He picked the Cliffs of Moher. I live forty minutes away.

He picked the Cliffs of Moher. I pointed out that I live forty minutes from the Cliffs of Moher and have been there more times than I can count.

He said that was precisely the problem.

The argument about familiarity

His position: photographers shoot their local landscapes worse than strangers shoot them because they stop seeing them. The eye habituates. What was once dramatic becomes ordinary. What was ordinary was always extraordinary and you stopped noticing.

I said this was psychological nonsense dressed up as photography advice.

He said: when did you last photograph them properly? Not phone snapshots, not passing by. A real session.

I couldn’t remember. He let the silence do the work.

What he told me to do differently

Early morning, before the visitor centre opens. South to north light in summer, not the flat frontal light everyone shoots. The view from O’Brien’s Tower in the fog, not the clear day. The cliff edges looking back toward the land, not always out to sea.

Everyone photographs the Atlantic from the cliffs. Nobody photographs Ireland from the cliffs. Turn around.

I turned around. He was right. The green fields dropping away behind you with the stone walls and the odd farmhouse. Nobody shoots that.

The tourist problem

The Cliffs are one of the most visited sites in Ireland. In July this is noticeable. He said 7am. I said fine. At 7am there are walkers and photographers and one tour bus that got there unconscionably early.

The fog came in at about 8:30. In twenty minutes the far section of cliff disappeared completely and what was left was better than what had been there before.

Home turf verdict

Complicated. The photographs are good. The experience of being told you’ve been looking at your own landscape wrong by an AI is a specific kind of humbling I did not expect from this project.

Both sevens. We agreed again, which he again found suspicious.