Urban Geometry at Night

Black and white night-time photograph of a modern brutalist covered structure with horizontal fluorescent strip lighting and concrete cylindrical support pillars, gravel and paved ground in foreground, white metal railings, modern building visible on right side, and a contemporary public space at Bishop Lucey Park, Cork.

The brutalist architecture of Bishop Lucey Park seems to suit black and white night shots. This was only my first time trying to photograph it in such a way but I’ll try again.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO400
Shutter speed1s

Festive Commerce in Cork

Brown Thomas on Patrick Street, Cork, is all lit up again for Christmas. On Oliver Plunkett Street they’ve put up the usual decorations and they look fabulous!

Night-time photograph of pedestrians walking on Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork, beneath cascading golden fairy lights creating a canopy effect overhead, large red neon-illuminated festive spheres and decorative motifs suspended above the street, blurred figures in winter clothing in motion, storefront signage visible at street level.

Links:
Christian does a nice edit of a panorama in Lightroom Classic. I learned something new – use the aspect slider to adjust the oddities of LrC panoramas.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO100
Shutter speed1/6s

Books for Christmas

Light shines out of the windows of the Dubray bookshop in Cork recently.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length16mm
ISO3200
Shutter speed1/125s

A Bridge to Wandesford Quay

Cork’s newest bridge is a new pedestrian or cycle bridge that spans the River Lee from Wandesford Quay to Lambley’s Lane. You’d be forgiven if you’re not familiar with either area, as they aren’t exactly the most trafficked areas in the city.

If you’re curious, Lambley’s Lane is off to the side of the old Beamish & Crawford brewery, and the bridge is worth a look at night. Henry shared a photo of the bridge a couple of days ago. Thank you, Henry, for pointing out where it was. I had no idea.

If you look carefully, you can see all the way down Tuckey Street to Oliver Plunkett Street. During the day, you might even see down to Parnell Place, maybe?

Here’s the latest news from Cork City Council about the bridge and the newly reopened Bishop Lucey Park. Photos of that to come…


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length16mm
ISO100
Shutter speed4s

Carey’s Lane After Dark

I was out with Blarney Photography Club during the summer and one member of the club kneeled to photograph Carey’s Lane. I went high and lifted my camera over my head to get it from a different perspective!

Carey’s Lane is one of Cork’s oldest medieval streets, originally part of the walled city that dates back to the 12th century. The narrow width and cobblestone surface are remnants of medieval urban planning, designed for foot traffic and horse-drawn carts. The modern drainage channel follows the same path that medieval gutters would have taken, showing how some aspects of urban infrastructure remain remarkably consistent across centuries.


Apertureƒ/3.5
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO1600
Shutter speed1/500s

Biking Home After Dark

Someone was going to be cycling home after dark from here in Kinsale.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO5000
Shutter speed1/125s

Celestial Circles

The sun was particularly active last weekend, promising spectacular aurora with KP values of over 7. Unfortunately, the expected nighttime display failed to materialise. Instead, I swung my camera around and took 10 30-second exposures of the night sky, with the trees of a nearby road.

After combining them in Photoshop this is what you get. Not bad for 300 seconds.

Star trails form circular patterns around the celestial pole due to the Earth’s rotation, and in the Northern Hemisphere, these circles are centred on Polaris, the North Star, which barely moves at all in the sky. I wasn’t sure where Polaris was, but it looks like it’s just off the photo.


Apertureƒ/2.8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO1600
Shutter speed30s

Green Light Go

One more from last week. This time, the long exposure shot is of a bus heading to Parnell Place in Cork. The traffic light had just turned green, so the bus was driving slowly, accelerating as it went. It made a colourful impression on the digital sensor of my camera!


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO50
Shutter speed4s

Light Trails on Eamon de Valera Bridge

Evening traffic whizzes past last week. Just after the sun had set, but the street light above my head hadn’t come on yet, so I got a nice long exposure.

How does photography affect your memory? Interesting podcast episode.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length33mm
ISO50
Shutter speed8s

Night Shifts and Trailing Lights

Construction signs on Parnell Bridge in front of Cork City Hall were lit up by a passing bus a few nights ago.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO50
Shutter speed6s

Trácht ar Mhalairt Slí

If the road works, why are there signs pointing out where diverted traffic goes?

Did you know that most street signs in Ireland are bilingual? As Gaeilge on top and English below.

Thanks Henry, for the company last night. A good spot to do long exposure photography.

Oh, here’s something interesting about this photo. It’s made of two images I had to merge together in Photoshop because my long exposure shot wasn’t long enough. Two 4 second shots of a slowly moving bus on a corner.

Set the layer type of the top layer to “screen” and the lights in the air come through.

The resulting tiff file was 318.7MB. That’s a monstrosity for a simple image so I converted it to DNG which resulted in a 233.3MB file, and then to lossy DNG. That squeezed it down to 7.5MB! Not bad for a 9417×6278 image.

I couldn’t see any difference in image quality. There were slight differences when I clicked the auto Transform button, but nothing major.

Original & Lossy


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length29mm
ISO50
Shutter speed6s