Black and White – Page 98 – In Photos dot Org

California, San Francisco CA

California, a street in San Francisco near where we were staying last August.
This was taken after a great lunch in a nearby restaurant with some of the WordPress guys in a Burmese restaurant – Mark Jaquith, Markr (the support guy formally known as Podz), Andy and of course Matt. Excellent food and company.

I like this: Aaah! les galettes… – almost a painting. Great art.

Nice – in Couple Dancing, Cory Parris does a great job on a first dance shot.

Aperture	ƒ/14
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/400s

A sunlit river

A sunlit river

The sun blazes over Cork City and the River Lee on a fresh October afternoon.

This was taken on Patrick’s Bridge looking out over the River Lee on a wonderfully bright October day. This bridge was opened on December 12th 1861 by the then Mayor, Sir John Arnott. I read a story that the first vehicle across the bridge was a man driving a horse and cart who rushed in front of the Mayor and the crowd. Does anyone know more about this?

Aperture	ƒ/18
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/640s

Little Communion Girl

Little Communion Girl

A girl dressed in a communion dress and veil walks with her mother through the crowds on St. Patrick’s Street Cork on Saturday. Dressed as she is, she looks almost lost but the crowd parted way for her and her parents.

I don’t know why she was dressed like that. First Communion ceremonies aren’t until next year. Is it a communion dress? Could she be a bridesmaid or flower girl at a wedding?

Two of my photos may be entered into the Irish Photographic Federation’s National Shield as part of the Mallow Camera Club entry. They need fairly large prints which is a bit of a problem but of they’re suitable I’ll link to them in a few days. The competition will be held in Portlaoise on the 12th of November so I’ll be eagerly waiting for the results! I’m not the only blogger entering. Jonathan Hill is entering too!

Aperture	ƒ/4
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	800
Shutter speed	1/400s

Go faster! Go faster!

Go faster! Go faster!

A young girl in a buggy leans forward as her mother pushes her along St. Patrick’s Street, Cork. Looks like her mother was busy shopping in Penney’s and elsewhere so I’m sure she’ll look forward to getting home!

I like this: This Flight Tonight, and make sure you download the linked video tutorial. The statement that an “adjustment layer is a normal layer with a layer map on top” struck a chord with me. The GIMP doesn’t support adjustment layers and the technique he used, by rubbing out some of the map of an upper layer is one I’ve used in the GIMP previously.

Aperture	ƒ/11
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/250s

Playing with the sea lions on Pier 39

Playing with the sea lions on Pier 39

A girl clambers over the statue of two sea lions on Pier 39, San Francisco. This pier is where people embark on the journey to Alcatraz Island and it was packed with tourists. Luckily Toni booked our tickets a few days previously and we were able to walk straight onto the boat!

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	200mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/320s

Gone fishing

Gone fishing

Two fishermen enjoy the sun while a huge container ship, the Maersk Derince, passes by in the background. You can see they’re very busy. Even the gull that has landed close by is watching intently.
It’s another hectic day in San Francisco.

Technique: I wasn’t sure what to make of this photo. I love the composition, especially the background to this sedentary activity. Unfortunately it was very misty and colours looked washed out. By converting to b/w and playing around with the exposure I think I produced an interesting looking photo. Finally, adding a vignette around the edges focuses the eye on the fishermen in the foreground.

I like this: Plane landing via Podz

Aperture	ƒ/6.3
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	200mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/2000s

Naturafit at the Cork Modern Homes Exhibition

Naturafit at the Cork Modern Homes Exhibition

A young visitor to the Modern Homes Exhibition in City Hall Cork flings himself enthusiastically on the very comfortable Naturafit bed covers while Naturafit representative Kurt Gamper looks on in amusement.

We bought one of those bed covers a few months back and it’s great. It helps keep the bed warm and it’s very comfortable. My wife Jacinta bought one of their pillows and she swears by it.

Disclaimer: Other than being satisfied customers we don’t have any connection with the company.

If you visit the exhibition this weekend make sure you buy some chocolate from the Fosters Chocolate stand by the entrance. It’s delicious!

There are hot spas on display too, but if you’re thinking of buying, please read about Carl Fogarty’s experiences. It might make you think twice!

Aperture	ƒ/4
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	18mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/60s

Looking down from on high

Looking down from on high

Looking down on a street in San Francisco. You wouldn’t want to be afraid of heights walking around on top of a building!

We all want to see what the neighbours are up to and living in a high building is the perfect opportunity of peeping-toms everywhere. You can see all sorts of things – a parasol with lounger across the street, garden furniture, a tree; all invisible from street level.

The postman has been and delivered 100 minicards from moo.com! I ordered 100 duplicates in the order as well so I hope they’re on the way too. I got in touch with their customer service people just in case and am waiting on a reply from them now. Later – I got my reply. The duplicate cards are a separate order and were shipped separately. Should be here in a day or two!

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/125s

Shel Israel and Rick Segal in Cork

Shel Israel in the People’s Republic of Cork

Rick Segal

Shel Israel and Rick Segal joined members of the Cork blogging and business communities for dinner in Taste of Thailand last night.

They spent the day talking to business people so I’m sure the dinner was a welcome end to the day. Pat ordered one of the banquet selections and we tucked into what I think was four courses of delicious food. I wish I knew that much food was coming out because I could barely eat my breakfast this morning I was so stuffed!

Dinner was excellent of course, and I can heartily recommend Taste of Thailand if you’re looking for a nice meal in Cork.

Tom has posted a picture and some words about the dinner last night too and reminded me that Pat should be thanked for organising it. Thanks!

Will has a write up on the night too. I must take a look at that MusicIP app Rick was going on about. He said it works in Linux too so it could be a useful experiment. I wonder what it’ll make of my varied collection of music?

Aperture	ƒ/5
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	59mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/60s

Seating and the Bay Bridge

Seating and the Bay Bridge

Public seating near the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.

I shot this on the first evening after getting to the city. Matt, Andy and I went for a walk down the street and I got my first sight of downtown San Francisco.

Technique: I cropped the photo to a 1×1 ratio, converted to black and white, duplicated the background layer. Set the mode of the top layer to Overlay and added noise via Filters->Noise->Scatter RGB. I adjusted the noise effect by changing the opacity of that layer.
One thing to note – when you resize an image you’ll have to add noise again because the pixels are softened up by the resize procedure.

Aperture	ƒ/10
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/200s

Have bike, will travel

Have bike, will travel

As you can imagine, I was quite tired by the time I got to San Francisco!

Picture above was taken just down from my Bird flying by photo. I know there are lots of awkward lines in this shot but the line of the Golden Gate Bridge is just about horizontal.
Automattic had it’s first meeting of the week a few yards from here in the glorious sunshine. Some of us suffered sunburn but it sure beat sitting around some dusty old conference table!

Aperture	ƒ/13
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/320s

Bird flying by

Bird flying by

A gull flies off after an inconsiderate photographer runs after it to shoot it. Beats having the kids do the running eh? They might fall!

This was taken in San Francisco, and that’s The Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I went through my shots from my August trip a few days ago and selected around one hundred images for processing. I’ll mix in a few shots over the next few week’s posts. There’s everything from bridges, street people and furniture, Memphis Minis and Alcatraz so plenty for all tastes.

Note to self – when traveling to a new timezone, change the time on your camera!

Aperture	ƒ/13
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/400s