A car leaving the Paul St. car park last Saturday while Phil, Chris and myself took photos from the top floor.
| Aperture | ƒ/5 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/80s |
Biosphere 2 Lung
As Biosphere 2 is a self contained and airtight structure the air inside would expand and contract on warm and cold days which could cause the building to explode or implode!
Two lungs were built to cope with this effect. One of them is pictured above. As the air in the building warmed up the black lung would expand and the roof of this room lowered. When we were there they opened an outside door to ventilate the room and the roof slowly fell. It was quite a sight to see and the draught out the door was enough to make it hard to be heard over the whine.
More on the Biosphere 2 lungs here and here.
Biosphere 2 needed something like a bellows, a lung!
Biosphere 2 would heat up like a greenhouse and cool during the night and during cold, cloudy days. The expansion and contraction would subject the rigid steel and glass structure to enormous pressures as the air inside expanded and contracted. On a hot day, pressure would push out. On a really cold day, Biosphere 2 might implode.Bill Dempster, Director of Engineering Systems, had an inspired solution, and in time Biosphere 2 got a pair of lungs, or “variable expansion chambers”. The two lungs took the form of graceful hemispheric white domes which protected the liner from wear and tear of the Sun. Both domes, 150 feet away from Biosphere 2 had underground air tunnels connecting them to the main structure. Inside each tank and connected to each tunnel, a gargantuan synthetic rubber membrane with a circular metal top moved freely up and down on a cushion of air.
As air inside Biosphere 2 expanded from the Sun’s heat, it flowed through the tunnels and into the lung, raising its top. As air cooled, the lungs deflated.
| Aperture | ƒ/3.5 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 1600 |
| Shutter speed | 1/25s |
Rainbow Umbrella
A child opens a rainbow coloured umbrella outside Cork City Library last Saturday. Rain threatened most of the day so it was a good idea to have an umbrella with you, just in case.
Phil is blogging the photos he took, and posted about his trip to Cork too.
| Aperture | ƒ/3.5 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 18mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
High Street, Bantry
High Street in Bantry, Co. Cork is one of the main streets in the town. It was a gorgeous day when I walked around there and shot this high contrast photo on one of it’s corners.
| Aperture | ƒ/11 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 22mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
Biosphere 2
Biosphere 2 lies in the dusty hot desert in Arizona. It was originally designed as a self contained “world” where scientists stayed for an extended period of time. After going through the tour, there’s no way I’d volunteer to spend my time inside. It must have been very difficult being cooped up in one building. The Wikipedia page on the project has a lot more detail about what went on there.
Anyway, the building is very striking to look at, especially as the day was fine and interesting clouds added to the scene.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
Cock Pit Lane, Cork
I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t know where Cock Pit Lane was, or if you had never heard of it. It’s a small lane off Cornmarket Street, Cork.
I was fascinated by the slight change in meaning of the English and Irish names. The Irish name, “Lana Troid Coileach” literally means, “Cock Fight Lane”, a much less politically correct interpretation I’m sure you’ll agree. I don’t think the name changed in recent times because the only hit for this lane in Google is a PDF file listing O’Shea family members. Apparently William Shea, a publican, lived on Cock-Pit Lane in 1795. Pity there isn’t any more information.
This wasn’t shot yesterday at the photomeet, but I will be posting more of yesterday’s shots during the week!
| Aperture | ƒ/5 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 48mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/60s |
Musical Sunglasses
A brass band played in front of Cork City Library today and I made this shot while waiting with Phil and his brother Christopher for Damien to appear.
We didn’t make it to Robodock in the end. I was busy and exhausted with a sick baby all morning and I think I’m lucky I managed to get into town at all! Nice to meet up with everyone, including Donal later on in The Newport.
Baby Adam is feeling much better after a lot of care and nursing. Doctor says he’ll be right as rain (and we get enough of that these days!) by Monday. Phew. Poor fella is really suffering.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 200mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/125s |
Electronic waste in the countryside
Last February we spent a weekend in Bantry where I made a couple of very nice shots when I drove into the hills surrounding the town. The area was so nice that I wandered up the road on foot a few yards for a better shot of this lone tree. I was disgusted to see the beige boxes of a PC and monitor lying half hidden in the tall grass of the bog.
Perhaps I should have climbed down and retrieved them but Adam was asleep in the car and we were miles from anywhere. I didn’t want to risk slipping and hurting myself. It’s such a shame those electronics weren’t recycled at the local dump. I wonder what Gardai would find if they looked at the drive in that PC. I wonder if they’d care?
Tomorrow – AJ tried booking Robodock tickets for himself but could only book for the 12 noon show. I thought we could pay at the entrance but obviously it’s popular and booked up. Maybe the bad weather will keep people away but I should be there before 3pm! Keep an eye on my Twitter account for updates!
Must pack WordPress stickers and badges, stickers and badges, stickers and badges…
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
The writing’s on the wall for Heineken
Heineken logo silhouette on the ground outside a cafe in Kinsale on a very bright sunny day some time back.
If you’re wondering, the image above mirrored, otherwise the logo would be backwards!
| Aperture | ƒ/10 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 48mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
Kinsale at Night
The quiet, residential part of Kinsale as photographed from the busy touristy part across the harbour! This was a long exposure shot that came out quite nicely but it did show up the dead pixels on my sensor again. Good thing I don’t have time to shoot many of these types of photos nowadays.
The fight against comment spammers never ends. This blog is listed on a few “do follow” listings and I caught someone this morning leaving a comment after they came here from a “site:inphotos.org” Google search. The comment is delinked but even if I hadn’t, his url still wouldn’t have shown because I only show it after a certain number of comments have been made. It’s my thank you to the regular commenters here. The pagerank you get from that link isn’t diluted by the spammers.
PS. Phil O’Kane will be in Cork next weekend from Friday to Sunday. I’ll be meeting him at Robodock at 3pm and hopefully before but maybe we can get a small photomeet together at some stage on Saturday or Sunday?
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 18mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 15s |
Relaxing by the pond
Lots of people relaxing by the pond in Fitzgerald’s Park during the Lord Mayor’s Picnic a few weeks back. We were busily walking past with a slightly tired baby. Don’t do much relaxing these days..
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 88mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
zero zero zero four
Disused and ancient petrol pump in McCarthy’s Garage, Schull. This is the third, and final image from this particular garage. If I could have gotten inside I’d have a lot more to show.
There’s an old garage a few miles from here in the middle of nowhere. They used to handle Japanese imports and sell petrol but now the pumps are silent and a guard dog barks from what I remember as a yard filled with old cars. Must dig up the shots I took that day.
PS. Check out Today is my gift to you by fellow Cork man, Fr James McSweeney. He married us 2 years ago and I’ve tried a few times to get him to use WordPress since! Nice job with the site, pity there’s no rss feed. Is there any way he could bolt one on easily? Looks like a Windows server.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/125s |