In 2025, my wife and I went to Ireland twice, spending nearly one month total on that beautiful island both for me to do some personal work and to finalise our upcoming, new Workshop there. Photographically speaking, these trips resulted in a 40-image Portfolio.
Our first visit was in spring; our second in winter. During our stay, we worked along the Irish coasts and inland, on very different types of ground and under very different weather conditions, which presented me with quite a few challenges. 4x5” cameras are notoriously prone to suffering from micro-movement when working both in windy conditions and on less than solid ground, such as sandy beaches, spongy and peaty soil, and the like. Ireland offered plenty of both.
More, a large part of my photography is done using use exposure control as an expressive tool. I love the simplification power of long exposures, and I use exposure control’s ability to transform matter as a compositional tool; as a result, my shutter speeds are often in the minutes.
Technically speaking, as a result of both our first trip to Ireland, and of the overall experience I gained during our 2025 spring traveling season, over the summer I had to rethink my kit and fine tune my technique. I took off for our fall 2025 traveling season with different gear, and a much better understanding of how to make the most of my time in the field.
I just published an article on my blog featuring the new Portfolio and describing this experience, which you can find here:
https://www.vieribottazzini.com/2026/01/ireland-a-4x5-portfolio.html
Some photographs out of the Portfolio for you to enjoy:
All photographs shot on Ilford FP4+ at 100 ISO with an Arca-Swiss M-Two, developed in Pyrocat-HD and digitised with a Fujifilm GFX100S II and 120mm Macro.
Best regards,
Vieri
