Going Out of My Comfort Zone — Dún Laoghaire, Ireland
There's a strange thing that happens when you photograph the same coastline for long enough. You stop seeing it.
Not literally — the light still changes, the tides still move — but the compositions stop surprising you. Your eye knows where to go before your feet do. And somewhere in that familiarity, the anticipation that makes great photography possible quietly disappears.
I'd been feeling this for a while. So I did something I've never done before.
I opened a flight search, picked a destination I could reach from my local airport, and booked it — no research, no location scouting, no saved Instagram pins. Just a camera bag and a willingness to be lost.
That flight was Dublin.
Finding the place within the place
I didn't actually want to photograph Dublin itself. Cities on their own terms have never been my subject. But ten miles south of the city lies Dún Laoghaire — a working port town on Dublin Bay, with granite piers, ferry terminals, and a quality of light that sits somewhere between the Irish Sea and the sky above it.
I arrived with wide eyes and no plan. And within minutes of stepping onto the harbour, my eye was already working — reading the geometry of the bollards, the stillness of the water between the ferry jetty's legs, the way two iron handrails could become a meditation on solitude.
The compositions were there. They always are, if you arrive without assumptions.
The hardest part
The conditions were brutal by my standards. Thirty degrees. Harsh, contrasty midday light. People everywhere — families, swimmers, tourists — filling the spaces I wanted to be empty.
And I had a decision to make: adapt my aesthetic, or hold to it.
I held to it.
My work has always drawn on the Japanese Sumi-e tradition — reduction, stillness, the discipline of removing everything unnecessary until only the essential remains. Achieving that in a busy, sun-bleached Irish port in summer required patience I didn't know I had. Early mornings. Returning at different tides. Waiting for the light to soften and the crowds to thin.
The long exposure was my tool, as always — smoothing the water, dissolving the movement, returning the scene to something quieter than it actually was.
What I brought back
These four images are only a small selection from the trip. Each one surprised me — not because the subject was unfamiliar, but because I had to earn them in a way I hadn't needed to for a long time.
The bench on the rock with Dalkey Island beyond. The ferry jetty's industrial skeleton reflected in glassy water. The granite steps and their two iron handrails reaching toward nothing. The lighthouse framed by a rhythm of bollards on the quayside.
None of these were planned. All of them were found.
Why this matters to me — and perhaps to you
I think the best work comes from the edge of what you know. Not from chaos, but from the productive discomfort of a new place, a new light, a new set of problems to solve with the same tools.
Dublin reminded me how to see again.
If any of these images speak to you, I'd love to hear from you. Hit reply and tell me which one stops you.
From the Dorset shoreline — and occasionally, the Irish Sea,
Roy x