I was there too
A man and a woman look along the shoreline of the Thames in London, probably for old pieces of pipe which are common along there.
Above us was the modern Blackfriars Railway Bridge, and of course off in the distance is the London skyline.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 33mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/320s |
I love that this street entertainer is wearing such bright and distinctive clothes but I wish his knives were brightly coloured. Still, the reaction of (some) people was worth it even if the background is too busy to see the knives properly.
Knives. He’s juggling knives over the head of a tourist lying on the ground. That could have ended badly, but people who perform in Covent Square are really good.
Street performers must audition for their spots in Covent Square through a formal licensing system managed by the local authority. Performers are allocated specific time slots and locations, with the most desirable pitches going to those who demonstrate the highest skill levels and ability to manage crowds safely. The system was introduced to maintain quality and safety standards after the area’s transformation from a working market to a major tourist destination in the 1980s.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 101mm |
| ISO | 1600 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
Waves broke on the rocks at the edge of Owenahincha Beach a month ago.
| Aperture | ƒ/7.1 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1.3s |
We took ourselves to Kings Yard near the Galtees today, and walked up a nearby trail next to a river. It was lovely there, so quiet except for the sound of the rushing water! There weren’t many mushrooms around yet but we spotted a bunch of them near the end of our walk and I was delighted to get a few photos of them!
Did you know, false saffron milkcaps are mycorrhizal fungi, meaning they form symbiotic relationships with tree roots, particularly spruces and firs? The mushroom helps trees absorb nutrients from the soil while receiving sugars in return. This partnership is so specific that finding these mushrooms often indicates the presence of healthy coniferous woodland ecosystems, making them useful indicators of forest health.
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 90mm |
| ISO | 4000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
The ELO Experience played in Cyprus Avenue in Cork last night and they were fabulous, playing many deep cuts as well as The Electric Light Orchestra’s greatest hits. The crowd thoroughly enjoyed the night and they announced their next gig there in May next year!
| Aperture | ƒ/1.8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 75mm |
| ISO | 1250 |
| Shutter speed | 1/125s |
I love this little dog’s pet carrier, but every little dog wants to walk and smell the world around them. When they get tired it’s time for a rest and this dog is spoiled with that pet carrier. As they should be. 🙂
| Aperture | ƒ/9 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 240mm |
| ISO | 1250 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
On a warm August day in 2005, you’d find plenty of lads fishing in Cobh, including this bunch who were brave enough to fish from a crumbling pier.
Another photo from that evening shows a disturbance in the water at the mouth of Cobh harbour, where I presume sprat are desperately trying to get away from mackerel and other fish. I wonder if that still happens?
| Aperture | ƒ/5 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 180mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/80s |
It was one of those mornings where the sun shone on the clouds from below the horizon and filled the sky with fiery colours!
I’ve been working on a WordPress plugin called Cloud Cover Forecast. It will show you the low, mid, and high clouds for a particular location in a block on your site. It’s inspired by Clear Outside. If you have a blog, take it for a whirl and let me know if it works for you! It’s not on WordPress.org yet, so you’ll have to install it manually by uploading the zip file.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 41mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/100s |
The bike might be a little small but it got him to Monkstown in the end, I hope.
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 55mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/25s |
Twenty two years separate the two images here. The first one is a photo of the old radio antenna tower in Mahon and it was taken in 2003. Back then cattle grazed in the field the tower stood in. That tower was dismantled around a year ago. There’s an interesting Reddit thread here about it. The second photo was from earlier this year where a smaller tower with familiar equipment for what is probably mobile phone cell reception.
It’s an old AM / Medium Wave radio tower that used to carry RTE Radio Cork / Radio 1 and at one stage even a relay of 2FM on medium wave, for those who liked their music crackly. It hasn’t been on air rather a long time an I think RTE has a number of transmitters being demolished. They’re doing it as a single contract.
As far as I’m aware that site was decommissioned in the early 2000s, before RTE finally switched off the main Medium Wave (AM) site in Tullamore. The transmitter itself is long gone. All that’s there is the mast.
There’s no prospect of that mast ever being used again.
Old AM sites typically use the whole structure of the antenna as the transmitter. They often sat on an isolated base and the tower height is half the wave length. So you can’t even easily retune them for an alternate AM frequency and they’re relatively useless for mobile phone gear as they are somewhat flexible and move in the wind.
Basically it would cost RTE a fortune to maintain it, even if it’s a local landmark. They’re not going to pay for ongoing maintenance and they’re quite complicated structures with guy-wires and aircraft hazard lighting and all that stuff.
| Aperture | ƒ/4.8 |
| Camera | FinePix2800ZOOM |
| Focal length | 22.4mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/550s |
La Mariblanca, a statue in a large square in Madrid, marks the geographic centre of Spain.
This is what it looked like in 2017, but the area around it has been developed since then and now there’s more places to stop and sit.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 6D |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/800s |
The allotments next to Ballincollig Regional Park need storage for various things, but I doubt the cabinet in the photo above is used for much any more.
| Aperture | ƒ/9 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 62mm |
| ISO | 500 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |
