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

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

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

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

Pretty much two months of terrible weather and photographic failures had proceeded my arrival at Silverstrand Beach on the South West tip of County Mayo. I don't expect every trip that I take with my camera to be a success, but when you've had several abject failures in a row you start to question your abilities. But while some decisions that I have made have exacerbated my failures, what I have been dealing with is a very mild winter. By January I should be reveling in frost, icy flurries and snow capped mountains, but instead it's just warm. The landscape still looks the same as it did

I could just make out the outline of Errisbeg in the darkness as I approached Roundstone, and when I parked I started to doubt my own plans. My intention was to climb Errisbeg in the twilight in the hope that I may get high enough to get a shot of Dog's Bay and Gurteen Bay as the dawn broke. But it was only just getting light and the mountain looks far more formidable  when you're looking up at it than it does on the map. Having recently borrowed a digital luggage scale I knew that my fully laden camera bag weighs nearly 11.5kg so I left the tripod and one camera body in the car to

I'd been closely monitoring the conditions in Sligo and I headed there on a day when I figured that I had the best chance of a bit of snow on the mountains. I planned to be at Strandhill beach for dawn to catch high tide. As I drove in I could see that the waves were wild and that there was snow on the Ox Mountains. I had planned to use my 50mm lens and to incorporate the broad sweep of the beach but I found that it caused the mountains to be too insignificant, so I swapped for my 85mm lens and forsook most of the beach. I stayed just long enough for the sun to pop up over the horizon a

It was one of those clear, bright days that happen after snow has fallen and I was going to attempt driving to the top of Croaghmoyle mountain. There's an RTÉ mast at the summit so there's a road that leads to that. How far up the mountain I'd be able to get I had no idea until I tried. When I got to Castlebar the sky turned grey and no sooner had I got onto the first L road than it started to snow. In no time at all the snow was coming down thick and the world had turned white. I was crawling along and any time I did more than tap the brakes the ABS would come on. I thought better of

  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

So there I am standing on one side of the Inagh Valley. A huge expanse bordered by mountains. I'm up a lonely farm track with not a soul near me when I hear a cough from behind. Startled, I spin around, but there's no one there. It took me a while to realise that the noise came from a lone cyclist who - from my vantage point - is but a speck on a thin grey line of road several hundred metres distant. A lesson in how far sound can travel. A few weeks later I was walking along the other side of the valley. The only sound my own foot steps. Just as I was thinking how I was in a very