A wall of glass tilt over your head and you start to feel very small, very corporate and very much in need of a strong coffee. This is the WeWork office in London. Look closely and there’s one warm pendant lamp glowing in a window, a tiny pocket of cosiness in a tower of cold glass, and that’s the bit that gets me.
I’d rather be working from home and I think most people would too.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 25mm |
| ISO | 1600 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
The man in the red jacket became my anchor the moment I set up. Henry Street on a sunny day is a river of people. Shoppers, buskers’ audiences, lads cutting across to Gino’s for a cone, and a slow shutter turns all of that into smears of colour and ghostly half-people mid-stride. But he just sat there on the utility box, hands clasped, watching the world rush by at a blur while he stayed pin-sharp.
| Aperture | ƒ/22 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 50 |
| Shutter speed | 1/4s |
A heron perched on a boat in Kinsale harbour last year. Patient and watching.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 240mm |
| ISO | 800 |
| Shutter speed | 1/1000s |
Number 9 had clearly decided that the racing could wait. I was wandering around at the Dingle Races and right in front of me this dark bay racehouse reared up on it’s hind legs while the poor jocket and two men tried to calm the animal.
It only lasted a moment and the racing continued.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 31mm |
| ISO | 320 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
Early morning in Spitalfields, near the market and I spotted a man enjoying a moment by himself in the nearby green area.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 320 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
Pull the river back a few metres and London grows a beach. I caught this stretch of Thames foreshore at low tide, the water was a proper builder’s-tea brown, the City stacked up behind like someone had emptied a box of glass towers.
I love springer spaniels, so I had to photograph this.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 160 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
A surfer, fresh out of the water, with her body board while a couple nearby walk and photograph the beach.
What you might notice from the waves and the way the dress of the woman on the far left is whipped about is the wind. No wonder surfers love this part of the world! This beach is inside the Ericeira World Surfing Reserve so you’ll find surfers here when the waves rise and come thundering on to the sand.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 120mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 1/5000s |
A quarter of a second is all it takes to turn a busy footpath into a river of ghosts. I planted myself on Henry Street, dropped the shutter speed right down, and let the lunchtime crowd smear themselves across the frame while the New Yorker models behind them stayed pin-sharp and perfectly bored. It’s the opposite of the shot I put up a few days ago, where I caught a Deliveroo cyclist mid-pedal.
| Aperture | ƒ/22 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 50 |
| Shutter speed | 1/4s |
The circus had pitched up in a field at Cashel, near Junction 8 on the motorway, with big top flying the flags of half a dozen nations.
I was taking photos of the circus when these two kids sped across the frame, probably headed to the shop at the nearby garage. I wonder if they went to the circus while it was there.
We passed through a few days later, and the tent was gone. Moving on to another town.
| Aperture | ƒ/2.4 |
| Camera | Galaxy S23 Ultra |
| Focal length | 7.9mm |
| ISO | 50 |
| Shutter speed | 1/1200s |
I was waiting on Henry Street and spotted the deep shadows cast by the buildings, so it occurred to me that silhouettes would become a good subject for a photo.
Luckily, a Deliveroo cyclist came along then and I captured him motionless as he rode past.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 320 |
| Shutter speed | 1/1600s |
Getting a shot like this is half luck and half persistence. You have to wait until the incoming tide is about to retreat to take the photo.
This one was at Kilfarrasy Beach in Co. Waterford in 2017. Blarney Photography Club was visiting the area and this was on the itinerary for the the evening shoot.
It was a very dull evening, but we made the most of it.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 6D |
| Focal length | 21mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1.3s |
IT Repairs on Oliver Plunkett Street hopefully had some bargains the day this man was peering carefully at their phones.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 17mm |
| ISO | 320 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
