Phew! What a day! Today we had a great photowalk in Cork. I hesitate to say this, but I think it was probably the most enjoyable photowalk I’ve ever been on.

We started out in the Montenotte Hotel, with tea and scones and a chat. After refreshments we headed up on the roof for a stunning view of Cork City and the Blackrock side of the suburbs. I’ve never seen into Pairc Ui Chaoimh from above like that before!

Soon after we headed down to Dillon’s Cross, and on down Summerhill. Halfway down we took a detour here where we got splendid views of the train station and Julia, the new Swansea Cork Ferry that will operate from March next year.

Snapping all the way, we headed into town and on to the Bar and Grill on the Boardwalk, pictured above. That’s my son Adam, who’s contemplating if he should go in, or stay outside where he can run around. Hungry dad won out in the end and had a delicious burger.

I had to leave after lunch, but four lucky photographers went out on the speedboat and by at least one account it was well worth doing!

I just want to thank the following for helping to make today such a success:

• Pat O Neill and Damien Mulley who helped organise things
• The Montenotte Hotel for laying on tea and scones, and letting us up on their roof (and of course for the free and subsidised rooms)
• The Boardwalk Bar and Grill who put on a sumptuous lunch for us and put up with curious photographers scrambling over their water feature and poring over the unusual Harley Davidson section at the back!
• And finally, I want to thank everyone who came along today and really made the photowalk so enjoyable. I hope I have everyone here: Jamie (and Nora!), Ryan and Julie, Katie, Rudy, Paul, Pa, Mark, Kevin, Will (better late than never!), my wife Jacinta and son Adam who joined us later, and of course Pat who had dusted off a long forgotten digital camera to walk with us today.

Did I forget anyone?

If you’re going to post photos from the walk, please tag them with “corkphotowalk”. You can find lots of photos from previous photowalks (and hopefully this one) on flickr and pix.ie when you search for that tag!

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A sand crab, moments before it was destroyed by the gleeful swipe of a 2 year old’s foot.

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Struggling up the what-feels-like-vertical hill from the North Harbour in Cape Clear is a nightmare. At least Adam was asleep. He was the lucky one.

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I couldn’t let today go by without posting some photos of our little boy Adam on his first birthday! Happy birthday son! Mom and Dad love you to bits. Hopefully you won’t be too embarrassed by this post in years to come!

He’s grown up so fast in front of our eyes and developing into a proper little boy it’s amazing. I’d hardly recognise the tiny little baby he was just a year ago.

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My little baby, Adam, likes the new Wispa bars. Well, he enjoyed throwing this one around and almost got it into his mouth before I stopped him!

‘Course, I gobbled it down shortly afterwards and it was every bit as good as I remembered!

Wispa Bars were on sale in Ireland and the UK up until 2003 when they were discontinued but a recent “Bring Back Wispa” campaign convinced Cadbury to start making them again! Hooray!
Source: Wikipedia

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My little baby, Adam, was in great mood when I shot this in the Castle Hotel, Blarney a few weeks ago.

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Little baby Adam passed another major milestone in his life yesterday. Last night he slept in his own room for the first time!

He slept soundly until about 3am, woke and made a bit of fuss until he fell asleep again until about 6am when he was happy enough to kick about his cot for a while until we got up and fed him.

Just over a week ago he started on solid food. That was fun!

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My son Adam this afternoon with Tweety Bird. He’s all cheerful and smiling for the camera!

I will so miss him and Jacinta when I’m away in San Francisco!

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Adam is 5 weeks old today! Last Wednesday we saw his first smile, or perhaps it was trapped wind because he was just after feeding but it was a beautiful sight to behold. He has smiled since too, and was especially cheerful this morning!

Adam loves his baby soother though. He sucks on it like Maggie out of the Simpsons does. Non-stop and with feeling!
If a soother or dummy isn’t nearby and it’s available, a hair dryer works wonders for relaxing him. The sound soothes him and he can go from screaming the house down to docile and a gurgling baby in seconds when the hair dryer is switched on. It’s magic.

Technique: This is a high key portrait created using two layers.
1. Original image is the bottom layer.
2. Duplicate that layer.
3. Convert top layer to b/w using channel mixer.
4. Apply Gaussian blur to the top layer. I used a 75 pixel wide blur.
5. Change mode of top layer to screen.
6. Add white layer mask to top layer and reveal eyes from original image by painting over them with a black brush. Use an opacity of 10%.
7. Merge layers and save. Layers should be separate when resizing so you can unsharp mask the bottom layer.

Hope that is of use!

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Please welcome the newest member of the O Caoimh clann! Adam was born this morning at 5:51am and we couldn’t be happier!

Now I’m off to bed, I’ve had 4 hours sleep in the last 2 days.

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