Allihies Beach on a cold February afternoon. Waves crash on the beach. It was bitterly cold and windy that day but well worth the trip.
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/100s |
Category Archives: Photography
The Gentleman Clown
Yes, yes, we’re clowning around! Here’s the tall gent from the Circo Copa demonstration in Fitzgerald’s Park a while back. I wonder if he’ll ever see this. The put on a great show that day!
Thanks for all the nice comments on yesterday’s post about Michelle. They’re very much appreciated.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 200mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
Saying Goodbye to Michelle
Michelle was my wife Jacinta’s family cat for the last 14 years. When I say “family cat”, I of course mean, Gerry’s cat, because Gerry took special care of all the cats in the family until she got sick and the burden of care mostly fell on my father-in-law Frank’s shoulders. He will tell you himself that he was never a big fan of cats, but if you saw the care and attention he lavished on that cat it was obvious she was special to him.
Unfortunately, Michelle was almost 17 years old. Her mother Patches was a regular in the household. She had a litter of kittens and Michelle, the older sister, acted as baby sitter many a time while her mother roamed the neighbourhood searching for food. Gerry took Patches in, and Michelle wandered in crying within a week. She became a permanent fixture and never wandered away again! Of all the cats that came and went, Michelle had a special place in my wife’s heart.
We took Michelle to the vet this afternoon. This was our third visit in the last two months. She had a large tumour, her appetite had disappeared, and she was very weak. We couldn’t let her suffer any more. The vet, Stephanie, let us say our goodbyes and gently put Michelle to sleep. Michelle was very calm through out. She lay there, letting Jacinta stroke her and cup her head in her hands, as the enormity of what was about to happen sunk in. I was fine until the needle went in and then memories of my own pets came flooding back and I was as inconsolable as Jacinta. It never gets any easier.
Michelle will be missed by all who knew her.
Surprisingly I only ever posted one photo of Michelle, when she was snug in her own little home in the back garden. I really like that photo. It’s the first I posted with the Canon 50mm f1/8 lens.
hey BABe
Stenciled graffiti near Fitzgerald Park in Cork City. The walls of this alleyway were covered in in street art.
Is it vandalism or not? If not, would you like your house spray painted with slogans and designs. I guess there’s a place for everything.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 18mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/25s |
Traffic must go left
Traffic must go left. This is one of those shots that has sat in TODO folder for ages and ages because I liked it, but it was sorely in need of some work. I probably cheated by making it black and white.
Shot down at Cork Docklands about 13 months ago.
| Aperture | ƒ/9 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |
Rushing through countryside
I shot this through the window of our car while driving back to the ranch after Automattic’s trip to Biosphere 2 in Arizona a few months ago. I love how the foreground blurs but the background and the sky remain motionless and static. Love the movement.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 22mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/100s |
Blarney Castle and River Martin
The River Martin flows near Blarney Castle in Co. Cork on a cold December morning in 2005. The Castle grounds were quiet that day with hardly a soul about! Spencer Tunick would have been hardly known in the area at the time.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 18mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/100s |
Spencer Tunick photoshoot in Blarney Co. Cork, Ireland
As luck would have it, one of the more famous or perhaps notorious photographers of our time, Spencer Tunick, is shooting in Blarney, where I live, tomorrow morning.
Update on Jun 8th, 2009 – I’ve justed posted a small gallery of Spencer Tunick photos as his website is down.
It’s no great secret now, even Ray D’Arcy revealed the location on his radio programme this morning. He’ll be revealing a lot more in a few hours time.. Anyway, it all happens very early in the morning, at a time when most sensible people will be snuggled up in bed and that probably includes me. If I do feel the urge to visit Blarney Castle at dawn I’m sure all I’ll photograph will be groups of dazed and tired volunteers stumbling from buses, full clothed. I have no desire to shoot any naked skin.
Spencer – if you’re reading this, I’d love to go to shoot a portrait of yourself, and perhaps grab an autograph!
There are lots of people looking for Spencer Tunick’s Blarney photoshoot!
Circo Copia Performance
Two members of Circo Copia performed for adults and kids alike at Fitzgerald’s Park yesterday during the Lord Mayor’s Picnic. Have you ever seen someone balance an umbrella on his forehead and play the mandolin at the same time? I have! This crazy bunch of performers had the crowd well entertained!
They’re playing in the Spiegeltent later in the month so if you didn’t catch them yesterday you have another chance. I spotted a Cork Circus van nearby so I’m pretty sure they’re part of that. Also, I think the face in the background belongs to the tall fella in these pictures of my wife and her “royal retinue”. I think the woman sticking her tongue out in the linked post was the 3rd member of Circo Copia yesterday. 🙂
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 200mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
Monotone: WordPress Photoblog Theme
Monotone is a pretty cool photoblog theme for WordPress that’s been around for a few months now. Unfortunately it was only available on WordPress.com, and through the Automattic Subversion repository as reported by Jeff on Weblog Tools Collection.
Noel Jackson, the author of the theme, recently revealed that Monotone is now available as a .zip download on the Monotone demo page above. Now it’s easier for self hosted WordPress blogs to try it!
What’s so great about Monotone? It displays a large image in each post like Pixelpost and other photoblog themes, but it does it in a neat way. WordPress allows the blog author to upload and attach images to their posts. It’s then up to the author to insert the image into the post and tidy up the html. Monotone takes this one step further. There’s no need to insert the image into the post at all. The theme takes the first attachment and displays it at the top of the post, with the post content below.
I’d love to use it, but unfortunately I have several years worth of posts that would need to be modified because I used Flickr to host my images until recently. Then I used my own site, but inserted the right html into each post, so they’d all have to be modified unless I hacked the theme to ignore old posts.
RSS feeds display the image too, although I discovered that the feed for the demo site includes some huge images. Probably just an oversight when Noel was uploading images.
Judging by Noel’s comment here, it probably isn’t completely straight forward to install. You probably need the GD library and a hefty server with enough RAM to load and manipulate your images. Anyone tried it? Use my theme tester plugin if you want to test it on your blog without upsetting your visitors!
The state of street photography in the UK
Scary. I blogged previously about photographer’s rights in Ireland but it appears that UK Police are ignorant of those rights which are similar to Ireland’s. I have never been stopped by Gardai (the Irish Police Force) taking photos on the street, but in the UK it seems to be a growing problem for photographers. Have you ever been stopped shooting photographs in a public place?
Make sure to read Photographer’s Rights from Digital Rights Ireland to find out more about your rights as a street photographer in Ireland. If you travel you should always be aware of local laws as they’re liable to change in every jurisdiction. (via dslrblog.com)
Doneraile Park Gallery 2
What happens when Photobloggers go to Doneraile Park? You get lots of images, that’s what. Here’s the second installment of photos from our Doneraile Photowalk. Check out the first gallery for more photos of the day. A few of these will eventually make their way into full posts but that may take a while!
I think my favourite photo from the day is this one Katie took of us exploring dilapidated buildings next to the park. Looks very suspect!
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/125s |