When I first saw Clonmacnoise Castle I knew that I had to photograph it. I really like how it looks as if it is just at the point of toppling down the mound that it sits upon. Because of the motorway it's only an hour from my house, which is handy. But what I've found is that when a location is in close proximity I have a tendency to wait until conditions are perfect for the image that I have in mind before heading out to it. The problem is conditions seldom are perfect. This is why it was late November when I actually made the journey that I'd been planning to make since late September.

I started doing this whole landscape photography thing properly when I moved to Galway, which next month will be 4 years ago. In that time I've been photographing locations within a certain radius of my house. The radius being the length of time it takes to drive there, and ergo the time I have to get out of bed. That radius has been steadily expanding. At the start I thought an hours pre-dawn drive was long, but pretty soon a 2 hour drive wasn't uncommon. But it was fine as it was all still manageable. On turning my attention to Achill Island I understood that I was at the limits of

I had attempted to capture Doolough once before and hadn't been successful. I made a recce of the location in the summer of 2015 and having worked out the direction of the sunrise decided that it needed to be dawn when I returned. It was January of 2016 when I returned only to find that the sun rose in an awkward position behind a mountain, making for an uneven exposure. I ended up going for an exploratory drive and happening upon something else which I did successfully capture. On my way back I passed by Doolough again, the sun had now risen above the mountain illuminating the scene

December is the busiest time of year where I work meaning I hadn't had the chance to get out and about with my camera, so I was looking forward to getting some new images while I was in Wales for Christmas. I had a few places marked on my map from previous recces and a few that I'd researched online which I hoped I'd get a chance to take a look at. Conditions looked good for the afternoon of the first day so despite being worn out from the long journey from Galway and seriously lacking sleep thanks to a child that doesn't sleep at night I headed towards Strumble Head lighthouse. On the

Saint Macdara lived on an island off the South West coast of Connemara in the 6th century, where stood a wooden church. At some point the wooden structure was replaced by a stone church which remains one of the best preserved examples of early Christian buildings. The island  is only about a kilometer long and apart from a flock of sheep it's deserted. Every 16th of July (weather permitting) boatloads of people head out to the island to hear Mass outside the church. As it happens I have a friend who lives nearby so I asked him to organise a boat to take us out there. We made our way to

I once worked as a butcher and during that time a stranger never told me what meat to cut. When I was a stock room manger strangers never told me where to put the stock, similarly no one suggested my route when I was a driver. However, when strangers encounter me in my role as a landscape photographer they feel it their duty to tell me what I should photograph. A lot of the time I'm advised to photograph something lame, like the sunset on Salthill prom. This kind of advice is always proffered like some valuable information that couldn't have possibly occurred to me. More recently people

The image above is the first landscape photograph that I've captured since March. There have been a few changes since then. Since then there's been an addition to our family, so I'm conscious that I've left my wife at home with two young boys now, rather than one as before. How do you say to your wife 'I'm heading out for some solitary therapy while you stay at home amongst the bedlam'? I've also got a smart phone for the first time, meaning I can access information while out in the field. Previously I'd have to check the day's weather just before leaving the house in the morning and

  Ireland is a country on the very western fringe of the European continent. On moving to Dublin, its capital city, I found that things I was able to obtain easily when living in the UK were either not available or could only be obtained at great expense. When I moved to Galway, despite it being a city I found that certain other things weren't available outside of the capital. I then discovered Connemara, an area that covers the western tip of County Galway, a place which at first seemed impossibly remote and although it's become far more familiar to me and therefore less remote, I

The weather forecast predicted early morning fog up at Renvyle, so I left in good time to catch the dawn. I was hoping to see a bank of fog seeping in from the sea from a high vantage point I'd selected on the coast. I opened my front door to a real pea-souper which I didn't drive out of for several miles, and as I drove cross country I'd go from perfectly clear patches where I could see the stars in the sky to heavy fog where I couldn't see much more than the road. I got to the location but there was only a small sliver of fog - not enough for what I had in mind - so I headed for

I'm a sucker for a road that ends in the middle of nowhere, especially if it ends because there's a mountain in the way. It was on such a road that I was driving along at sunrise. I had planned to be there when the valley was covered in snow, but I got fed up waiting and thought I might get lucky with a layer of frost at least. That didn't happen either so I was driving along the road just to see what was at the end, getting in the way of a farmer who was driving up and down in his van, checking his sheep. The farmer was a friendly fellow though and he didn't seem to mind when I told him