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City Hall at night

Cork City Hall at night as viewed from across the river. It was all lit up for the Modern Homes Exhibition and as it was such a calm night the reflection on the River Lee was beautiful.

If you watch the RTE news at 6pm or 9pm tonight, watch out for the photo on the weather forecast. A friend of mine, Catherine Cotter, sent in a few entries to their photography competition and one of her photos will be shown tonight! I must set up the Sky+ to record it just in case. I might be able to get a screen capture somehow!

A wonderful thing happened the other day. Gary Byron, a Corkonian like myself, was browsing the net and looking about for things to do when he comes home for Christmas. He stumbled upon this blog and by some one-in-a-million chance found my photo, Wet Day Shopping. He recognised the couple in the photo as his parents and he left a comment on the post.

… what were the chances of me finding this photo, anyway its a great photo, I will get it developed and give to them as a surprise.

I got in touch with Gary shortly afterwards and sent him on a larger image which will print out to a nice 8×10 so I hope he managed to find a camera shop on the Friday before Christmas Day that wasn’t swamped with customers!

I was amazed that someone recognised people in a photo I took. It happened once before. Corksurf recognised the woman in this shot and left a comment on the flickr page of the image. I’m sure it’ll happen again. Hopefully with results as positive!

Standing in the gutter

It’s pouring rain, I’m just after eating a delicious meal with family and what do I do? Go shoot the leaves in the drain across the road.

I can tell you it was difficult enough holding the umbrella in one hand, camera in the other, thinking about composition and keeping my balance, without getting wet. *Phew*

Shot in Blarney on a very wet day.

Brooding sky at sunset

A brooding, dark sky threatens to swallow the setting sun over Drake’s Pool near Crosshaven in Co. Cork.

Enjoy diet Coke

A sign blazes it’s message above our heads in San Francisco. The Diet Coke logo could be seen from the end of the street so I had to snap it as we got closer!

Dog in a lampshade

Poor Oscar. It’s not bad enough that he got the snip but he had to wear what looks to all the world like a lampshade for two weeks. This was only a week after he moved in with us last Summer and the poor fella was not impressed.

Thankfully he got over it remarkably quickly and doesn’t have an aversion to lighting fixtures as we suspected he might have.

Our Oscar is quite a needy little character. He loves human attention. This faq on Shih Tzus is quite good, although it does contradict an earlier page I read that said they are a one human dog. Oscar definitely prefers Jacinta to me, but he goes crazy when he sees me after an absence too!

He sleeps in the kitchen and up to recently we kept the door closed to stop him coming upstairs but unfortunately he has the door half-ruined from scratching and his whining and barking kept us awake many times.
The solution? Train him and be more strict. He’s not allowed upstairs now and I leave the kitchen door open at night. No scratching, no whining. Sometimes he sneaks upstairs and we find him curled up on the landing but a quick and sharp, “Oscar! Get down!” and he’s scurrying down to his bed again.

So, it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks. Well, a middle-aged one at any rate.

Reuters have their best photos of the year, as do many other publications so I looked through my archives tonight to pick out some of my favourite photos of 2006; and found it was much harder than I thought. What follows are a selection of my best and favourite photos. Some for technical reasons while others are here for sentimental reasons. I know for sure that I’ve missed out some great shots!

January - Road Narrows
In January, I posted a photo taken in Monkstown, Co. Cork. It was later used by Hugging the Shoulder, a theatre company performing at the New York International Fringe Festival.

February - What a big smile!
Taken in Chicago, isn’t his smile great? The photo may be blurred and noisy but the smile grabs me every time!

March - Joe, the Devil and an Angel
Joe, the Devil and an Angel all performing on the street.

April - Dancing in the Street
He looks very happy with life!

May - Spring Blooms
I was married on May 8th so this image is very special for me!

June - Brendan O’Carroll
I was lucky to catch Brendan O’Carroll while he was having a break outside the Opera House in Cork.

July - Child Asleep
I loved the way the light caught the child asleep while all around life continues.

August - This city’s a drag
A child drags two adults through town.

September - Looking out for the kids
During the Ceili Mor a man and his child watched the dancing from the side of the street. He happened to glance over just as I pressed the shutter.

October - The lone daisy
Pictured in Fountainstown, Co. Cork. I spotted this daisy while out walking and simply had to shoot it.

November - Little Communion Girl
I really like this and I’m very happy with how this shot turned out.

December - An Fear Marbh
This is an island off the coast of Kerry, near Dingle. The area is beautiful, and offers some stunning views. Definitely want to get back there soon.

There you have it. Have you picked out your favourite photos yet?

The River, The Brewery and the Cathedral

The River Lee rushes by the Beamish and Crawford Brewery on one side, and O’Sullivan Electrical on the other with St. Finbarre’s Cathedral in the background.

I have discovered there’s a dead pixel on my camera’s sensor. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to show itself much but when I take long exposure shots like the one above a little red dot appears in the top-right of the image. It’s easy to get rid of with the clone tool but also annoying.

The Wacom graphics tablet is great fun to play with but I haven’t got it working fully in Linux yet. Ubuntu thinks it’s simply another mouse device and GIMP doesn’t see it as an “extended device”. I spent quite some time on the Ubuntu forums trying to fix it yesterday before giving up and trying it out on a few images.
It’s a little fiddly to begin with, but I think that’s par-for-the-course when using a new tool. I do find that when dodging and burning large sections of images the brush can get stuck and won’t follow the cursor but I’ve read that once it’s properly configured performance is improved so I hope that is fixed then.

Hope you had a nice Christmas Day!

Jesus Christ Loves You

A man stands alone amid the bustle of downtown San Francisco holding a sign proclaiming the message, “Jesus Christ Loves You”.

This photo brings to mind the preacher in Chicago I photographed while on holiday there. I wonder if the man in San Francisco has the same colourful history.

Happy Christmas to all, I hope you’re having a great day!

Last minute shopping

Today many major cities and towns around the world are going to be thronged with shoppers doing last minute shopping before Christmas Day. Traffic is going to crawl and frustrate and the crowds will be suffocating.

I’m glad I’m staying at home. We may head out to the Lough later for a walk. So stressful!

I like this: Europe - The Parisian Chapter