Landscape Photographs of Ireland
Landscape photographs of Ireland and how special this country truly is…
Hello, I am Kieran Hayes and I am an Irish landscape photographer from beautiful Clonakilty, West Cork and welcome to my new website Landscape photography Ireland. This year I separated my landscape photography work from my commercial work and my new website was finally born from my landscape photographs of Ireland.
One of the many aspects I love about photography and especially my landscape photographs of Ireland is the peace you get while out in the fresh air with just you, your thoughts and mother nature to not only keep you company but to inspire you also.Those moments I get to steal away for myself from the real world and slowly sink back down and connect to the nature around me again. The mighty Atlantic Ocean has a very humbling effect
I also work as a professional commercial photographer and it’s a fast paced high stress job at times where time is money and deadlines constantly loom overhead. So landscape photography gives me my very much needed down time.
Ireland is such an incredibly beautiful country and it’s scenery changes so quickly from rugged mountains to the stunning shorelines in West Cork. I am truly blessed to work in such a beautiful part of the world and to be able to call it home. I constantly struggle to capture photographs that do Ireland justice and that can in some slight way capture the mood and beauty of this amazing country.
If you would like to see all of my photographs of West Cork and Ireland then please click here for more of my West Cork photographs.
Making your living from photography is not the easiest job in the world but I absolutely love the challenges it presents and over the last 5 years I have worked for some utterly amazing companies.
I picked up a camera for the first time about 8 years ago now and then suddenly everything changed for me within 12 to 18 months I was working for large fashion houses with nationwide outlets, designers, artists, jewellery companies, selling my West Cork photography worldwide, winning awards and ultimately quiting my job and becoming a professional photographer which to this day was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.
Funnily enough you have probably already seen a lot of my work and just didn’t realise it, my work can be seen at Tourism Ireland, Aer Lingus, HSE, OPW, Supervalu, Ulster Bank, Discover Ireland, Dunnes Stores, Royal bank of Scotland, Lidl, Failte Ireland… and hundreds of website all around the world including National and International newspapers and magazines.
It really is scary how quickly this has all happened, I am not going to lie it was an incredibly hard struggle for the first two years holding down two jobs and working crazy long days trying to build this business. It really did help that part of my job as an electronics technician involved repairing cameras so I actually learned photography from the inside out first, this gave me sort of a mechanical advantage when it comes to landscape photography.
It all slowly kind of snowballed from there though and this year looked to be the best one yet but the pandemic has put a stop to a lot of that for now. I had 4 new exciting partnerships on the way with industry-leading companies but that will all have to wait now. When I sit back and look at it the turn-around over the last 3 years has been truly staggering.
I can only thank my wonderful clients for all their support, without them I would never have gotten to this stage.
“Hard work puts you in good lucks path” and wow is that accurate. I know I made my own luck a few times and that propelled me forward so I just kept pushing and it got me to where I am today. It was incredibly hard but that makes me appreciate it all the more.
Who would have thought that a landscape photographer from West Cork could reach so far without even leaving Ireland.
While also still being able to stay so unknown which is the utter beauty of it.
My New Website, Landscape photography Ireland
So this is my new Landscape photography Ireland website and it’s where I sell my photography prints and also showcase just some of the services I provide including one to one photography workshops for individuals and group workshops, photography tours around West Cork and I am also lucky enough to represent three companies as a Brand ambassador. I also have some great new collaborations coming up soon with some other amazing photography manufacturers.
Previously my commercial work and landscape photography were all on the one website www.kieranhayesphotography.com but in mid April 2020 I started this dedicated landscape photography Ireland website.
It is still being updated and expanded daily and should be completely finished by the end of July 2022.
My print galleries are still growing and once I have finalised them all in the coming month or two, they will still be growing on a weekly basis with new photographs being added.
I print all the landscape photography prints myself in my studio with a pigment ink printer and professional photographic paper so your photographs stay vibrant for years to come. I send the finished photographs to clients all over the world with free delivery and each print is signed and numbered by me.
