Ireland's photo tours remain unavailable to book for any period before, at the earliest, June 2021 including at the Giant's Causeway UNESCO World Heritage Site pictured above.

County Antrim's Dark Hedges is by now one of the most famous avenues in the world. Made by a local landowner who planted the beech trees almost 250 years ago to mark the approach to his house; made famous by HBO's Game of Thrones as the King's Road over the past decade.

The fine scene has changed much since this image, in recent times (COVID excepting) most of this long scene would have been filled with throngs of people in on tour buses, as a result the nice and grassy verges have turned to mud.

The trees have diminished greatly, having fallen to storms in the intervening years and weakened as a result of vehicular traffic parking up on the verges, as I mentioned in a previous post about beech trees they do have shallow roots so are prone to damage.

Of course trees don't just give us large canopies of leaves and branches, they often provide some of the finest flowers such as these cherry blossoms.

This image is from outside of the hospital where I received chemotherapy two years ago, the dark wood of the cherry and those delicate pinky-white petals make for a fine display and one that I was glad to stop and admire given the events of the time.

Cherry trees are native to Ireland, but not the ones seen here. The two varieties are wild cherry Prunus avium and bird cherry Prunus padus, and are mostly found growing wild in the west of Ireland and the midlands.

For today's National Tree Week post here is a fine 360-degree panorama or photosphere of a scenic beech wood in Ireland.

Covered in moss and with its own little niche containing water, a wooden rockpool this was one of the finest trees in the woods. 

Beech trees Fagus sylvatica are not native to Ireland but these characterful imports from Europe have made a home here. From the famous Dark Hedges to woodlands and private gardens, beech grow well in Ireland and as seen here are happy on banks as they have shallow roots.

Producing abundant nuts, a walk through a beech wood is like no other as you crunch along under the tall trees and in autumn they provide a fine spectacle of red/brown colour.

Check out one of my other 360-degree panoramas of Trinity College Dublin's Long Room Library.

Few places in the west of Ireland can compete with the scenic beauty of Pine Island and its attractiveness for the photographer.

The small island sitting Derryclare Lough is covered with a fine stand of Scots Pine trees, a native conifer to Ireland the Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris is one of the most obvious trees in the Irish landscape. Here, in the west of Ireland in particular, they grow in places that other trees can't. Out of craggy rocks, on the edge of boggy ground and at altitude.

It's a tree that Monty Python rightly described as the Mighty Scots Pine in their famous Lumberjack Song performed by Michael Palin.

Unfortunately, Ireland's state electricity utility ESB have decided to plaster this fine landscape with electricity poles and cables that pass across the lake via the island.

It's a shame but Pine Island still retains a special charm in all conditions and it is a favoured place for Panoramic Ireland's photography workshops.

Like my previous post, this is one of trees providing shelter for animals but trees of course don't just provide shelter on cold and stormy days, as seen here on hot summer days too.

It was a hot day in Kilkenny, one of those fine June days when Ireland is awash with colour and the smell of warmth as temperatures hit the high 20s Celsius.

Stopping by the ruins of an old church we spotted the unfolding scene of horses chasing cows away from the shade of this tree.

Like a scene from a Western film we watched the riderless horses, with their sheeny-sweaty musculature, rounding up the relaxing cattle and herding them off into the large field before returning to the shady coolness under the protective canopy.

I have written about almost-treeless landscapes in Ireland before, usually upland areas such as here in the Wicklow Mountains.

And here, two old sycamore trees stand together alone above the boggy terrain, in bad weather providing shelter for sheep as seen in this image.

Sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus is not native to Ireland, thought to have been introduced from Europe before the 17th century being first recorded in Derry in 1610, it has now become widely naturalised and is one of Ireland's most common trees.

Sycamore is a strong and sturdy tree, able to withstand all that the Irish weather can deliver.