Montague Burton the Tailor of Taste

Like the stone laid by Barbara Jessie Burton in 1927, this doorway probably goes unnoticed by most people on Prince’s Street. It’s right next to the stone linked above, but the door is usually closed.
I spotted this colourful mosaic out of the corner of my eye and recognised the Burton name from my previous post.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 1600
Shutter speed 1/320s

Dunnes Stores for Better Value

The old Dunnes Stores on Patrick’s Street is now only a shadow of it’s former self. All that remains of the building is the front facade and a small portion of the side walls.
Construction work on the Paul Street development has levelled most of the back buildings in a square block, exposing the internals of other buildings to the elements.
I spotted photos hanging on the rear wall of a room left open to the elements after demolition. Surreal!

If any business person from Acadamy Street is reading this, can I go to the top of your building and shoot the construction site from on-high? Please!

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/1000s

The crow stops here

A crow atop a STOP sign on The Grand Parade, Cork.

Shot using a fairly high ISO but bicubic resizing smudges the noise away!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/2500s

GIMP 2.4 is out

The new release of GIMP 2.4 is finally out! Sven announced it on the Gimp User mailing list this morning. It seems like forever since 2.2 was released but he has promised that 2.6 won’t be as long in the making.

The roadmap for GIMP 2.6 will be discussed over the next weeks on the gimp-developer mailing-list. We can only tell you so much now: It is going to rock and it shouldn’t take as long to get it done as it took to finish GIMP 2.4. If you want to join the effort, your help is much appreciated.

GIMP.org is fairly slow now but the release notes have the low down on changes since 2.2. Some of the biggest user visible changes include red eye removal, healing tool and a better alignment tool. Plugins and scripts now live in the same place, the “Filters” menu. I’m using the rc3 release in Ubuntu Linux 7.10 and it’s been rock solid for the past few days. I’m sure Ubuntu will update their .deb package in the next few days.

After you update, get the GIMP Lomo plugin I posted yesterday. It’s 2.4 ready! 🙂

Trust on the street

Have you ever thought about how you’re manipulated by the brands?

Trust Boots.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/800s

GIMP Lomo Plugin

This is a slighly modified version of an old GIMP Lomo plugin I’ve used for ages that will now work with the new GIMP 2.4 release thanks to some advice I remembered reading on the GIMP User mailing list. The original plugin is by Francois Le Lay but hasn’t been updated since 2005. It’s a basic script but it’s very effective. Just be warned, if you resize your image, make sure you right click on the Vignette layer and click “Layer to image size” before the resize. Otherwise odd things happen!

Download

Download gimplomo.scm.

Install

Installation is easy. Simply copy gimplomo.scm into your .gimp-2.4/scripts/ folder and restart the GIMP. It will appear as Image->Filters->Light and Shadow->Lomo.

Example Images

Below are two before and after examples of what the Lomo plugin does to images. I have also posted fake lomo photos in the past which should give a really good idea of what it’s capable of.


Before and After Lomo images

Why the change to Script-fu?

Script-fu in GIMP 2.4 requires that variables be defined before using them which has broken a lot of Script-fu scripts unfortunately. In theory it’s a great change because it tightens up on sloppy programming but it hurts the end user!

Parked Motorbikes

Two motorbikes parked on the South Mall attracted my attention especially as a strong sun reflected off the clean chrome.

Yes, I know there’s a weird diagonal, yes it is distracting. Yes, it is intentional. Enjoy!

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/200s

10 minutes left in Halifax & Late Late Show Extra competition

Just in case you have the perfect image to submit to the Halifax & Late Late Show Extra competition the closing date is today, in about 10 minutes. That’s right. 6pm is the deadline. First prize is €10,000. Is that worth 10 minutes of your time? I’m going to enter if I can find a suitable image!

St. Anne’s Church Tower

The Shandon bell tower of St. Anne’s Church is one of the most recognisable sights around Cork. Here it is viewed from the end of Academy Street by Patrick’s Street.

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 106mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/250s

Through the long grass

Hard wind worn grass grows by the beach at Wine Strand in Co. Kerry. I think this is perfect in black and white.
The blue sky was amazing but the light and shadow of the grass stands out against the uniform background.

I shot my first sports stuff in ages yesterday. A few of us from Mallow Camera Club made it to the Cobh Ramblers game against Dundalk and had free reign to walk around the perimeter of the football pitch.
I was almost hit a few times by the ball, including one time near the goal when I was zooming in on the action, with the camera in burst mode. I spotted the ball heading my way in the frame and stepped to the side a lit second before the ball landed where I was standing. Phew. Got the pic too 🙂
More about the day’s shooting during the week!

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/160s

Rain blows over Slea Head

Rain descended on us moments after I took this shot as it sped across the bay and over Slea Head from the south!

This was taken above Couminole Beach.

Aperture ƒ/5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/500s

Yellow Walking Man

An arrow points the way for walkers near Wine Strand on the Dingle Peninsula. Across the water is Ballydavid or Baile na nGall.

Beautiful clear skies, lovely calm water. Ideal weather.

Aperture ƒ/13
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 20mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/160s