Niall Whelan Photography

Up at 6am.

Look out the window, cloud, and more cloud.  Brain might be slow, but it doesn’t take long to decide to go back to bed!  When I finally get up there is still blanket cloud cover but a glimmer of light on the horizon and the forecast for sunny spells motivates me to wander up the hillside along maumtrasna bay.

I still have in mind some panoramic landscape images, so I keep a look out for suitable views like the one above.  I take three horizontal shots to make this image.  When I process the images in Lightroom I discover the middle image is blurred and unusable.  Since I overlapped the images a lot I get away with the first and last image to make the final image (luckily).

This next image highlights the famine era potatoe fields still furrowed in the barren hill tops.  Living up here must have been a tough existence.  This time 8 vertical images have been stitched together for this view.

This small standing stone made a great back rest and wind break for the cold northerly breeze.  The view to the south of mount Gable and just out of shot Lough Corrib is also visible.

This image was another panorama of sorts, 4 landscape images stitched vertically together.

Finally, it was time to head back to Dublin, so on my way I took a detour to Leenuan and along the way stopped at the far end of Lough Nafooey.  The light was not great, the sky a boring clear blue!  I continued up the hill and as I passed through the next valley looking to the right the clouds scraping over the end of the Devilsmother peak caught my eye.

By the time I wandered into Leenaun the light had all but gone, so time for my 3 hour drive back to Dublin.  I was happy with be 30 hours in the west, trying some new techniques and new locations.  Keeping an open mind I felt I captured scenes I hadn’t tried before, and got some good ideas for future trips in more dramatic conditions.  Yes, the weather was too nice in the west this weekend!