UPDATE July 2025: The Balbriggan Lighthouse image has won first place in the Coastal Landscape category.

In June 2025, I received an email from CleanCoasts informing me that one of my images I entered had been shortlisted in the LoveYourCoasts photo competition. This was the first time I have achieved this. I have won competitions before but on a smaller scale such as coming first place twice in the Storm Hour Pic of the Week which is by no means a small competition as it gave me a whole year membership to the Royal Meteorological Society and I used this to my advantage to educate myself on weather via the “Weather” publication which is available for free to members. Anyone who knows me also knows that I’m obsessed with weather. However, being shortlisted in LoveYourCoasts was my first major achievement in this regard as it was from more than 1,000 images. Oddly enough, my friend (who bears no relation as far as we are both aware) Ann Bruen also got shortlisted into the same category of the Coastal Landscape. Two Bruens shortlisted in the same competition… hmm.

I entered three different images to the competition. One was of Poolbeg Lighthouse aligned with a snowy Great Sugar Loaf from Dollymount Strand during the cold spell of January 2025, this is my most popular image of 2025 so far judging by all the beaming reception it received and a few “photoshop” or “AI” accusations too because it can never be all goldilocks and rainbows can it? This was one I was unsure about whether it would fit the category as the coastal aspect is not a huge relevance though it does include a lighthouse and well there’s not very many lighthouses away from the coastline.

My second image I had entered was one that I was told to enter as it would be good and that was the Dún Laoghaire tri-colour white horses shot taken during Storm Éowyn in January 2025. On one hand, I get it. It’s a cool image with the faces you can see in the waves blowing across Dún Laoghaire Lighthouse. On the other hand, it’s enhanced a little too much. The tri-colour is natural to an extent but editing was used to make it pop a bit more as the sky would not be this mars-y. Therefore, I’m not terribly surprised to see this did not make the cut as good as people told me it was. The white waves and slightly minty sea in the foreground were not enhanced much.

Then my third image I entered was one that I had faith in as it contained the bells and whistles that showed the coast perfectly well for the competition. This was a shot of Balbriggan Lighthouse getting pounded by waves from a northeasterly gale during the cold spell in January 2025. Note how all of my entries were from the same month – a sign of how good January 2025 was for photography.

This was not the original plan that day, 5th January, to photograph Balbriggan as I set out for the mountains to chase snow. As usual which we seemed to be getting a lot of these days, much of Dublin and indeed the east coast was not going to get snow due to too much modification from an onshore breeze and the airmass not being cold enough. This meant a mountains snow chase was the way to go to get my quota of winter snow – though I had already gotten a decent quota in the mountains from an early snow event the previous November! You know how it goes though, you always want more. I visited the Dublin side of the mountains, I walked up to the Hellfire Club. Visibility was poor, it wasn’t terribly cold but it was windy and snow was rather light. It was already quickly turning to slush at the lower end of Montpelier Hill. I went up the steeper, shorter route and fortunately the snow was quite thick here still so attempts at slipping were minimal. I got up to the Hellfire Club itself slowly and the visibility got even worse with blizzard conditions briefly. I got kind of anxious thinking I had messed up and I would be trapped up here with my car stuck in the car park as I do not have winter tyres – I would invest in them if we had more regular snow per year but it would be a big waste unless we somehow got a December 2010 scenario again of a big freeze for a few weeks. I have considered snow socks for future. But anyway, I seen somebody and I asked could I walk down with them. They were very kind and understanding of my anxiety with a good chat on the way down. On the way down, the visibility improved dramatically but it was very slippy with all the slush from people that had been walking though fortunately I did not slip over.

After I got back to the car, conditions were good enough to drive without much bother. The first day of snow falling unless it’s proper thick isn’t often much of a worry anyway as it has yet to freeze over. That’s when it truly becomes anxiety inducing. The car park was starting to fill up quick with snow tourists and it was time to get out. I imagined a snowy Ballycorus Lead Mines would be cool to capture and at this point I did not know where I would have to park to be able to get there so relied on Google Maps which brought me to a tiny lane way with a no parking sign. Not that it matters as the snow level was too high for Ballycorus where it was all rain so had to forfeit this plan.

