Recent cold weather has brought clear conditions with bright blue skies and frosty mornings.

The hedgerows take on another form when frost covered and the mountains beckon, their ice-covered summits set against the bright blue sky can be almost blinding.

This is of course perfect for the landscape photographer in winter.

February 2017 saw me photographing a lot of studio images for my site darrenmcloughlin.com but I did venture out into the countryside both on my own and while leading tours in Dublin, Wicklow and Kilkenny.

Snow made a return during February 2017 and crocus flowers were in full bloom. The coast of course was a perfect destination with stormy weather and beautiful winter light.

Have a look at the YouTube video here for the show.

Ardmore Cathedral on a fine sunny winter's day, Ireland.

Ardmore Cathedral is one of Ireland's oldest Christian settlements having been founded in the 5th century by the pre-Patrician Saint Declan. In other words, this was a religious settlement before the arrival of Ireland's most famous Christian figure Saint Patrick.

Situated on a height overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in County Waterford in Ireland's southeast, Ardmore has an amazing collection of ancient monuments including the 12th century 30m high round tower and carvings in the cathedral wall as seen on this image from a bright winter's day in Ireland. The Romanesque carvings as seen here are quite unusual in Ireland.

Read more about Irish round towers here.

I moved on to photograph the coast, Ireland is perfect for landscape photography in the winter.

So if you are looking for something to do in Ireland in winter join Panoramic Ireland, that's me, on a photography tour in Ireland to learn how to photograph places like Saint Declan's monastery here at Ardmore.

The Blue Hour is a classic time of day for landscape photographers to photograph. There are in fact two blue hours and both don't necessarily last for an hour.

The first blue hour precedes sunrise and the second of the day comes after sunset; wrapped inside the day there is also the golden hour that we will talk about separately.

During the evening blue hour - light is fading, the sun has set and we lose the direct brightness from our light-giving star.

Red light passes through Earth's atmosphere and further into space, while blue light with its shorter wavelength gets trapped and scattered, and bounces around to create a blue coloured period we call the Blue Hour.

The Antrim Coast is a rugged, beautifully scenic place with the wild Atlantic pounding at its shoreline and islands constantly.

Here Sheep Island, a tiny island of basalt rocks sits close in front of the much larger Rathlin Island composed of basalt overlying chalk - evident in the cliffs as seen in the distance.

I was leading a photography workshop on this coastline, a part of Ireland I know very very well, for more information see here.

It was a windy day but still with blue sky and plenty of clouds as we considered that we were lucky to be on land rather than on the high seas, tripods shaking with the wind it was a time to shelter and photograph handheld.

Beautiful, don't you think?

Another of my favourite images from 2017 came again from Ireland's midland region just like this one here.

Again, after a long day of photographing landscapes we found ourselves in not an ideal position for photographing the sunset, not being the chief objective of our photography workshop.

Here we found this lane that seemed to invite us across its water-filled potholes towards the colour of the evening's setting sun.

The wind was blowing, the usual, bright orange colour filled the horizon and above the blue hour was beginning to start.

This was one of my favourite unexpected scenes of the year.

It is very representative of Ireland, not the famous scenes from our beautiful coastline but the hidden Ireland that I like to find for you on my photography workshops and tours.

To join me on a personalised tour in Ireland, to find scenes like these, contact me using the main menu or use the email address at the top of the page.

This was at the end of a long day's photography workshop covering woodlands and waterfalls, Panoramic Ireland (that's me by the way) run photography workshops and tours for all levels in Ireland from Cork to Galway to Belfast to Dublin.

We were in Ireland's midlands for the best part of the session and sunset wasn't high on our priorities for the day but we happened on this scene and found that post-sunset cloud glow to be very photogenic with this pastoral scene of green fields and cows.

To join me on a photography workshop in Ireland for sunset photography, street photography or architectural photography and everything else as well use the contact page on the main menu above. Send me an email with whatever locations you are interested in and dates when you will be in Ireland.

In the meantime, enjoy this sunset scene, it's relaxing don't you think?

It's hard at times to get a good location for sunset photography on the east coast of Ireland.

The further north and south out of Dublin that you go there become possibilities but Dublin south to Wicklow affords no opportunity to photograph sunset from the coast.

This is, however, overlooking the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains with the Irish Sea in the foreground.

Along with a series of images that I took in January of this year, 2017 this is one of my favourites and makes it into my "best of 2017".

Hazy light partially obscures the mountains, notable among them the outline of one of Ireland's most famous, Wicklow's Sugarloaf while sunlight shoots across the cloud-filled blue sky.

It's a beauty, don't you think?

Photography and Ireland. It doesn't always involve snow, not even in the mountains.

As I looked out to green fields and sunny blue skies on the mountain slopes today, not a drop of the white blanket to be seen, it seemed a far way away from this image where, during a photography workshop on how to photograph snowy landscapes we made our way up the mountain - its road snow-covered and icy, at one point it was almost impossible to make it up the ever-steepening slopes.

Along the way DK and I had plenty of landscapes to photograph. I explained how to photograph the often bright snow to gain the best from any weather conditions, afterwards we warmed up and had a short session on how to edit images in Lightroom.

Why would you want to take a photography tour / workshop / experience with me, I hear you ask.

During a recent photography workshop on Ireland's coast (see here for more information) we stopped to find a small cave at low tide.

It wasn't a famous or large cave but it did have a certain character to it with intense sunshine coming in from one side.

Photography workshops and tours in Ireland are not just about the typical landscapes and scenes, although I do cover these on my experiences, but it's more about the journey.