In Photos dot Org

  • The tree on the ridge

    I took this from the Coachford Greenway, shooting through the ditch instead of over it, which is why you’ll see the frame of dark leaves and grass. The sky was flat grey and heavy.

    A few minutes later it started raining, but I had an umbrella, and I had a couple of nice photos. Worth the walk back to the car in the rain.


    Apertureƒ/8
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length240mm
    ISO200
    Shutter speed1/500s

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  • Feeder traffic at Carbery Cottage

    a juvenile great tit gripping a rusted steel mesh with grey feet, its dark head turned to the left and its yellow breast feathers slightly ruffled
    a European goldfinch with a red face, black and white head and buff flanks, perched on a horizontal bar inside a rusted steel mesh cage
    a female or juvenile house sparrow in brown and grey plumage, clinging to a rusted steel mesh with a crumb of seed on its beak, with a second blurred sparrow behind it
    a juvenile blue tit with a yellow face and greenish-grey cap, perched on the rim of a black mesh feeder packed with whole peanuts, seen through the vertical bars of a rusted steel cage

    The feeder at Carbery Cottage Guest Lodge on the Sheep’s Head is inside a rusted steel cage, so I couldn’t get a single photo without bars in it. It also stops crows and larger birds getting at the food!

    The great tits were juveniles, still yellow in the cheek and a bit ragged about the head, and they spent more time hanging off the wire than actually feeding. One of the sparrows had a crumb of seed stuck to its beak. The goldfinch was the only bird with any real colour on it, red face, black and white head, and of course enjoying a feed of seeds.


    Apertureƒ/6.3
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length600mm
    ISO32000
    Shutter speed1/2000s

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  • Bumblebee on a cardoon

    The cardoons in Blarney Castle Gardens have been left to flower, which is what you do if you want bees rather than dinner. This one was about the size of my fist, and the bumblebee had worked its way into the lower edge of it, half buried in the purple. I shot it zoomed in, so only a few centimetres of the florets is sharp and everything behind falls off to green. Some of the heads either side had already browned off and gone to seed, but the bees were busy feeding off the remaining ones.


    Apertureƒ/6.3
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length240mm
    ISO4000
    Shutter speed1/500s

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  • Under the Insurgents’ Memorial

    Shot from below, the memorial’s three bronze wings blot out most of the sky. A man in a grey hoodie sat on the granite wall at the base, hunched over something in his lap, tiny against the thing behind him. He’d picked the one spot where the monument stops being a monument and turns into somewhere to sit.

    Take him out of the frame and you’d have no clue how big it actually is.

    The Silesian Insurgents Memorial‘s three wings stand for the three Silesian Uprisings of 1919, 1920, and 1921, when Polish-speaking Silesians rose against German rule after the First World War. It was designed by sculptor Gustaw Zemła, unveiled in 1967, and is 61 tonnes, assembled from 350 parts, with the tallest wing reaching 14 metres.


    Apertureƒ/4
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length30mm
    ISO100
    Shutter speed1/640s

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  • St. Patrick’s Night on the water

    The fireworks went up from a barge moored out in Cobh harbour, and the launch point sits right there at water level, a small fountain of sparks and smoke below the main burst. Unfortunately the barge drifted with the current, and it ended up quite far down the town, probably away from the main crowds!


    Apertureƒ/5.6
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length38mm
    ISO320
    Shutter speed1s

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  • The Last Days of the Loretto Extension

    The ugly monstrosity that was an extension to the Loretto School in Youghal, in 2023. It was finally demolished in January this year.


    Apertureƒ/10
    CameraILCE-7M3
    Focal length24mm
    ISO100
    Shutter speed20s

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  • Pop In, I Can Help

    The pharmacist in the window is beaming and offering to help. “Pop in, I can help & advise.” I don’t think this man checking his phone is a customer.


    Apertureƒ/4
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length24mm
    ISO320
    Shutter speed1/2000s

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  • Lucky Leprechauns

    The performing leprechauns are back, sitting next to the new raised flower beds that were installed by Cork City Council recently.

    They love the attention but they are loud.


    Apertureƒ/9
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length24mm
    ISO320
    Shutter speed1/500s

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  • Old Port, New Skyline

    The stone warehouses along Custom House Quay have sat behind their green doors for as long as I can remember. Behind them the glass offices construction of the Railyard Apartments tower climbs up, with two cranes over the work.

    Two eras. Old and new.


    Apertureƒ/8
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length24mm
    ISO100
    Shutter speed1/100s

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  • Three People, Three Phones, One Street

    A woman in an olive green parka with a black tote bag standing on a paved street outside a shop window, head down and thumbing at a phone, while behind the glass a poster reads "Say YES" and "SUMMER of all ...ERS", with a mannequin in a white jacket and blue jeans to the right and small icons labelled "Click & Collect" and "Shop app".
    Photo taken through a bright window with a green Starbucks siren logo above it, showing a woman in a dark jacket sitting on a green metal chair against a yellow wall, earphones in, holding a paper cup in one hand and a phone in the other, with reversed lettering reading "TOPSHOP TOPMAN" on the glass.

    Opera Lane on a Tuesday morning, and three people in a row are looking at their phones.


    Apertureƒ/2.2
    CameraSM-G998B
    Focal length2.2mm
    ISO160
    Shutter speed1/500s

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  • This Way Up

    Three red things line up in this one. First the red arrow, a sticker on one of the big cardboard boxes in the Arnotts window display, pointing across at her. Then a red and white stick taped to the glass at an angle, aimed down at her too. And the red case on her phone, which she’s looking at with her head down, ignoring all of it.

    None of it was arranged. She was just checking her screen while the window pointed a couple of arrows her way.


    Apertureƒ/8
    CameraILCE-7RM5
    Focal length24mm
    ISO400
    Shutter speed1/500s

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  • Christmas Eve on the Lee

    Christmas Eve in Cork, and the fog had settled over the south channel of the Lee and stayed put all morning. It was 2005, and the banks of the river looked very different. The old tax office still stood on Sullivan’s Quay, and the Peace Park opposite still had trees and overgrown shrubs hanging over into the river.


    Apertureƒ/3.5
    CameraCanon EOS 20D
    Focal length18mm
    ISO200
    Shutter speed1/500s

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