When returning from a shoot with several hundred images, it is very easy to become overloaded and unable to judge the photographs properly. Sometimes I will like an image on the first cut, but I'm not sure if it's really up to standard. I leave it, knowing that when I revisit it months later I'll pick it out again if that's the case.

Many times I will also discover a fantastic image that I dismissed as rubbish on the first cut. This is why I never delete anything except the most obviously flawed images (ones with gross technical problems), and it's why my image library is so big.

This is what happened with these two images:

Blustery Afternoon, The Hook, Co. Wexford

Dawn, Lough Tay, Co. Wicklow

The image of the Hook was made earlier the same day as The Hook (Nocturne), and from exactly the same spot. The two images couldn't be more different. I knew I liked the original this image came from but couldn't pin why, exactly. The original was flawed and didn't work as it was, so I pulled it out recently and started playing with it.

Immediately it became apparent it needed to be a panoramic, so I cropped it to the 3:1 format. The high contrast and well-defined clouds seemed like they would work well in black and white, so I converted it and played with the colour filters to get an apocalyptic feel. All of a sudden, it was looking like a great image, and with a little more work it was done.

I don't usually shoot black and white, but I have great respect for those that do. It's a whole different way of seeing, but the sense of drama in a good monochrome image is hard to beat.

The Lough Tay image was made several months before the previously published Midnight, Lough Tay, within shouting distance of the spot I took that from. This was an image I liked originally, but wasn't sure if it was up to the standard so I left it to ferment for a while. On a recent troll through the collection, it leapt out at me, so I wasted no time in finishing it and publishing it.

It definitely has its flaws - it's not terribly sharp because... well frankly, I was freezing and not paying as much attention to technique as I should have. However, it is a striking composition. I really like the trees in the gully and the almost unreal quality of the light, particularly the golden sunlight on the upper crags of Luggala.