Journal · Portrait Sessions
Brittas Bay — where the dunes meet the Atlantic
Brittas Bay · Co. Wicklow · Wild Beach & Pine Dunes
The Location
Five kilometres of wild Wicklow beach, one hour from Dublin.
Brittas Bay is on the Wicklow coast — a wide arc of Atlantic-facing beach backed by high sand dunes and a belt of Scots pine. It is one of the longest and most open beaches in the Dublin and Wicklow area, and in terms of light and scale it sits in a different category from anything available within the city. The sky here is enormous. The beach stretches far enough in both directions that you never feel at the edge of it. The dunes at the back give height, texture and shelter. The whole setting breathes.
For portrait sessions it offers a particular combination that is hard to find elsewhere: openness and wildness together. The beach is not manicured. The dunes are tall and windswept. The pines along the back edge are old and characterful. This is Ireland's coast in a way that feels true rather than managed — and portraits taken here look exactly like that.
Brittas Bay · Co. Wicklow
Individual Portraits
Coastal · Year-Round
Why Brittas Bay works for portrait sessions
The light at Brittas Bay is Atlantic coastal light — broad, consistent and coming from a wide arc of sky rather than a single point. On overcast days, which are not uncommon on the Wicklow coast, the beach acts like a giant reflector, bouncing soft even light upward into a face from below at the same time as it arrives from above. The result is one of the most flattering natural lighting conditions available outdoors. Skin tones look warm; shadows are soft; the overall quality is close to what photographers spend considerable effort trying to replicate artificially in studios.
The dunes offer their own distinct quality as a portrait setting. The steep faces of marram grass and pale sand create an abstract, graphic backdrop — no horizon, no sea, just texture and tone. Sessions that move between the open beach and the dunes produce photographs that feel like two different shoots: one expansive and elemental, one close and contained. Both are very strong.
The pine belt at the back of the dunes is a third option — useful in very bright sunlight when open beach light becomes too harsh, and beautiful in late afternoon when the low sun comes through the trees from the west and turns everything amber. A full Brittas Bay session moves through all three zones as the light allows, and the variety the beach naturally produces means no two frames from the same session look quite alike.
Planning a Brittas Bay portrait session
Brittas Bay is about an hour south of Dublin by car, via the M11 and N11 toward Wicklow. There are two main car parks — the northern one near the main beach entrance is the most convenient starting point. Sessions run approximately ninety minutes, moving from the beach to the dunes and back as the light dictates. The beach is long enough that even in summer there are quieter stretches — particularly toward the northern end, beyond the car park.
Late afternoon sessions are exceptional here. The sun drops toward the Wicklow hills to the west in the hour before sunset, sending long golden light across the beach at an angle that catches every grain of sand and turns the whole foreground warm. Summer evenings extend golden hour well past nine o'clock, which means there is genuine flexibility around start times. A session that begins at seven and finishes at dusk is a particular favourite — the beach empties, the light builds, and the photographs from the last twenty minutes are often unlike anything from earlier in the session.
Brittas Bay is worth the drive from Dublin. It is one of the few portrait locations I recommend for clients who want something that feels genuinely coastal and wild rather than just convenient — the beach gives photographs a sense of place that is specific to Co. Wicklow and impossible to replicate closer to the city.
