Every so often a little bit of colour catches your eye, here by the coast of Ireland I noticed every breaking wave and its spray carrying a rainbow of colour towards the white cliffs of the Antrim Coast.

Rainbows are usually fleeting, relying on a mixture of sunshine and water vapour meeting at the correct angle to create the separation of light into its constituent wavelengths - for us we see the visible spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Rainbows can occur anywhere, as seen here in the wave spray or on top of a mountain in a ringed glory, in urban settings and in fine autumnal scenes.

It's winter now and my mind turns to coastal landscapes.

Here, one from the Antrim Coast of Sheep Island.

Crashing waves batter both sides of the small island, for millennia a well known landmark off this part of the Causeway Coast but now more famous from its appearance in HBO's Game of Thrones.

Sheep Island rises some 30 metres above the North Atlantic with mostly sheer cliffs, a thin layer of soil on top gives a green colour particularly in spring. In centuries past, local farmers would graze sheep out here being able to land only on the calmest of days.

Some doubt that landing a vessel here with sheep is possible, but on a calm day and good local knowledge this would be a difficult, but not impossible, task.

Sheep Island is home to a large proportion of Ireland's population of the northern European sub-species of cormorant and is a protected habitat.

You can just see the coast of Scotland, faintly on the horizon under the grey cloud to the right of Sheep Island in this image.

The myth that Ireland suffers from bad weather year round, especially outside of the summer months, is definitely not true.

Autumn and Winter in Ireland can be full of fine, clear and bright weather, just like in this image from the spectacular coastline. Low tide exposes golden sands as a small stream slowly trickles towards the steady motion of small waves.

This coastline is full of sea stacks and crags and while it looks peaceful here it can be stormy too.

Join Panoramic Ireland for a private photography workshop in Ireland from the Causeway Coast to the Copper Coast or anywhere else.

Now little more than half an outline of a shipwrecked boat, the rotting planks that make up Bad Eddie's Boat, marooned on a Donegal beach since 1977, may soon become a more lasting figure if locals can raise enough funds to recreate the tourist attraction as a stainless steel work of art.

Overlooked by the long abandoned Óstán Gweedore, the monolithic hotel perched above the beach in Bunbeg, Bad Eddie's Boat is to be surveyed by a team from Queen's University in Belfast with the intention of recreating the structure as Ireland's first piece of submersed beach sculpture.

Seen here in 2014, the sea has not been kind to Bad Eddie's Boat. Eddie brought the French-built ship ashore here for repairs in 1977 and it has remained here ever since, providing interest to locals, visitors and artists alike.

Bono and Clannad recorded a video here for their famous track In a Lifetime back in 1986.

Photographing seascapes in Ireland is never boring. The varied geology of the Irish coast makes it interesting to say the least.

Here along the Wild Atlantic Way many rocks are evident, sedimentary layers are visible inclining out of the Atlantic while behind igneous rocks form the foreshore.

The rough sheep grazing land stretching uphill is dotted with rocks.

More seascapes can be found here with information on Panoramic Ireland's coastal photography workshops.

The Irish coastline is a spectacular mix of landscapes - from coastal villages to sandy beaches to rocky coast.

Panoramic Ireland's photography workshops have always covered the coast of Ireland and 2020 is no exception, join us on a photography workshop in one of these fine places to photograph blue hour and more:

Copper Coast, Waterford

Galway & Mayo

Clare

Dingle & Co. Kerry

Antrim Coast & Giant's Causeway

Dublin's Coast

Cork

Donegal

Sligo

The Irish coastline is full of variation with long sandy beaches, rocky inlets and geological formations in a compact area.

And that makes Ireland a perfect place for coastal landscape photography.

Here the rocks are carboniferous limestone, in layers that have been long eroded by the wave action of the Atlantic.

We set up our cameras and tripods on the cold winter afternoon, hoping for some sunlight but actually in this case the overcast weather worked better.

I was at this point only a few weeks away from having an operation to remove a cancerous tumour, and during that time it was scenes like this that kept me motivated in my treatment and recovery.

I'm almost a year post-cancer; I'm still photographing, I'm still leading photography workshops and tours in Ireland and you can book a private photography session with me through the site here at Panoramic Ireland.

Send me an email to ask about photo workshops in your area of Ireland.

Landscape photography is a fine pursuit; much like the angler will appreciate the solitude, or camaraderie, to be found on a riverbank or lakeside so too the landscape photographer enjoys an evening out on the coast surrounded by nature.

Here is no exception, the famous basalt columns of Northern Ireland's world-famous World Heritage Site Giant's Causeway had done their work for the day and the last feet had been lifted off these natural regular-sided stepping stones.

They liken Killiney Bay to the Bay of Naples. The coastal area south of Dublin is a very scenic place but I can't see the resemblance, I've been to Naples and climbed Vesuvius.

Yet Killiney Bay is a beauty, accessible by DART (commuter train) from Dublin and with fine walks and views it offers the visitor a flavour of the real Ireland without travelling too far.

Storm Ali raced across Ireland last week and Panoramic Ireland was photographing around the coast of Ireland.