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Blackrock Diving Tower, Salthill, Galway

I check the weather forecast once a day looking for conditions favourable to photography. If there are conditions forecast that will suit an image that I have in mind I pay more attention and check the updates more often, and if there aren't I pay less attention. So it was with complete surprise when I looked out the window and saw thick fog outside my house when I was expecting instead several days of rain. The first thing I did was check the tide and on finding that it was high tide in about half an hour I made a quick dash for Salthill. On checking a previous blog post I learnt that

Posted on February 18, 2024 by aledowenthomas in Landscape

I wasn't sure what was going to be at the end of my journey as I drove towards Levally Lough in County Mayo. Firstly I hadn't visited the location beforehand to check its suitability (I'd just picked a likely spot on Google Street View) and secondly I had no way of knowing what the conditions were going to be like until I got there. A blanket of fog was forecast to cover the entire country, but would it be thick fog or more misty? I planned to capture Nephin Mountain reflected in Levally Lough. If thick fog prevailed then maybe the mountain would be poking out above the fog, which would

Posted on January 11, 2024 by aledowenthomas in Landscape
Hag's Leap, Leitrim

There's a handy little carpark at Hag's Leap and from there leads a path that takes you towards Eagle's Rock, but after walking along it only a short while I knew that I wasn't going to get the vantage point that I was looking for. For that I'd need to do a little trespassing, as is usually the case. Eager to get to where I figured I needed to be I skipped over a stream, climbed the opposite bank and gingerly swung my legs over a few barbed wire fences (all made a tad more precarious with all my camera gear on my back). As I stood behind my tripod waiting for the sun to rise I became

Posted on December 07, 2023 by aledowenthomas in Landscape
lake mayo ireland mountains

The 'no parking' and 'private property' signs gave me the impression that I should probably leave the car a bit further back down the road. I'd driven down this quiet country road as it was a good entry point to a valley in the Partry Mountains that I'd come explore. I walked briskly past the house with the signs and in no time I was following Srahnalong River and there wasn't a soul around but for me, the birds and scattered sheep. I followed the river's course, with Mám Trasna to my left a vertical wall of rock, until I got as far as the end of the valley, then crossing the river I

Posted on March 29, 2023 by aledowenthomas in Landscape

I decided to start my recee of the Dingle Peninsula by first heading to Lough Slat and Lough Caum, but I got distracted on the way by a mountain peeking out of the low clouds and spent a little while at the side of the road getting a few shots of that, retreating to the car whenever the drizzle became a shower. Having explored the two loughs I could see from the map that there was a rough road that went in a sort of loop to the north and ended up joining the road I'd already travelled, so I set off along it to see if it afforded a decent view. It was less of a road and more of a track

Posted on February 20, 2023 by aledowenthomas in Landscape
The Reek Croagh Patrick Mayo Ireland

It was completely serendipitous me spotting this location. I was on my way to another location and I was running late, which meant that the sun had already risen (usually when I'm making my way to a location it's dark and I can't see anything but what's infront of me), and a temporary traffic light meant I had to stop at a gate, through which I could see a tree on a slope with Croagh Patrick beyond. Not so long later, during a particularly cold spell, I headed back there for the dawn. The car was reading the outside temperature as -6 degrees, and although I didn't believe that it was as

Posted on December 13, 2022 by aledowenthomas in Landscape
Corrib Viaduct Galway Ireland

If you take a look back through my blog posts you will see that I have attempted to photograph this limestone abutment in the middle of the river Corrib twice before. What I hadn't realised is that I had been waiting for 2 years to have another go. Essentially every time fog was forecast over Galway, at the very least I would get out of bed early to stick my head out the window to check for fog. Most of the time there never was any fog, sometimes there was fog but nowhere near thick enough, and once or twice I'd drive to the location to find that conditions weren't quite right. On this

Posted on December 13, 2022 by aledowenthomas in Landscape

Back in March I'd attempted to get to Corryloughaphuill Lough via Glenamong Valley (see this previous post) and had discovered that it wasn't really feasible. But I could see that the Bangor Trial, just to the north, offered a possible alternative route. I'd need to walk the trail until the terrain opened up a bit with a large mountain on my right, cross a river somehow and head up the slope until I got to the top and then walk along the high ground until I got to the mountain with the lough on the other side. I left the tripod in the car (which meant I'd be shooting everything

Posted on December 05, 2022 by aledowenthomas in Landscape

Hands down, for me, the most difficuly thing in landscape photography is actually finding the time to do it. Between work, a family and life in general there just aren't that many opportunities, especially when you consider that on this trip to Donegal I left my house at 6:30 and didn't return for 12 hours. On my return I was wrecked and aching all over, but I'd had a good day so I was happy. My first stop was Assaranca Waterfall. I couldn't really find a satisfactory viewpoint from which to photograph it. In the river seemed to be the best place but it wasn't practical. So I shot the

Posted on November 20, 2022 by aledowenthomas in Landscape
Snow covered mountain, Glenamong valley

Storm Eunice brought high winds but it also brought snow, so I headed for just north of Newport, County Mayo as the worst of the winds abated. My plan was to walk along Glenamong river on the edge of a forest and somehow head up the moutain range beyond to get to a lough on the other side. I'd planned it all out by utilising an OS map and Apple Maps (because it's got the best satellite photos), but was to discover that the situation on the ground was different to what the maps suggested. First I encountered an incongruous No Parking sign and then found the track cut off by a fence. I

Posted on February 26, 2022 by aledowenthomas in Landscape