Waves crash on the tyre

A tyre causes waves to crash up and splash over it on the beach at Garretstown in Co. Cork almost a year ago.

This picture languished in my archives until last weekend when I frantically looked about for “Sea” releated material for theme night at the camera club!

If you’re around Cork at the weekend, Mallow Camera Club is hosting the SACC Annual Competition and Exhibition tomorrow. A number of other clubs will be enter the competition and should be a good day out. Unfortunately I can’t be there due to prior commitments. Also, on Monday night Des Clinton will give a talk at the club on “Best of Irish” which should be a good night. A number of his images can be seen in this gallery.

PS. a tyre is a tire.

Aperture ƒ/7.1
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/250s

Horse and Rider at Inchadoney

Riding through the waves at Inchadoney beach, Co. Cork. The horse loved the experience galloping up and down the beach with gusto!

Last night was themes night at the camera club and I had to come up with several images about the “sea”. Luckily I had a good few ready but I searched through my archives and found a few more. Expect more sea related images over the next few days.

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/1250s

Sailing In San Francisco

A yacht sails past the waterfront in San Francisco Bay. There was plenty of activity on the waters with ferries, yachts, kite surfers and even helicopters fly overhead.

Aperture ƒ/9
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/400s

The swans they are a coming

Swans rush to the bank of the Lough looking for bread from the crazy guy hanging over the water with a large black object…

This shows off one of my favourite night-time techniques. Long exposure with a flash. The long exposure captures the background while the flash illuminates the foreground objects, along with some nice movement blur.
It works really well at parties when people are dancing, especially if you’re lucky to capture a laughing face while the body is in motion.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1.6s

The Moonlit Shipyards

The shipyards in Rushbrooke, just outside Cobh are still active although much quieter now than during their heyday. The cranes make for great photography against the moonlit sky.

This was shot from across the River Lee in Passage last November.

FRLinux asked about settings so here they are, including post-processing:

Flickr’s exif data for this is a bit wrong – gthumb says the exposure was for 5 seconds, aperture was wide open at f4.5, and lens set at 28mm, which you can probably multiply by 1.6 for the crop factor. ISO was 100.

Post Processing was done in the GIMP using 3 layers:
1. Top layer is transparent with a black gradient at the bottom. Layer mode is Overlay.
2. Middle layer is black and white, and blurred and with added noise. It’s set to screen mode, and opacity of 51%.
3. Bottom layer is the colour image, slightly saturated and darker.

Hope that helps!

Aperture ƒ/4.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 28mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 5s

Golden Gate Bridge in Fog

Tourists on a ferry pass by the fog shrouded Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco Bay.

The day was beautiful out near Alcatraz but fog covered the upper reaches of the bridge and I thought would make a pleasing shot.

PS. I’m not finished with photos from 2006 by a long shot!

Aperture ƒ/13
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/800s

Unhappy Child

A small girl walks mournfully into the shopping center on Paul Street clutching her “BT Kids” balloon, probably handed to her by this lady.

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 162mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/100s

The witch and the balloons

A witch hands out balloons to young kids outside Brown Thomas on a late October Saturday.

Just out of frame of this shot is a woman who has asked for a balloon. The witch explains that the balloons are just for the kids.. I wonder why? More on this later.

Aperture ƒ/5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 48mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/250s

Fun at the crib

Fr James McSweeney’s live crib in Ballyvolane was busy with animals and human visitors all through last week but I managed to get some shots the night when we visited.

As I mentioned already, there were all sorts of animals there, from sheep and donkeys to chickens, calves and puppies. Donations are welcome, and all proceeds go towards the renovation of St. Patrick’s Church. The crib last year raised 35,000 Euro for the Cope Foundation so hopefully they can beat that this year!

The crib is open from 5pm to 9pm until the 23rd, so if you’re in the area, call up to Ballyvolane Church and you’ll see the signs pointing the way to the crib.

I like this: Edward Scissorhands – my wife is a huge fan of the film. I wonder how long it took to get the model looking like that?

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 21mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/60s

An Fear Marbh

An Fear Marbh, an island off the coast of Co. Kerry, Ireland, with the setting sun lighting up the cloud over the Atlantic.

“An Fear Marbh” translates as “the dead man” and is so named because of the obvious shape of the island – that of a man lying on his back.
This was taken last September but because today is the Winter Solstice, and the shortest day of the year, I thought it was the perfect image for the day. Days will get longer now, little by little each day.

On the day this was taken we had dinner in Dingle. I watched the sun set and the light travel down the mountains near the Conor Pass. After eating, we quickly drove west to the coast to watch the sunset. Driving down a small road we spotted a car pulled over and someone standing outside watching the sunset so we stopped and got out. Turns out it was another photographer shooting the setting sun! We stayed there chatting for a few minutes before heading off. A few moments later the road turned a corner and this beautiful scene presented itself. I had to stop and shoot a few dozen shots.

Last night we called to the crib in Ballyvolane. Fr. James McSweeney has put together a wonderful crib with chickens, pigs, calves, goats, sheep, lammas, a pony, 2 donkeys and 4 young puppies. I’ll post a photo or two tomorrow, and the crib is definitely worth a visit if you live in Cork.
Visitors are asked to give a donation, and this year money raised will go to the St Patrick’s Church renovation fund. The crib is located 200 metres from St Oliver’s Church in Ballyvolane on Kilmorna Heights.
Fr. James has a photography site at Today is my gift to you.ie where he posts a new photo every day. I’ll be converting it to a WordPress blog in January when things quieten down again!

Aperture ƒ/9
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 106mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/5s

Port of Cork

The Port of Cork seen from the hills on the north side of the city. Looks carefully and you can see several landmarks:

And many more sights!

I entered Little Communion Girl into the Photo Friday “Fresh” competition this morning. Let’s have a look at the other entrants.

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 106mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/250s

The anxious look

A young woman looks around anxiously in the crowd filled St. Patrick’s Street before she crosses at the traffic lights.

I was standing on one of the new marble blocks shooting a scene across the road when I saw the gathering crowd below me at the traffic lights. I saw the glance and quick as a flash I got the shot. It was originally slightly blurry but a little bit of b/w conversion and a duplicate layer with a touch of blur set to screen mode created a nice effect.

  • I like this: Looking up.
  • David J. Nightingale of Chromasia fame announced that another baby is on the way for him and his wife. Congratulations on that, and on going into the photography full time!
  • I never knew there was so much trouble over Photo.net.
  • 10 Dollar camera?
  • Legoize any image. That’s definitely something I’ll try out! (via)

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/160s