Sky – Page 21 – In Photos dot Org

R&H Hall Mill on fire

This morning, the disused R&H Hall mill on Kennedy Quay, Cork City was the scene of a major fire. Smoke was visible from all over the city, wind blew the smoke up towards Mayfield and traffic was very heavy all over, probably because drivers slowed down to watch the plume of smoke.
From several miles away in Sunday’s Well, I saw two jets of water pour into the top of the building, unfortunately I only had my wide angle lens so I didn’t get a shot of it. This photo was taken with my Canon 75-300 zoom from a residential park off Blarney Street half an hour later.

Seven units of Cork fire service have been fighting a blaze at the disused R & H Hall mill and grain store on Kennedy Quay – rte.ie

Des has a great photo taken from much closer showing the fire bursting from the side of the building. Pity I’m on the other side of the city!

In recent times, a long plume of thick black smoke trailed from a fire on the north side of the city, and of course, back in 2003 a huge blaze left the Sunbeam Factory in ruins.

This afternoon I spent a few minutes shooting the R&H Hall building from behind the Garda exclusion tape. Smoke was still visible coming from the white silos at the side of the building and just as I left a crane was going to lift members of the fire service up to examine the damage. I ran out of time and had to leave before that happened but things were definitely winding down thankfully.

I sent the top photo to the Cork Independent who have published it in this week’s edition on page 11. ~~I haven’t seen it yet but hopefully I can get a copy later!~~ Check out the photo I took of the article above! It’s the first time I’ve had a photo published by a newspaper and I’m very happy!

Aperture	ƒ/11
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	300mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/1000s

Bay Bridge San Francisco

Bay Bridge San Francisco

This is the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. It’s the view from Matt’s apartment building. He brought Andy and myself up there to enjoy the view, and probably in my case to keep me awake after the long flight!

Aperture	ƒ/7.1
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/100s

O’Connell and Quane

O’Connell and Quane

Daniel O’Connell and Michael Quane on the beach at Fountainstown. They’d been out on the kayaks for several hours but were kind enough to chat to us and allow me to take their photo.
Michael Quane is a celebrated artist who has exhibited internationally and has many public works to his name including the statue, “Horses and Riders” , on the roundabout in Mallow! You can find out more about his work by searching Google.
Daniel O’Connell of course shares his name with a famous character from Irish history.

I forgot to mention. the photo of the kayaks had to be rotated about 1.35 degrees right to get a horizontal horizon. I filled in the white spaces left behind with a liberal use of the clone tool. Thankfully a sandy beach is easy to clone! To get an even exposure I copied the image into a new layer where I brightened it up. The sky was over-exposed but by using a layer mask and a gradient I hid that sky and was left with a nice bright area right at the sea shore.

I like this: What the soldiers see

I have been deployed all over the world from Bosnia to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq for the first part of the wars with the 101st Airborne Infantry. Currently I am back in Iraq in OIF 3 attached to a Signal unit to help them out, I have been here since May 2005, I have just volunteered to stay till Jan 2007 well I hope you enjoy these pics I will have more of the day by day

(via)

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	800
Shutter speed	1/30s

Sunrise over Blarney

Sunrise over Blarney

This is the view that greeted me a few days ago from my office. I wouldn’t post it except that today is wet and gloomy and I want to remember what a nice sunrise looks like instead of the grey cloud I’m looking at now.

The Midleton Food & Drink Festival is this weekend. I went there last year and got some nice photos of a martial arts demo and we’ll hopefully head down tomorrow if the weather improves. You really want good weather because the town will be so packed with people you’ll hardly be able to move!

There’s something up with Flickr’s email uploader. I sent this photo off twice and it didn’t appear in my stream. I had a similar problem yesterday but the photo appeared on the second go. Manual upload and “Blog This” saved the day though!

Aperture	ƒ/7.1
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	1/100s

This city’s a drag

This city’s a drag

Two women, dragged along by a young girl so they won’t stop at the market on Cornmarket Street, Cork. I can just imagine the conversion:
“But I want to go home noooowwwww.”
“No, hold on, we went to all your shops, I want to look at more boots.”
“Ummm, that stall over there has delicious breads.”
“I’m tired!”

Maybe.

I’m really happy with the way this image turned out because we were right next to them and I wasn’t sure if I would get them all in. In the end I had to crop to get the composition I wanted. I duplicated the layer and darken the top one before removing the non-cloud portions of it. I added a slight lomo effect too which did wonderful things to the sky too!

