In Photos dot org

Checking the prisoner

“I’m so tired. They’ve had me locked up here for years. I’m in solitary confinement for my sins. I was set up I tell you! It wasn’t me!”

A tourist looks in on a cell in Alcatraz in the solitary confinement wing. Luckily I was able to walk out immediately. Not a pleasant place.
Besides the main subject of this image, it’s the small details I like. That barely noticed feather on the far right grabs me by the shoulders and screams, “you don’t know the half of what I’ve seen!”

A resident of Alcatraz

Alcatraz Island is now inhabited by the birds and I presume security staff but I think the birds have a better life with all the tourists around hefting lunches and sandwiches from the mainland.

Imagine the scene, me and a few of the others scrambling to get a shot of this seagull. I had my wide angle lens fitted so I had to lean forward for the gull to fill the frame! It’s a sign of how tame they are that we got this shot even if he did eye me suspiciously.

Looking onto Freedom

A young woman talks on her mobile phone while looking out a barred window in Alcatraz Prison, San Francisco. Walking through the prison was quite an experience, especially as tourists like myself took photos and listened to the audio tour while wandering. It was easy to imagine how awful incarceration must be looking out the windows and through the bars of cells.

This was shot in the prison canteen and I rotated the image on purpose to add a little interest.

No thank you - gulp!

S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien

The Liberty Ship S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien lies anchored at Pier 45, Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. It’s visible to all the tourists boarding the ferry to Alcatraz and is open to the public.

I didn’t get a chance to look inside, but ssjeremiahobrien.org makes me wish I did. She was one of the ships used in D-Day 1944 and made eleven crossings of the English Channel.

The small writing on the forward gun reads, “Miss Jerry O’Brien”. That looks like a shamrock behind the young lady accompanying the signature. Is there an Irish connection?

In June 1943 the Liberty Ship S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien slid down the ways at the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in South Portland, Maine. Shortly thereafter she entered service, operated by Grace Line for the War Shipping Administration. Named for the first American to capture a British naval vessel during the Revolutionary War, the O’Brien made seven World War II voyages, ranging from England and Northern Ireland to South America, to India, to Australia. She also made eleven crossings of the English Channel carrying personnel and supplies to the Normandy beaches in support of the D-Day invasion. After the war, she was “mothballed” and laid up in the Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, north of San Francisco.

California, San Francisco CA

California, a street in San Francisco near where we were staying last August.
This was taken after a great lunch in a nearby restaurant with some of the WordPress guys in a Burmese restaurant - Mark Jaquith, Markr (the support guy formally known as Podz), Andy and of course Matt. Excellent food and company.

I like this: Aaah! les galettes… - almost a painting. Great art.

Nice - in Couple Dancing, Cory Parris does a great job on a first dance shot.

Looking down from on high

Looking down on a street in San Francisco. You wouldn’t want to be afraid of heights walking around on top of a building!

We all want to see what the neighbours are up to and living in a high building is the perfect opportunity of peeping-toms everywhere. You can see all sorts of things - a parasol with lounger across the street, garden furniture, a tree; all invisible from street level.

The postman has been and delivered 100 minicards from moo.com! I ordered 100 duplicates in the order as well so I hope they’re on the way too. I got in touch with their customer service people just in case and am waiting on a reply from them now. Later - I got my reply. The duplicate cards are a separate order and were shipped separately. Should be here in a day or two!

Have bike, will travel

As you can imagine, I was quite tired by the time I got to San Francisco!

Picture above was taken just down from my Bird flying by photo. I know there are lots of awkward lines in this shot but the line of the Golden Gate Bridge is just about horizontal.
Automattic had it’s first meeting of the week a few yards from here in the glorious sunshine. Some of us suffered sunburn but it sure beat sitting around some dusty old conference table!

Bird flying by

A gull flies off after an inconsiderate photographer runs after it to shoot it. Beats having the kids do the running eh? They might fall!

This was taken in San Francisco, and that’s The Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I went through my shots from my August trip a few days ago and selected around one hundred images for processing. I’ll mix in a few shots over the next few week’s posts. There’s everything from bridges, street people and furniture, Memphis Minis and Alcatraz so plenty for all tastes.

Note to self - when traveling to a new timezone, change the time on your camera!

Pog Mo Thoin san Daingean

“Kiss my ass!” That’s what “póg mo thóin” means. This is from a shop display in Dingle, Co. Kerry. The town, also known by it’s Irish name, An Daingean, is in an Irish speaking part of the country collectively known as An Gaeltacht.

If you’re interested, you’d probably pronounce “póg mo thóin” in English as “pogue mahone”.

Interesting trivia - The Pogues got their name from this short phrase.

Both Ryan and Daragh got their free mini cards from moo.com but I’m still waiting on mine. They have been shipped so they’ll arrive soon I hope. Check out Daragh’s shot of his cards for an imaginative way of photographing them!

Happy child in the water

A very happy boy runs through the incoming tide at Inch Strand, Co. Kerry. The tide came in suddenly forcing all the adults back but it brought a big smile to this youngster’s face!

Originally shot in colour with the sun behind the boy, I had to brighten the image significantly to get any detail in the boy. That blew out the brighter parts of the image so I made it into a black and white image and I’m very happy with the result.

It was competition night in Mallow Camera Club last night. The standard was amazingly high, but then again, a number of old hands, and pros are members as well as newbies like myself. I had to select 15 images for entry and with some difficulty whittled 30 images down to that number. After all that, there was some mix up with the projector and my images weren’t shown anyway. I don’t mind because the deadline for digital images had been during the week, not on the night, and I think images had been copied into the wrong directory. This photo would have been one of those images shown.

Just got an email from Shutterstock, my check’s in the post! Woo!