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A flavour of the St Patrick’s Day festivities and people who attended the Parade in Cork yesterday.

Special Olympics Team

Some of the Special Olympics Team took part in the parade and as I said yesterday, it was strange to see only them on the street with nobody else about. Everyone cheered them on however and clapped as they passed! The next group took at least 5 minutes to appear leaving me to wonder if the parade had already finished.

Kids and flags

You normally don’t see Irish people waving flags about unless it’s a special occasion. St. Patrick’s Day is one of those times when the the Irish Tricolour comes out!

Dodgy looking souvenier seller

If there’s a buck to be made ..

Crowds on St. Patrick’s Day 2008 in Cork

Crowds lined Patrick’s Street in Cork to watch the Parade. It was crazy! To get any sort of shot I had to either hold my camera in the air and shoot blind or grab quick shots with the zoom from between the bobbing heads of those in front of me. If you were in any way uncomfortable with crowds then it wasn’t the place for you.

More tomorrow and for a few days probably.

St. Patrick’s Day is for the kids

A young girls waves her Irish flag in the air after spotting part of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Cork approaching.

I shot several decent shots but it’s late and I’m tired. I was quite disappointed with the parade and left after half an hour. Like previous years there were huge gaps between some of the groups partaking in the parade.

It was strange to see the Special Olympics group striding up Patrick’s Street all alone with no other group in sight. They proudly showed off their medals and the crowd cheered and clapped for them. I’ll have a photo of them up here later in the week.

Heads up at the Lough

This was shot from a precarious position. I jumped up on one of the concrete posts dotted around the pond and very carefully snapped a couple of shots. I just about managed to balance there for a few minutes! See the two black swans everyone else was shooting?

From left to right: Donal, Ryan, Kevin, Katie and Sean spotted me and started shooting the biggest birdbrain there ..

The pigeon flies away!

Besides the beautiful swans, there’s the usual gathering of pigeons waddling along on the path picking up bread crumbs.

Too tempting. I had to chase after them and encourage them to fly a little. Some of them need the exercise!

Feed the swans at the Lough

Girls feed the swans at the Lough on Sunday afternoon.

Urban acid

Will posted his first photo from the day on his blog. He did arrive late, but he made up for lost time!

The Lough Photowalkers

We had a great day today. 11 people showed up at the Lough in Glasheen today for the photowalk. Pictured above are some of us. Unfortunately Patrick and Amy, and then Brendan left earlier. Thank you all for taking the time and making the effort to come. It was freezing cold and windy and it would have been so much easier to sit inside with a good book or in front of the telly!

From left to right: Sean, Kevin, Katie, Will, Donal, Sandy, Ryan and that’s me Donncha kneeling down in front. Ryan & Sandy - what’s your dog’s name again?

We stayed at the south end of the lake most of the time, probably because there was most activity there. I got plenty of shots of swans, ducks, herons and small strange black birds with a white mark. Even got a few shots of swans fighting! You can really only appreciate the size of these birds when they rise out of the air and spread their wings! Thankfully they’re very tame.

After about an hour we headed off to the Lough Church where we were filmed on CCTV taking shots of the church exterior. I wonder what the parish priest will think if he reviews those tapes in the morning. Anyway, it was getting late, I set my camera on a post, took the above shot, and afterwards myself, Kevin Will and Donal retired to The Hawthorn for some light refreshment.

If you post any photos can you tag them “corkphotowalk”? You can subscribe to the feed on the Flickr tag page or this Google Blogsearch query to see what others have posted from the day. (Google hasn’t picked up on the tag just yet.)

I had a quick look through my shots, I took 199, and there’s a couple of good ones.

Suggestions for the next photowalk? Fota perhaps? Maybe Doneraile Park?

Sunshine on the Conor Pass

This will probably be the final photo from that September 2006 visit to the Conor Pass. It’s taken earlier than some of the others but I’m a sucker for leading lines so it had to go in!
I love the reflection in the water on the valley floor, and the shadows of the clouds.

Must make a trip back there this summer!

Thumbs up for Cork!

You may remember this gentleman from a photo I posted around a year ago (it’s pure coincidence I’m posting this today! Really!)

This was shot in Midleton, Co. Cork during the Food and Drink Festival in 2006. Nice guy who came over for a chat afterwards.

Spectators on the beach

The hang gliding crowd attracted a bit of a crowd on Inch Beach in 2006. Well, it was late September and there wasn’t that many people on the beach in the first place, so 2 people isn’t so bad, eh?

Hunger got the best of us and we watched as a powered plane flew high up in the air. I don’t think any of the gliders made it up that day because the winds weren’t right.

Unnamed Beauty

This is one of the beautiful girls who modeled for Mallow Camera Club in September 2006. I can’t remember her name, and at the time I was totally unhappy with the image, but maybe it’s because I haven’t looked at it in a long time, I really like it now.

I shot several similar ones to this, but unfortunately many of them are under exposed. We had studio lighting but because several photographers would shoot at one time and their onboard flash would activate the studio lights so it was hit or miss whether you got a correct exposure or not.

Besides which, I was nervous as well, and didn’t know how to direct someone to pose for me!