I am currently working on a new project which will be a series of unique fine art black and white limited edition photographs with only 10 images being printed of each photograph. There will be just nine for sale as I will be keeping one myself. They will be A3 sized photographs and hopefully I will have the project finished before winter 2020. This is a project I have wanted to do for the last 4 four years and I am looking forward to finally getting around to doing it this year.
If you would like to be kept up to date with this project and get a sneak peek before everyone else then please contact me here and I will notify you before the gallery is made available for public sale.
West Cork, landscape photography Ireland and my workshops
I absolutely love the sea and the stunning Wild Atlantic Way coastline it’s where I grew up and it always makes me feel at home.
The sheer diversity from day to day on this coastline is something I will never get tired of, the weather changes so quickly here and it not only changes the light but the whole mood in your photography.
If I were asked I would say there is simply no better country in the world for landscape photography than Ireland. We have such utterly diverse geography all in close proximity and better still we don’t have the crazy crowds and tourism of Iceland and countries like that.
If I was given the opportunity to take photographs anywhere in the world in the perfect conditions then I would always pick West Cork.
I see the stunning beauty in other countries of course but Ireland and especially West Cork will always be home for me and a place I feel connected to.
I look at every photograph as a moment in time and something I connected with when I pressed the shutter button, not just a scene to capture but something that inspired me. When I am in another country I just don’t get that to the same extent.
The top tip I give all my clients is to try to give all your photographs the respect they deserves and just slow down, think about the view and what you love in the scene and how you can amplify that for the viewer.
This is the heart of the image for me, sometimes I feel digital photography has taken this thought process from most people as it’s so easy to take hundreds of photographs.
The more you actually put into a photograph the better it’s going to be, that’s something I always try to get across on my photography workshops.
If you have a connection to a place then the photograph is hopefully going to show that.
Ireland’s weather
I am lucky enough to live by the Irish coast on the South West of the country and this guarantees dramatic weather and changing scenes nearly every few minutes. Which makes for ideal conditions for any landscape photographer and even better again for a seascape photographer. This ever changing light makes each one of my photographs of Ireland a tiny little sliver of time.
These changing conditions can give you blinding rain, wind, funnily we get what is called lazy wind here in West Cork, it would rather go straight through you than go around you 🙂 and beautiful sunshine all in just five minutes. That is what gives our coastline such incredible character and of course its stunning views. The moments between these changing conditions can be truly magical and why they may not last long they are a beauty to behold.
Calm days with serene sunsets and quiet peaceful beaches or raging water and heavy storms every day is different on the coastline here and all the photographs are too.
Companies I work with…
Formatt Hitech
On the other side of my journey, I consider myself very lucky and proud to be a Brand Ambassador, Featured Artist and photography educator for Formatt Hitech Filters.
Their wonderful products feature strongly in all my work and I love their passion and interest in innovation while still having a very strong customer service support team.
My partnership with them over the last 3 years has proven to be completely invaluable to me and my photographs as a professional photographer and opened up a host of new possibilities and adventures. As a bonus I can offer 10% off all their products via discount code HAYES10
Pixpa
I also work with Pixpa a website building platform that is both incredibly easy to use and also as complex as you want to make it yourself.
I always say its like using Lego you just add it all together and it just works.
This website was originally built with Pixpa, previously I have used Squarespace and Zenfolio websites but Pixpa was my platform of choice and their service team are fantastic and so very helpful.
I am delighted to be able to offer discount code Kieran20 to give you 20% off all their website packages. I have another company I am just in the process of finalising details with and I hope to make that announcement in the next two weeks.
So watch this space… There are then two more well known companies also joining me on my journey later in the year.
Thanks for taking the time to view my Landscape photography Ireland website and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me here and I would be very happy to answer any questions you may have.
If you are interested in viewing more of my photographs then please click here to go to my galleries.
See you out there,
Kieran.