The Importance of Being Prepared

I recently learned a valuable photography lesson: plan your trip and scout your location before you travel. I chat about it in the video below, but you can read about it after the video instead, if that’s your thing.

On Sunday, I packed my Fujifilm gear into my bag, and headed for the Wicklow Mountains. Specifically, to Lough Tay near Ballinastoe Woods – in County Wicklow, Ireland. Some of you may already be rolling your eyes and know the mistake that I made. For those that don’t know, I was essentially driving towards one of Ireland’s most popular cycling hot-spots, on a Sunday – the day that cyclists call their own, which is fair.

Any hopes I may have had of getting a nice easy parking spot were dashed pretty quickly; the only small car parks along the road between Lough Tay and Ballinastoe Woods were absolutely packed, and I only managed to get a spot out of sheer luck when a young family pulled out of a spot as I was passing.

After finding a nice spot to sit, I flew my DJI Mini 2 drone around for a while. I got some nice aerial shots and footage, but had to head off before I froze to the spot – Irish mountains are windy and cold in early February, in case you didn’t know!

I wanted to film some content on my Fujifilm X-T4 for my YouTube channel, and that proved tricky. I trekked up to what I thought was a secluded spot, set up my camera, and immediately noticed the first couple following my trail. I hung around awkwardly, managed to capture some decent video, and then called it a day.

Eager to get some more shots and footage for the video I had in mind, I headed to The Octagon near Kindlestown Woods, also in County Wicklow. Again, not my best idea, as the place was full of people, but I got some fun drone footage and a few decent photos – see a sample below, and check out the video at the top of this post for the full series of images.