Morning sunlight somewhere behind the clouds in the west of Ireland. Before the heat of the day, low cloud and fog sit in the valley in front of the heather-clad mountains.

Photography in Ireland is always a mystery, the weather forecast may say good weather or bad weather but the day, and a journey through the countryside, often reveals a difference.

I'm rarely disappointed though. 

Here, on a photography workshop in the west, JK from Virginia in the USA wanted to spend time photographing typical (but not boring) Irish scenes so we headed for somewhere that I knew would have good visuals like this for the first location.

Thick cloud blanketed the rest of the landscape but here we had a view beyond, to the mountains and, in the foreground, sheep dotting the hillside.

A good start to the day despite a negative weather forecast.

From here we headed on to photograph coastal scenes as the low cloud lifted from the western countryside.

Join me, Panoramic Ireland, to photograph - improve your photography, in the west of Ireland, in Dublin or somewhere else in the Irish countryside throughout 2024 and 2025.

Storm Gerrit has raged across Ireland bringing stormy winds and rain in December 2023.

Here, a flooded landscape with water levels rising rapidly, covering ground passable just the day before as sunset approaches along with crepuscular rays in the colourful but ominous sky.

Storm Gerrit has brought severe winds, flooding and downed trees across Ireland as well as snow across parts of Scotland.

Storm Henk it seems will also be an incredibly windy event happening from Saturday December 30th bringing up to 100mph or 160km/h gusts of wind across the west of Ireland.

This will mark the third named storm, includig Pia, Gerrit and Henk to hit Ireland over Christmas and the New Year.

And expect more flooding.

From a photographic point of view, storms can provide opportunities to photograph amazing and incredible scenes but always with caution, particularly near the coast and watercourses.

Panoramic Ireland photographs in all weather, from the west of Ireland to inner city Dublin. Join me to learn more about landscape, street and architectural photography.

An ominous start to the week with Storm Debi set to blast Ireland with storm force winds.

A status red warning, the highest level in Ireland for weather events, has been issued for Clare, Galway, Roscommon, Offaly and Westmeath.

Interestingly they have singled out East Galway and South Roscommon even though it looks from the map that North Tipperary, formerly an actual distinct part of the Premier County, should also be included. Especially as Nenagh in North Tipperary is forecast to get 68km/h winds while Birr in County Offaly is only expecting 57km/h and Ballinalsoe, East Galway is only forecast to get 50km/h.

There has to be a better method rather than relying solely on county boundaries, especially as places like Birr in County Offaly is only 1km from County Tipperary.

Anyhow, an orange weather warning is in effect for Tipperary, Carlow, Laois, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Longford, Louth, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan, Kerry and Limerick with the rest of Ireland under a yellow weather warning.

**Update** And indeed, as of 20:32 this evening, Met Eireann have updated more counties to red including: Clare Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, Galway and Roscommon from 02:00 - 05:00 Monday 13/11/2023 with Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Louth, Meath, Wicklow, Offaly and Westmeath under a red warning from 05:00-08:00. Orange is in effect for most of these counties as well until 10:00.

Keep an eye out on met.ie for updates including upgrading and downgrading of weather warnings.

There is also a status red marine warning, get those boats into harbour.

Keep safe and dry, best not to make any unnecessary journeys.

I often get asked about photography and visiting Ireland, one of the most common questions is "What is there to photograph when the weather isn't good?"

Well even in summer, like here in this image, the weather can be grey and often rainy but it's still scenic.

And yet it is how Ireland often is, not the bright sunshine and blue sky of typical postcard images. The landscape is sympathtic to the soft weather of an Irish day.

There's a poetry to the landscape in such conditions as here in Donegal and although I typically head for woodlands in grey weather, I do still enjoy photographing the open landscape with the distant grey of mountains melding in with the grey of the sky.

Join Panoramic Ireland to photograph in the Irish landscape throughout the year.

Picture the scene, we're a year ahead and it's May 2024, a beautiful sunny day and below us the Baily Lighthouse and Dublin Bay with RTE, Ireland's national broadcaster on the other side.

RTE are preparing to host Eurovision, after Ireland's 2023 entry, Hawaii by Public Image Ltd (PiL) fronted by John Lydon, won the famous music competition in May 2023.

Well, that is the possibility as tomorrow night, Friday 3rd of February 2023 Lydon and PiL will be performing on RTE's The Late Late Show as part of a competition to find the country's entry for this year.

Hawaii is a paean to Lydon's wife of almost 50 years, their life together and one of their happiest moments together, in Hawaii. Nora now is living with Alzheimer's; the song, video and artwork are "... dedicated to everyone going through tough times on the journey of life, with the person they care for the most,” says John Lydon. “It’s also a message of hope that ultimately love conquers all.”

Happy Christmas from Ireland. As is most typical, we haven't seen snow at Christmas this year, to quote a famous Pet Shop Boys song "It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas."

Despite the cold weather of recent weeks, Ireland is quite mild - as is often the case, winter usually comes in January and February, deep into the season.

We have had winter already this year, but also Winter is Coming.

Here, a fine wintery image from the Irish countryside, a mountain ridge and snow under a deep blue sky.

I think, based on how cold it has been already in December, that we will see more snow and cold temperatures throughout the rest of winter and into spring 2023.

If you can't join me to photograph in Ireland in Winter 2022/2023 then join me in Spring and Summer 2023 to photograph the hidden Ireland.

Beautiful golden light in the Mourne Mountains, County Down, as the recent cold weather comes to an end.

Ireland has in recent weeks seen days with low temperatures, as low as -9C - winter is well and truly here. 

But now, in a quick change, we have reached 11C - a change in some places of 12 degrees in 24 hours, 20 degrees in less than a week.

The heatwave that has finally hit Ireland has now ended, with thunderstorms over the country.

Temperatures exceeded 31C this week but as of Sunday night thunder and lightning is now the dominant weather.

Here, lightning over one of Ireland's many fine church buildings.

Red sky at night, shepherd's delight goes the old saying. And that red sky in the evening does usually bring good weather the following day.

There is science to back up the ages old phrase, a red sky is caused by small particles of dust and other airborne particles are trapped in the atmosphere by high pressure.

These particles block light from the sun, scattering or deflecting the light as it passes through the atmosphere.

The shorter wavelengths of blue and violet get scattered more easily leaving more of the longer wavelength red light to make its way across the sky.

Of course, to see this weather phenomenon often it helps when the predominant weather comes from the west which it does in Ireland.

So between you and the sun is the incoming high pressure from the west with dust that scatters shorter wavelengths of light.

Photographers usually enjoy photographing sunsets, so maybe it should be changed to Red sky at night, photographer's delight.

Join me, Panoramic Ireland, to photograph fine sunsets like these all over Ireland.

It may have been swelteringly hot throughout the rest of Europe this summer, but here in Ireland the heatwave consisted of a week or so of hot weather. 

For much of July 2022 the weather has been colder, wetter and windier than usual and on this occasion we had lots of trouble photographing the coastline along Ireland's famed Wild Atlantic Way.

In fairness, Dublin's Phoenix Park did see 33C in 2022, the second highest temperature recorded in Ireland after the record 33.3C in Kilkenny set in 1887.

I'm not complaining, the stormy weather was much more interesting for photography than sunny, warm and hazy heatwave conditions would have given; crashing waves showing the power of the Atlantic as it meets the geological landscape of these cliffs.

Indeed these cliffs as you see them rise steeply for 100 to 120m above the deep blue ocean below, the rocks here are amongst Ireland's oldest, dating to the Pre-Cambrian.

Join Panoramic Ireland to photograph in Ireland's majestic, stormy wild west.