A Return to Awesome Donegal

I recently had the pleasure of returning to the beautiful county of Donegal. To be precise, the area around Falcarragh and Dunfanaghy in the north of the county, an area that I hadn’t really explored on previous visits. Again, just like my previous trip to Connemara, I was blessed with the weather as Ireland was experiencing another spell of unseasonably wonderful sunshine. 

Like all my on location shoots, I had a plan. Go and shoot a few locations that I had identified on a previous visit and then explore the rest of the area for new locations that I could shoot on a future trip when the light and weather conditions would be favourable for what I had in mind. But, this time the quote "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray" rang true for a couple of reasons. First of all, the weather was so good, once I found a location I only had to figure out what time of day to come back and shoot it, and secondly, a friend of mine who knows the area very well told me to check out Horn Head. So I did, and immediately decided it was time for a new plan!

Whatever I had already planned could wait for another time or trip. Why? Because the view of the Donegal coastline from Horn Head in this good weather was just spectacular (and probably quite rare).  

So the new plan involved shooting the sunrise. I checked the conditions for the morning, checked sunrise time and location, so was able to set up the shot and composition ahead of time. The below photograph is the sunrise from Horn Head looking across Sheephaven Bay to a wonderfully silhouetted Donegal coastline that includes Melmore Peninula, Fannad Head and Malin Head. 

This northern part of Donegal didn’t just introduce me to Horn Head, there were lots of incredible beaches, inlets and bays, like the below photograph where Falcarragh Beach meets Ballyness Bay with Tory island in the background

and also at Sheephaven Bay where Doe Castle is surrounded by sand at low tide

There were also some great drives with summer vibes in the good weather like when I came across a vintage VW Campervan at Muckish Gap, and couldn't not stop and take a photograph of it.

As usual there were lots of sheep and I ended up with my first Donegal Standoff. 

But thankfully my luck was in and this is how it ended.

Finally, thanks to the awesome weather, there were some stunning sunsets with amazing colours. In the below photograph, I used intentional camera movement (ICM) to highlight the incredible colours of the twilight scene over Inishdooey Island just off Falcarragh Beach.

But sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy nature's show (below).