The fireworks went up from a barge moored out in Cobh harbour, and the launch point sits right there at water level, a small fountain of sparks and smoke below the main burst. Unfortunately the barge drifted with the current, and it ended up quite far down the town, probably away from the main crowds!

A line of old groyne posts runs out into the sea at Youghal, the nearest ones capped in green weed, the far ones worn down to stubs. I used a long exposure to smooth the incoming water into streaks across the brown sand. The evening was flat and quiet, the sky a soft blue turning…

The boardwalk pulled me straight in. Those weathered planks running across the dark volcanic sand towards a sea gone smooth from a long exposure, like the Atlantic had decided to hold its breath for me. Playa de Ajabo at dusk is a different beast to the postcard Tenerife of packed loungers and factor-50. This was…

The man in the red jacket became my anchor the moment I set up. Henry Street on a sunny day is a river of people. Shoppers, buskers’ audiences, lads cutting across to Gino’s for a cone, and a slow shutter turns all of that into smears of colour and ghostly half-people mid-stride. But he just…

A quarter of a second is all it takes to turn a busy footpath into a river of ghosts. I planted myself on Henry Street, dropped the shutter speed right down, and let the lunchtime crowd smear themselves across the frame while the New Yorker models behind them stayed pin-sharp and perfectly bored. It’s the…

Getting a shot like this is half luck and half persistence. You have to wait until the incoming tide is about to retreat to take the photo. This one was at Kilfarrasy Beach in Co. Waterford in 2017. Blarney Photography Club was visiting the area and this was on the itinerary for the the evening…

A single weather-beaten log, marooned on the foreshore. It was nudged back and forth by the waves coming in and out but in the moment this photo was taken, the sky was reflected in wet sand and the log was beached. Safe from the incoming waters.

This is a small section of O’Sullivan’s Cascade in Kerry. The lovely sound of the water falling through the rocks is soothing. The picturesque scene in front of me does the opposite as I worry about composition and, “Did I get a good photo of that?”

The massive Eiffel Tower glows golden as it is viewed from the Trocadéro nearby.

Groynes in the sand as the water rushes away to do battle with another wave coming in. The ever-present push and pull of the tide, defeated for some time at least by these wooden posts.

I scrambled out onto the rocks at Santa Cruz in Portugal taking photos of various views and then climbed up to a rock platform where I was greeted with this view in front of me. I had an ND filter, but no proper tripod, only a small “plate tripod” that just about did its job…

Even on a calm evening when I took this photo, a moored boat moves about if given enough time. This long exposure shows the slight movements that show the water isn’t quite as still. There’s no wind to speak of, the surface looks like polished slate, and yet the boat is nodding away to itself,…