PicTours Dublin

About This Tour

Dublin’s number-one photography tour on TripAdvisor pairs you with a local Instagram influencer and expert photographer for 90 minutes across five to seven of the city’s most photogenic spots. You come away with genuinely good photos and a set of practical skills you can use on your own from there.

Your guide covers real photography techniques: how to work with available light, how to shoot interiors, street photography, contrast and colour. On the Instagram side, you’ll learn about filtering, hashtags, posting times, and how the platform’s discovery service actually works. The specific locations shift daily depending on weather, new art installations, and what the group wants to see, so it’s worth telling your guide if you have a preference when you arrive.

The group is capped at 15. Look for your guide wearing a pink InstaTours hat.

What’s Included

• Photography techniques and instruction throughout
• Instagram skills and practical tips
• Five to seven spots across Dublin city over 90 minutes
• Stories about Dublin along the way

What’s Not Included

• Camera equipment

Itinerary

1. St. Stephen’s Green - Nature and wildlife photography is your starting point. Your guide introduces a beginner technique here to ease you in. (15 min)
2. An old shopping centre - You go indoors to photograph the architecture of a trading hall with a history connected to U2’s early gigs. The focus is interior photography and your first Instagram tip. (15 min)
3. Grafton Street - Dublin’s busiest and most famous street. Street photography, working with available light, and Instagram filtering, plus there’s usually a busker worth photographing. (15 min)
4. A back street with an umbrella art installation - One of Dublin’s more well-known art installations, used here to explore contrast and maximising colour. Your guide also covers timing: when to post to actually get seen. (15 min)
5. Two secret spots - Two lesser-known Dublin locations your guide will reveal only on the day. These change regularly based on weather and new installations around the city. (30 min)

Good to Know

• Group size is capped at 15
• Locations change daily depending on weather, new art, and group interests; tell your guide if you have preferences
• Infants and small children can travel in a pram or stroller
• Service animals are welcome
• Public transport options are available nearby
• Suitable for all fitness levels
• Conducted in English
• Meeting point: look for your guide wearing a pink InstaTours hat

Local Tips

Your phone camera is completely fine for this tour. The guide works with whatever equipment you have. People often arrive worried that their phone isn’t good enough and leave with their best Dublin photos in years. The techniques taught here apply equally to a smartphone and a DSLR.

The two secret spots are usually the highlight. The fixed locations are good, but the spots your guide adds based on what’s new and interesting in the city are often the ones people talk about afterwards. Part of the value of this tour is that it stays current.

Grafton Street buskers are worth your attention. The quality of musicians who play this street can be genuinely high. Your guide uses them as a practical street photography subject, but they’re also worth stopping to listen to independently.

St. Stephen’s Green as a photography subject is less obvious than it looks. Most visitors take wide shots of the park from the main gates. Your guide will show you angles and approaches that produce something more interesting. The wildlife around the ornamental lake, in particular, rewards patience.

The Instagram theory is more useful than you might expect. Even if you’re not particularly interested in building an audience, understanding how the platform’s discovery algorithm works changes how you think about posting. The timing advice alone tends to surprise people who have been posting casually for years.

Nearby on IrelandMe

• Portobello - A canal-side neighbourhood a ten-minute walk from St. Stephen’s Green with good light for photography along the Grand Canal towpath.
• Dún Laoghaire - Coastal town with a Victorian harbour, coloured beach huts, and clear Atlantic light that makes for strong photographs on a decent day.
• Howth - A fishing village headland with cliff walks, working boats in the harbour, and the kind of textures and colour that photograph well in any season.