Category Archives: Photos

The Signs in Blarney


The Signs in Blarney

The signs in Blarney always point towards a B&B!
This bunch of signs do anyway. Right at the end of Station Road there’s a pole with signs to about a dozen B&Bs! If you ever need somewhere to stay in Blarney you shouldn’t have trouble finding accomodation!

Link of the Day

If you haven’t read any of the The Digital Journalist yet then the January issue is a good place to start! I found dispatches for Iraq and Bolivia rivetting and scary and exciting.
In a compeltely different way, Bill Pierce’s memories of the late Michael Evans will stir your heart. He did a great job writing about his friend.

The Look, Dad, The Yawn


The Look, Dad, The Yawn

An experiment in high-key cross processing.
Pictured on Patrick Street, Cork.

Howto and what is cross processing?
Cross-processing has been around for as long as film has, and is a way of making your images more interesting and abstract by literally mixing colours. I followed the simple instructions here which I had blogged a long time ago but forgot! It came up in a search for “cross processing gimp”!

There’s no magic secret way of doing this. Simply open your image in your favourite image manipulation program, GIMP of course, or Photoshop if you must. Bring up the Curves tool, and play the Red, Green and Blue channels separately until you have something you like! Create S curves to increase the contrast of each colour, and make it pronounced to increase the effect!
Use the saturation tool to make the colours even more pronounced and remember, have fun!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/640s

Sunlit Web


Sunlit Web

Sunlit Web

On a foggy morning a web will sparkle in the ambient light because of the moisture in the air.
I spent an inordinate amount of time crouched down shooting this dead bush!

Coats and Hat


Coats and Hat

It’s unusual to see a man wearing a hat like the one above these days. I made this photo on Patrick Street a few weeks ago and love the different textures and the faces!

Lady on the phone


Lady on the phone

Sometimes you’ll take a photo and think it’s not great. Occasionally you’ll spot a photo within the photo.
I was attempting to photograph two lads walking down the street but when I saw the resulting image they were blurred by motion and out of focus. A closer look later showed this young lady on her mobile phone, and a man looking after her in the background.
Quite a bit of cropping, and this photo is only a 1/3 of what the original was!

Road Narrows


Road Narrows

Taken in Monkstown, Co. Cork last night.
Camera was handheld. I waited for a car to go past and with the camera set to AV mode and the flash on, I shot a 25 second exposure. I moved the camera from side to side to make the rear lights of the vehicle moreinteresting!
Added a cloud layer in post processing and set the layer mode to “subtract” to give the signs that nice weathered look.

Welcome to 2006!


Welcome to 2006!

It’s 2006 here in Ireland, and we’re celebrating in style! I can’t eat any more after dinner out in Aroma, a visit to a pub, an hour or two spent at a friend’s party and a visit to my brother Donal and Celine!
Fireworks marking the end of the year in which Cork was European Capital of Culture lit up the sky over the city! I wasn’t there to record it because the driving rain and cold wind made it very inhospitable outside. Donal should have a few pictures online in the next few days!
Pictured is the Jeanie Johnston in Waterford last July. She took part in the Tall Ship’s Race from there on the weekend of July 9th.

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