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

Courtmacsherry Dead End

Courtmacsherry Dead End

The little town of Courtmacsherry in Co. Cork is a picturesque tourist village with pretty looking multi-coloured houses visible on the way into the town from Timoleague.

This makes the attitude of the people we met there all the more confusing. We parked in the middle of the town, Jacinta wanted to check out a pottery shop, and walked with Oscar down the road. We passed by several people, mostly tourists by their clothes, and unusually, they kept their heads down watching the ground and never said “hello” or even commented on Oscar! We’re used to people stopping us and asking about him so this was disconcerting.

Later on we rested on the wall of the harbour and a few people did greet us thankfully.

The image was processed using two layers. One for the sky and the other for the ground. Sky was burned heavily to bring out the clouds while the ground was dodged and brightened with the Curves tool.

I’ve geotagged this photo on Flickr. Works well enough. It even knew where “courtmacsherry ireland” was!

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

Wrigley Building Sky Bridge

Wrigley Building Sky Bridge

This is the sky bridge between the two sections of the Wrigley Building in Chicago. We were walking through when I looked up and immediately noticed the leading lines of the buildings and the walkway.

Way back in 2003 I photographed the Wrigley Building a few times and I’m pretty sure it featured in the film Batman Begins too.

Wrigley.com has a page dedicated to the history of the building and it makes for interesting reading.

While searching ocaoimh.ie for those pictures, I came across this little nugget about Bill Gates from 2002. 🙂

Something else from the archives for you street shooters – A face in the crowd, tips from the Street Photography List on capturing the elusive face in the maddening crowd.

I like this: Cow & Gate, never mind the baby food.

Aperture	ƒ/9
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	18mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	1/250s

Sears Tower and Flagpole

Sears Tower and Flagpole

Sears Tower in Chicago and it’s reflection in a flagpole on the grounds of the building. I love the light and shadows in this image and the mirror image of the reflection.

Aperture	ƒ/10
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	18mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	1/250s

A Golden Glow over Cobh

A Golden Glow over Cobh

Last night we went down to Cobh to walk around and lucky for us the rain disappeared as we approached the town!

It was strange. There was lots of localised rain yesterday. Blarney was mostly dry, the roads were dry as we drove down but as soon as we crossed the bridge off the main road a steady drizzle enveloped the car.

I gloomily predicted that we’d spend our time in the Cobh in the car or sheltered under an umbrella but just as I parked the car, the drizzle let off and a little blue sky and sunlight peaked through the grey clouds! We had a nice pleasant walk after all!

This was shot at the end of a private row of houses that look on to the harbour. There’s a high chimney near the end of the road that I’d like to find out more about. I’ll have to do some research later on.

I like this: Wyre Wreck #5 – nice use of HDR to create a dramatic image.

Aperture	ƒ/7.1
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/100s

Joyce and the Spire

Joyce and the Spire

James Joyce, forever forced to look upon the Spire on O’Connell Street Dublin. Here’s a humorous look at the names of the statues and monuments in Dublin. I had heard that the Spire was nicknamed the “Stiletto in the Ghetto”, but I hadn’t heard it called, “North Pole”!

Overhead wires destroy urban photography and this is no exception. I could have tried to clone it out but it’s notoriously difficult to clone out objects against a varying sky. Ah well.

I like this: self-portrait with 6×9 ultrawide pinhole camera

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/4000s

Reflection on the Spire

Reflection on the Spire

O’Connell Street in Dublin is reflected in the polished surface of the Spire. A young teenager leans on the edifice in the shade away from the glaring sun. This was inspired by a shot I saw one another photoblog, can’t remember which one now. Does anyone know the image I’m talking about?

Here’s another picture of the Spire showing it’s full 120m height!

If you’re curious, the Spire can just about be seen from space as Google Maps shows!

Aperture	ƒ/5.6
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/400s

Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet

Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet

A Boeing 747 is readied for another flight, with hand luggage on board.

This is the plane that flew me to London Heathrow from San Francisco. I shot the photo through the plate glass of the departures lounge. It was converted to b/w and dodged/burned afterwards. The panoramic format works really well when the image is 3504 pixels wide, but I’m not so sure about the small format uploaded here.

No pictures of the Cobh Peoples Regatta today. I didn’t have time to work on them this morning!

Aperture	ƒ/11
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/320s