From a foggy day in the west of Ireland.

It was an hour before sunset and heavy rain was doing its best to disrupt the photography workshop with CT from the USA.

The rain was also helping to keep this lake full and the islands floating in the thick fog.

Yesterday I took a hike in the mountains of Ireland, the sun was shining and temperatures were low.

As I cleared the top of mountain and looked across the landscape - instead of seeing a landscape of green I found what I might probably consider to be my favourite image of the year.

We have passed the equinox, this year on the 22nd of September in Ireland.

The equinox is the point of the year when day length equals night length, so twelve hours each.

Landscape photography is more than just photographing sunsets and sunrises, the crepuscular edges of the day when light is low and golden.

Often times this what a landscape photographer will avoid photographing because the subject matter is very cliché.

And it is true, along with waterfalls what do you think of when you think of landscape photography? Sunrises and sunsets most likely.

On a recent landscape photography workshop in Ireland's west we encountered a beautifully bright and colourful sunset at the coast of County Mayo.

Movement can add to a landscape and travel image, if it is in context and adds to the final image.

During a recent photography workshop we stopped to photograph a woodland scene with thin, straight, tall beech trees growing from a moss-covered wet hummocky floor providing the interest, a path meandering that leads the eye.

A return to County Cork took me to it's beautifully varied coastline that I have previously mentioned here.

Unlike on that previous occasion the weather was not cloudy and moody but bright and colourful highlighting the bright greens found in the littoral landscape.

There are many factors that contribute to making a good image. Not least among them is lighting, in fact without light we have no image and without good light we have a bad image.

No matter how many times you visit a location as a landscape photographer there is always something of interest, something different to photograph.

The subject matter might be the same, the image might be from the same location as your last visit and the weather might be as good as it was before but the scene is not the same and the image will be different.

During a recent photography workshop in one of my favourite Irish locations for photography I visited a woodland that I knew to contain bluebells.

It was the end of spring, getting into early June and I knew that in most locations south of Dublin bluebells were past their best. But this location, sheltered under a large beech wood canopy on the northern slopes of a mountain, always provides a few extra days of bluebells even if the native Irish species of wildflower is not as extensive here as elsewhere - see my previous post of a covered woodland floor here.

As we walked through the woods the path led us past moss-covered rocks and the last of this year's bluebells - as anticipated still in good condition here at the start of June.

Trees arched over the path forming a natural tunnel; burdened by vigorous leafy growth and buffeted by strong winds year after year they almost touched the ground on the opposite side of the trail that invited us deeper into the forest. What a place to stop for a few moments and a memorable photograph.

Panoramic Ireland create photography workshops throughout Ireland, from bluebell and moss-covered woodland to urban Belfast and Dublin.

For more information contact me here.