The Mournes : Slieve Loughshannagh and Slieve Doan

Slieve Loughshannagh and Slieve Doan lie in Northern Ireland’s central Mourne Mountains. Loughshannagh is 627m and Slieve Doan sits slightly smaller at 562m (according to my Garmin Epix2). Slieve Doan remains my favourite mountain, set in the heart of the Mournes it is surrounded by the range’s highest peaks.

Slieve Loughshannagh

I spent most of the day at the top of Ott Track looking out for a number of groups making their way from Meelmore through the central Mournes. There was time for a quick lunch break at the top of Slieve Doan before heading back over to Slieve Loughshannagh and mapping the wall between the stiles. Doan was characteristically busy, seeing a surge in popularly since the first covid lockdown.

Slieve Loughshannagh is arguably a pretty plain mountain to look at however it offers breathtaking views over to Slieve Binnian and Slieve Bearnagh. (This is one of my favourite images of Bearnagh). You can view more over on Instagram. For video check out Drone footage of the Mourne Mountains.

There is always a fair bit of contrast at this time of year. The bright sun manages to break through the clouds and creates some interesting textures on the mountains.

Fujifilm X100F

I have been deliberating my default camera for days out in the mountains. Although I love the 24mm it is really easy to lose the sense of scale without any foreground detail. Today I set out with just the Fujifilm X100F camera, no filters and I have even managed to lose the lens hood.

Settings wise I set the exposure dial to -0.5 and used film simulation bracketing to capture Velvia, Classic Chrome and Acros-G. Most of the ACROS and Velvia files were discarded in favour of the Classic Chrome.

There isn’t much of the way of Lightroom post processing. There is a slight increase in contrast and blacks and two of the images were cropped (slightly). I am not sure why but I never light how the sky is captured (by any camera). I never really feel the blue hue truly represents the sky. That said, I have learnt not to meddle with the saturation as things get out of control quickly. If you have any tips or advice on managing the colour of the sky, please feel free to comment below.

A big shout out to Lightroom Mobile as I was able to create this post out in the hills, however not such a big shout out to Mourne internet though.

Slieve Loughshannagh : Grid Reference: J29456 27205