The sun sets on another day, another solar year passes, the days get longer from now on - Ireland and the northern hemisphere pass the the winter solstice.

In Ireland the winter solstice has long been an important point of the year, Ireland's most famous monument at Newgrange is aligned with sunrise on the winter solstice (December 21/22) - read more here.

Reflected in the western beach Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way greets the colourful sunset, beaming from sheeny sands.

I have written about green roads and rural lanes here on Panoramic Ireland before. Here is one from a walk in the Irish countryside earlier this year, 2019: https://panoramicireland.com/blog-ireland-guide/irish-summer-green-rural-lane-trees-exploring

Here, stopping along the back roads of the Irish countryside - in the west we went exploring and photographed one of the most scenic lanes in the country.

Ireland''s west coast, the Wild Atlantic Way conjures up images of stormy ocean waves and barren rocky headlands.

And for much of its 2,500 or so kilometres it is that way, but it isn't barren and not always rocky; it is visually scenic.

Panoramic Ireland returned to Dingle recently for a photography workshop in one of Ireland's most beautiful places.

Here is the famous Coumeenole beach, complete with gull and those gentle waves that the Atlantic sometimes gives us. To the right is the rocky headland of Dunmore Head and the Blasket Islands beyond.

Low visibility is a common problem in Ireland, landscape photography usually requires long, clear uninterrupted views so on this occasion we headed away from the big views and looked instead for scenes that suited the weather.

Here, we stopped on one of Panoramic Ireland's photography workshops in the Irish countryside to photograph sheep under a grey sky but a colourful landscape.

Lush green of late spring in Ireland both in the fields and the hedges, broken by bright orange-yellow flowers of gorse and white flowers of hawthorn.

I've been photographing bluebells for twenty years now, but I only recently realised that I have few posts here on Panoramic Ireland on bluebells.

Here a mixture of architecture and landscape in the Irish countryside as bluebells grow amongst ferns on the woodland floor below the old stone bridge.

No landscape photographer's spring catalogue would be complete without images of bluebells hyacinthoides non-scripta carpeting a woodland floor.

Here on our photography workshop that also dealt with photographing in inclement weather, as we photographed streams and forests so too did we concentrate on the colour in front of us.

While they didn't carpet every square inch of the beech woodland floor, they still looked incredible at the end of May amongst the lush green grass and ferns of the Irish countryside. And that path, encouraging us further into the woods.

Today I headed into the mountains, the day started cold and grey with a lot of driven rain.

Perhaps not the best choice to be high on the mountain tops in Ireland in wet and windy weather so I went instead to a sheltered woodland to photograph streams and flowers - where the bluebells are still in fine colour.

Here I gave full attention to the small stream, cascading through the woodland but with little flow there wasn't a lot to capture that impressed.

Silhouettes often make a useful tool in photography, strong lines breaking the horizon or the shape of a majestic tree outlined against the colour of an evening sky.

Silhouettes serve to show off the sky, the photographer exposing for the highlights rather than the shadows to allow the shapes of the subject to come into its own.

On a recent roadtrip through the Irish countryside, I found a fine field of rapeseed, also known as canola - one of the most widely grown plants used for cooking oils derived from its seed.

With a fine blue spring sky overhead and a bright wide field of golden flowers the colours reminded of the traditional colours of County Tipperary, one of Ireland's most scenic counties; and how appropriate because I was in County Tipperary at the time. The county's sports teams often play with blue and gold striped jerseys, particularly the Tipperary GAA team.

It was also one of the first days that I have been exploring with my camera since starting chemotherapy.

The coast of Ireland is perfect for landscape or seascape photography, and perfect for relaxation too.

Here, a stormy Atlantic sunset over County Kerry's Blasket Islands makes you just want to stop and watch. Which is what we did on a photo tour to Ireland's most westerly peninsula, Dingle.