After a busy week I can now appreciate the crepuscles and with a rainy few days the sun finally made a brief appearance below the cloud base just before sunset in the west of Ireland.

The lower sky was illuminated with hues of orange and red while the top remained blue and evening-like both portions reflecting in the calm waters of the lake, windless and magical.

White clouds at sunset tinged pink and orange by the last rays of the setting sun in Ireland's West, blue sky behind; this is a landscape photographer's ideal.

I had made the short trek down to this lake in the west of Ireland, with very changeable conditions earlier in the evening there wasn't much to hope for in terms of landscapes but just as I arrived the skies cleared and some colour burst forth.

The late spring and early summer of 2015 has so far been quite wet in the west of Ireland, in fact a recent visit to a lake that I know very well showed that the levels were higher than those at the same time last year; this is despite some parts of Ireland being extremely dry. Dublin had only 17% of its Long Term Average (LTA) rainfall in June 2015. May, however, was very wet with some parts of the west recording over 200% of the LTA and Knock Airport had its dullest May since 1996.

All the recent rain and cloudy skies make for a difficult but always entertaining time for the dedicated outdoors photographer.

Today I revisited a river in the west that I have been to often but not in recent times. And this time I took some photos of the peaceful surroundings of my rest stop.

A busy start to the summer has seen me visit much of the west coast and south of Ireland.

A recent visit to the west coast, to see Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way, took me to a high point on Achill Island in County Mayo.

Achill is a place that I have visited often, having holidayed there on numerous occasions and photographed with visitors to the west of Ireland.

After a long day's travelling I made it to my vantage point just before sunset. The sun itself on this occasion being mostly obscured by thick cloud over the ocean.

For me it was the post sunset colour that was of most interest and so patience was required; watching the sun's accelerated dive below the horizon, listening to the wind and wild birds tweeting ahead of darkness it was a relaxing and enjoyable wait before making the final exposure of the evening.

Any part of Ireland's coastline makes a great landscape photography location, Panoramic Ireland create photography experiences from Northern Ireland's Antrim Coast to the urban coastline of Dublin and the west of Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way. Contact us for more information.

Coastal Landscape Photography Workshop February

The coast of Ireland is well known and justly so with long, golden sandy beaches, rugged, indented and rocky coastline with castles, cottages and mountains perched precariously looking out over the sea.

From the sheer cliffs of Slieve League in County Donegal to the world famous Cliffs of Moher in County Clare and the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, there can be no doubt that the coast of Ireland is perfect for photography.

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.

Like most things in Ireland, our waterfalls are not the tallest, most powerful or biggest in Europe or the world but they are certainly very characterful.

Often hidden on seacliffs or miles away from the nearest road, waterfalls in Ireland take two forms. There are the famous and not famous.

The famous waterfalls are Torc in County Kerry, Glenarriff in County Antrim, Powerscourt in County Wicklow and Aasleagh Falls on the border of County Mayo and County Galway. Glencar Waterfall in County Leitrim is the one made famous by W.B. Yeats. All the rest are the not-so famous waterfalls.

Long Exposure Photography

A Game of Thrones Tour of Antrim

Game of Thrones is one of the most popular tv shows ever made. Produced by HBO and based on books written by G.R.R. Martin, the epic fantasy tales have been primarily filmed in Northern Ireland, with the counties of Antrim and Down featured on the first page of the location scout's address book.

A recent commission took me back to the spectacular Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland. It would be easy to divide the coast of Co. Antrim into two sections, the Causeway Coast running east-west along the top of Northern Ireland and the Antrim or Glens Coast running north-south along the east of the island.

Panoramic Ireland run photo tours in the Glens of Antrim and along the Causeway Coast.