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.

Sunsets are a strange thing, amazing to watch and enjoy yet many feel that they are not worthy of a place in landscape photography.

It's an interesting idea, the concept of not photographing one of the most spectacular, and common, natural events that you can witness.

Never the same twice, the sunset can give us plenty to think about as photographers of landscapes, as artists and as travellers in a foreign land and opportunities to work on photographic and artistic skills.

Crepuscular rays shining from behind late evening clouds in the west of Ireland

Towards sunset or sunrise as the angle of sunlight is low in the sky, rays shining across the sky illuminating dust in the atmosphere create crepuscular rays, a series of parallel beams of light that appear to converge on or indeed emerge from the sun.

The upper rays seen here, beaming across the sky are crepuscular rays.

Bright and characterful sunset sunlight on Ireland's Atlantic Ocean.

This image comes from the western edge of the Emerald Isle as the late evening sunlight fades behind rain-bearing clouds to give dramatic lighting on the ocean's surface.

As we waited for the same sunlight to strike the Cliffs of Moher we turned our cameras toward the west and were not disappointed.

After my post yesterday showing the beauty of the lake and mountain on which Kylemore Abbey is situated here is a more focused image of the building, once the home of a wealthy London Doctor called Mitchell Henry.

Kylemore was built in the late 1860s and Mitchell Henry later went on to become MP for the area, in 1875 after the death of his wife who was from County Down he spent less time in Connemara. He built a memorial church for her which is still there today hidden amongst the woods.

In fact, Kylemore comes from the Irish Coille Móire meaning large or big wood - an unusual sight around these parts.

The lanes of Ireland are a favourite photographic subject of mine.

Here, the final leaves of 2018 were falling - covering the ground with russety autumnal colour as the bright sunlight shines, casting shadows and making the whole scene more enticing.

Here are a few more of my favourite laneway scenes that I have photographed over the years:

https://panoramicireland.com/blog-ireland-guide/an-irish-laneway-with-mountains-in-the-distance

https://panoramicireland.com/photo-tours-blog/ireland-midlands-laneway-colour-sunset-sky-landscape-photography

https://panoramicireland.com/photo-tours-blog/irish-laneways-look-colourful-as-autumn-gives-way-to-winter