I seen some friends in a snowy Glendalough and I wanted to go too which I tried going multiple ways, down the normal R755 but looking at the state of the road and how quick more heavy snow was coming, I went back looking for a quicker safe route to Glendalough. I took the N11 to Ashford and go down the R763 but this road was even worse where it got to a point that would be impassable for my tyres and I said nope this isn’t worth the risk at all so I just gave up the fort. Maybe I would have made it on the R755 but I don’t want to be calling mountain rescue and ditching my car just for some snow pictures as tempting as it was to see the ancient monastery of Glendalough as a wintry wonderland. It was time to go home.

On the way home, there was localised flooding on the N11, particularly at Bray-Fassaroe Junction 6. This was a combination of heavy rain that was only getting worse and run off water from the nearby hills. I stopped to refuel and seen Instagram stories from friends in Balbriggan where there was large waves blowing at the lighthouse. Despite it being a northeasterly wind direction which Balbriggan is exposed to and is ideal for waves hitting the lighthouse at full force, at no point was Balbriggan on my mind as a location to go. I was so focused on getting snow. I asked if their footage was only taken just now and it was but the tide was going out and it would take me at least 40 minutes to get there from where I was. The Hellfire Club snow shots were cool but so many of them were unusable from all the moisture getting on the lens and I was rather disappointed with my images so far. Therefore, I set out to Balbriggan with a positive mind that I’ll get something. I have gotten shots before of this lighthouse with waves pounding, it is a popular composition. However, I had yet to get the perfect wave. That massive one that will blow all the others away.

I arrived on the scene. It was very windy with huge waves over the lighthouse, many of which as per usual I miss when I’m not capturing. I took shelter in my car and photographed from the window at Lambeecher beside the martello tower with a high focal length lens because there is no way in hell that I was standing out getting drenched. It was also fortunate that given the direction of the wind and where my car was, the rain wasn’t blowing into my window or lens. I spent a good hour here trying to get the perfect wave and I managed one I was delighted with because it went way above the lighthouse – the first image below. I took a picture of the file name on the back of the cam, got home and immediately edited this one. It was by far my best ever attempt at this composition to date – or so at least I thought. I did not give the other files in my Lightroom catalog much attention from this shoot.

A few weeks had passed with the image above being my centre of attention as the best shot taken on the day then one day in late January, I randomly looked through my Lightroom catalog for files to edit. I came across a shot of the lighthouse taken at blue hour with the light turned on and three birds that happened to also appear in a nice triangle shape. The wave wasn’t the biggest in the world like the first image but it was decent. The image looked a little soft and noisy but this had some interesting elements as outlined that it caught my eye and I edited it to look proper stormy with dark gloomy tones. I have provided a screenshot of the original raw file. You’ll see the colour profile is very flat as it is supposed to be in raw format which allows for maximum editing potential without destroying the image. I gave the image a cool feel as it was that time of day, blue hour. There’s even a few more birds but I cropped the image in a way to get rid of the other two as I thought they provide more of a distraction and ruin the nice triangle formed by the other three. Of course this is subjective and you might have preferred if they were included. The crop is a powerful tool that allows you to enhance your composition that you might not have been able to achieve in camera although you don’t want to go too hard on it or you’ll have insufficient resolution for viewing on large screens and prints.

That’s the story of how I achieved my shortlisted image of Balbriggan Lighthouse stormy waves. Ain’t it amusing how things can turn out like this. Something that might not even cross your mind without the assistance of friends and it becomes a contender for an award. You just never truly know what might happen. This was one of my happiest “accidents” for sure. I think it’s one of my best weather images to date as it truly shows off the power of nature in action. Never underestimate the sea.

Even if I do not win the award, this opportunity to participate and be shortlisted in such a prestigious competition is a great honour. Thank you for reading and let me know if this is the story you pictured before reading this post of how I would take the photo.

Sryan