I have written about Croagh Patrick many times here on Panoramic Ireland, most recently with the story of a brocken spectre panorama.

And here is a view from the other side of this majestic peak situated out on the Atlantic Coast of County Mayo in Ireland's west.

Nature is strange, here I was marvelling at the allium flowers just opened, and thinking about photographing them, when I spotted what at first appeared to be ladybirds of some kind.

But they were unlike any ladybird I had ever seen, they were brown, white and yellow without spots and not particularly shiny.

We might be restricted right now from moving too far from home but if you have a garden, balcony or window box then and some flowers then the chances are you have bees visiting.

Here the white-tailed bumblebee Bombus lucorum sits on rosemary flowers on a sunny day. I wrote about bumblebees back in February in regards to the traditional start of Irish Spring, Saint Brigid's Day.

Keep an eye out for more bee images to come here on Panoramic Ireland.

Few autumn landscape scenes can be more alluring to the photographer than a woodland stream with waterfall.

Here in Tollymore, one of Northern Ireland's most scenic forest parks, these elements combine beautifully at the beginning of autumn as water falls between the stepping stones on the River Shimna under a canopy of bright green gently beginning to fade towards the reds, yellows and browns of autumn.

No wonder then that the producers of Game of Thrones, HBO, chose this location to film some of the famous TV show, Northern Ireland being home to most of the filming.

And no wonder it is a place that Panoramic Ireland visits often, when travel restarts why not join me at the famous forest park or along the coast of County Down close by.

The Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi said that ‘The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.'

And sitting on the banks of this fine remote Irish mountain stream (small river), I was reminded of these very words as I photographed the scene after a recent photography workshop in Ireland's fine springtime countryside.

For 30 minutes I enjoyed my own solitude, gazing on the fast flow of the fresh water and felt in awe of the scenery just here in front of me.

I'm sure that the river banks must have been full of wildlife but I couldn't hear much over the constant sound of the flowing water.

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.

Dublin is a place of colour and charm, here the setting sun brightens up the sky over the River Liffey.

On the photography workshop we experimented with silhouettes of the famous skyline from this part of Dublin.

The colours and dark outlines of the city's buildings captured the atmosphere of the evening in the Irish capital.

Join Panoramic Ireland to photograph Dublin on one of our Dublin Photo Tours.

Despite assurances from all of the self-proclaimed experts on long range weather forecasting in Ireland, summer 2019 has not been as good as 2018 and is on par with 2017 as having been grey, windy, rainy, grey, windy, rainy...

It has at least been warm, but for photography it has been challenging. The winds, while not hurricane strength have nonetheless been constant in their presence and changeable in their direction and speed.

In other words, tripod-toppling weather.

Here is one from a tour in the west of Ireland, as the sun's rays shone through the thick, fast-moving cloud onto the choppy harbour waters of the Atlantic. The greens of the fields aglow with stormy light.

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.