Bord Gais, fuelling the passion for Camogie in Cork. Or is it the wine? I couldn’t resist taking this shot this evening!

This is the second last photo I took with my Canon 20D before the shutter started clicking continuously. The last one is a slightly blurry shot of my family and inlaws in the pictured Wine Bar on Washington Street, Cork. I had just taken the shot, decided it was time to put the camera away and get Adam out of the buggy. I put the lens cap on, and click, click, click, click..
The clicks would only stop when I took the battery out. It appears from this thread that I’m not alone. I know that in the old days, cameras would last decades and “they don’t make them like they used to”, but I never expected the Canon 20D to break down on me in just 3 years. At a guess, I’ve probably shot 75,000 pictures with it so perhaps it was about time the shutter complained.

Anyway, I’m going to ring Canon in Dublin tomorrow for a repair quote. If it’s too expensive I’ll have to look into getting a replacement camera. Hope the house insurance will pay out in that case.

A restaurant on St Patrick Street in Cork has this architectural feature over it’s door. You’re either going to love the lomo+vignette+colour effect or you’re going to hate it. This is an experiment with the newly enhanced GIMP Lomo plugin I had originally updated to work with GIMP 2.4. Elsamuko has added a few nice features.

In other news, the Guinness Storehouse photowalk was yesterday. I couldn’t make it but a number of bloggers did, including Will Knott, Darren and Alexa.
You can see some of the amazing shots from the day here, but that url may go stale in a week or so I guess. Well done to Marcus who had a huge hand in organising the trip.

Another Cork photowalk is out of the question in August unless someone else wants to organise one. I’m busy both weekends that are left this month. Perhaps in September? What about constraining it? Make it b/w only? Or portraits only, or architecture, or “secret” places in the city that people won’t recognise perhaps?

Kimball, a station on the L in Chicago. This was a station I used every day when I lived in Chicago a few years ago. I had to ride the brown line one more time when I visited the city in 2005.

I had hoped to work on some shots of today’s trip to Kinsale and Garrettstown but time was against me. Wandered one of the backstreets of the town and got some shots of the wonderful buildings there.

Ballygarvan is 1 mile that way. Shot up by Cork Airport while trying to get a decent shot of a plane landing or taking off. I eventually moved to the other end of the air field where I got the shots I posted last week!

An old sign reflect in the windows of a new building, somewhere in Chicago.

You’re in town and desperately looking for a parking place. Where do you go? All the on-street parking has either been removed because of road works or taken by everyone who went shopping at 9am. Just look up. There’s a multi storey carpark somewhere near you. Probably.

Front of the car park on The Grand Parade. Shot after I said goodbye to Phil and the others a few weeks ago.

Pobal ar Aire. Community on Alert. This is (was?) a scheme designed to help neighbourhoods help themselves by volunteering to keep an eye out for trouble makers or lawlessness. The local police are then informed.

It seems to work well, these signs are dotted all around the country, but in Bantry it looks like they’re protecting their beer..

A few weeks ago Saor Patrol played in Cork on Patrick’s Street, in front of an appreciative audience who clapped and cheered to the drums and beat of this lively Scottish band.

Unfortunately they were there to publicize an event, “Mental Health Awareness Event” organised by the Church of Scientology, or at least a front organisation for them, CCHR. The event took place in Cork City Hall that weekend. This gent was handing out leaflets and booklets to the crowd and despite all the cheering and clapping and general good humour, he never once smiled. He wore the same dead, dour look the whole time. I asked him if I could take his picture and this is the smile he gave me. Maybe he needs to go see a psychiatrist, or take his vitamins.

Guysal Ltd must had an office on Cornmarket Street some time ago as the phone numbers above aren’t valid Cork numbers any more. Both should have a “4″ prefix now. This wall was exposed during the extensive construction work on the old Guy and Company building on that street.

Guysal Ltd are now in Ovens, Co. Cork.

High Street in Bantry, Co. Cork is one of the main streets in the town. It was a gorgeous day when I walked around there and shot this high contrast photo on one of it’s corners.