After a long day of photography in the Irish countryside, nothing can be better than watching and photographing the sunset.

I have of course written about sunsets here on Panoramic Ireland before, here is a link to some sunset images from when I was undergoing chemotherapy and recovery from a cancer operation this year, sunset was easy to photograph.

The scenic road isn't always the one with world-famous views, vistas of the ocean or snaking upwards through the mountains.

Often it's the road that takes you further, exploring a countryside that you want to travel deeper into.

Here, the straight lines and smooth tarmac undulates across the barren, treeless landscape of County Antrim, miles from the UNESCO World Heritage Site the Giant's Causeway, the Dark Hedges made famous by Game of Thrones and the fine views from the Antrim Coast Road.

The first line of advice here is: if you think a memory card is going bad, stop using it! Check out my tips at the bottom for how to keep your memory card working well.

Back in 2010 I was travelling the Irish countryside, much like I do today and I stopped to photograph the little visited Ahenny crosses in County Tipperary. These 8th century sandstone crosses are some of the finest early Christian stone craft in Ireland and the first to be made from stone rather than wood, hence they bear some details that come from the wooden crosses.

Light is important in photography, especially in landscape photography.

I have written about the difference in light and its effects on the look and feel of a landscape image here.

The two images in this post is from one of my favourite places in Ireland, the west coast - taken two nights apart.

Landscape photography is an interesting pursuit, sometimes you end up with blue skies and sunny conditions and sometimes the moody, dramatic image as seen here.

Weather does play a factor, here we had the drama of an Irish sky, a little bit of blue but mostly diffuse light and really quite suitable to the subject matter in this case. Rugged, blocky rocks and a waterfall that cascades into the sea - in fact it's the Atlantic Ocean crashing here upon the shore.

It has been a sad old year, 2019. News broke in 2018 that Google Plus, the much derided social network, would close in April 2019.

January also saw me diagnosed with cancer, have a tumour removed and in March receive chemotherapy.

Both of these things have it seems coincided.

Sunset from one of my favourite vantage points, looking west towards the setting sun.

It has been a difficult year so far, 2019, a diagnosis of cancer in January, an operation to remove a large tumour and this week, at the end of March, chemotherapy.

At each stage as throughout the past 20 years, photography has been a big part of my life.

Polarising filters, also known as polarisers or circular polarisers are essential filters in any photographer's kit.

Usually in the form of a screw-in filter, polarisers block out some polarised light allowing only light travelling in one direction to pass through the filter to reach the sensor.

Simply, we use polarisers for one reason - to reduce glare or reflected light from objects or subjects. 

The West of Ireland - what does it conjure up in your imagination?

For me, the imagination is real, a place I visit and explore and enjoy and live in often. Those wide open spaces, rugged mountains of weathered rock just holding their own against the creeping boglands that cover the region.

This is a scene that conveys that western image, the bogland looking russety and the mountains just as I described above, ancient and just protruding enough to catch low cloud seemingly wisping across the gentle slopes.

Northern Ireland's most photographed road, the Dark Hedges on Bregagh Road known to many Game of Thrones fans around the world as the King's Road needs little introduction.

It is a scenic, leafy avenue of beech trees close to the UNESCO World Heritage Site The Giant's Causeway.

It is also a place that I enjoy photographing in, even with the challenges of overtourism that have blighted this leafily scenic route to the coast.