In Photos dot Org

  • The Tin Pub in Ahakista

    The Tin Pub in Ahakista

    The Tin Pub in Ahakista

    One of the highlights of Ahakista in Co. Cork is the Tin Pub set in the middle of an area lush with vegetation, flowers, trees and lovely West Cork Scenery.

    Jacinta visited here several years ago with her friend Mary when they had a picnic in the back garden. We did the same, after asking the family who own the building. You see, the pub wasn’t open yet, but then Tom had a wedding the previous night and finished work at 4am. Shortly after we made ourselves comfortable outside and had poured our tea he showed up and smiled when he saw our picnic.

    After our picnic we got chatting to Paul and Cath, who are over from Cornwall for a week. Over a pint we soon got lost in the easy going atmosphere of the pub and before we knew it time had caught up with us and we had to make the journey home.

    Despite Pete McCarthy’s assertion that driving down a road with grass in the middle means you’re going the wrong way, you should try the “alternative route” to Ahakista. When you leave Bantry take the first turn right to Sheepshead and you’ll see it sign posted a few miles down the road. Go slowly, because others use the road, but the scenery is amazing. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were late leaving home, I would have stopped several times to shoot landscapes.

    I can’t remember the last time I was in this part of the world, but the beautiful scenery and laid back way of life means I’ll be back!

    Aperture ƒ/4
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 10mm
    ISO 1600
    Shutter speed 1/15s

  • Fat Boy Harley


    Fat Boy Harley
    Harleys in Blarney

    The 15th annual H.O.G. Rally took place this weekend in Killarney, Co. Kerry. 10,000 Harley Davidson riders were expected. For the last few days I’ve seen Harleys around Cork sporting flags from all over Europe.

    Here are two of them on their way back, pictured in Blarney! Jacinta and I were going to the local shop when 2 couples riding on these beautiful bikes drove past. I had to grab my camera ask them to pose for a shot or two! For once I was in a photo because they invited us to sit on their bikes for a photo.

    Phil – I hope you like the photos, I’ll send you on a couple of other shots too!

    Aperture ƒ/8
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 10mm
    ISO 200
    Shutter speed 1/125s

  • Bonfire Night


    Bonfire Night
    Sofa Burning
    Bonfire night.. adding fuel to the fire
    Fire Brigade arrive

    It was Bonfire Night in Cork yesterday. It’s celebrated on St. John’s Eve and there have been bonfires lit in Cork for as long as I remember. Not all parts of the country celebrate the night, and I heard on the radio 2 days ago that there may be a by-law passed in Cork banning the lighting of bonfires that night because of the danger to people, property and the fire services.
    Unfortunately each year the fire services are attacked with rocks and other weapons when they go to certain areas of the city.

    Aperture ƒ/9
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 179mm
    ISO 200
    Shutter speed 1/400s

  • De-construction on Grand Parade


    De-construction on Grand Parade

    The construction site that is the Grand Parade right now but it will soon look like Patrick’s Street with broad pavements, paving and those flag bearing poles that are so prominent on our main thoroughfare.

    No Fred photos today, I haven’t had time to work on any. Expect more next week!

    Aperture ƒ/5.6
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 10mm
    ISO 800
    Shutter speed 1/2500s

  • Fred The Band in the Spiegeltent


    Jamin, Joseph and Jamie


    Joseph and Justin go mad!


    Justin on Drums

    Fred played in the Spiegeltent on Tuesday night and as usual put on a great show! Their show is energetic and wild and brilliant!

    More photos tomorrow!

    Edit: Donal has great photos of the night. Go look!

    Aperture ƒ/3.5
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 18mm
    ISO 1600
    Shutter speed 1/40s

  • GIMP Tutorial Videos

    Jakub ‘jimmac’ Steiner has published several demos of the GIMP in action.
    Subjects such as defining shortcuts, image templates, transformations and paths and more are covered. Use the mirrors, because I haven’t downloaded the videos myself yet!

  • Brendan O’Carroll enjoying his break


    Brendan O’Carroll enjoying his break

    Irish comedian Brendan O’Carroll, also known as Mrs. Brown, enjoys his break during yesterday evening’s performance of Good Mourning Mrs Brown.

    We were on our way to see Fred play in the Spiegeltent which is situated in front of the Opera House when we noticed a group of people outside the back entrance of the same building. After we passed, Jacinta realised who it was and we hurried back and made our introductions.
    Brendan was very nice to us, he introduced his lovely wife, and posed for a photo with Jacinta and this shot. Hopefully he’ll remember the address of this blog, I really have to get cards printed!

    Aperture ƒ/4.5
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 18mm
    ISO 200
    Shutter speed 1/50s

  • Noise Ninja Beta

    A new Noise Ninja release candidate is out now for Linux, Mac and Windows!

    I tried the Linux version, and despite having a strange file selector it worked really well! You can try it for yourself, but the unregistered version saves images with a watermark. I’m going to test it on a few more images and may purchase it myslf.
    Make sure you download a camera profile for your camera. The 20D one works well!

  • Sunset at Drake’s Pool


    Sunset at Drake’s Pool

    We took Oscar and ourselves for a walk in Drake’s Pool last Sunday. We arranged to meet Donal and Celine there.

    While the girls enjoyed a leisurely walk, us guys trailed after them making photos of everything!

    Drake’s Pool is just outside Crosshaven, and is named for Sir Francis Drake.

    Aperture ƒ/22
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 20mm
    ISO 200
    Shutter speed 1/500s

  • Luigi Malones


    Luigi Malones

    A long exposure shot in Luigi Malones Restaurant in Cork catches some of the hectic activity during lunch hour.

    Aperture ƒ/22
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 10mm
    ISO 200
    Shutter speed 5s

  • The Commodore Hotel


    The Commodore Hotel

    The Commodore Hotel in Cobh, built in 1854, is an attractive hotel sitting on the main road of the town. Inside, the old world decoration of the lobby, restaurant and bar are inviting.

    Aperture ƒ/10
    Camera Canon EOS 20D
    Focal length 10mm
    ISO 200
    Shutter speed 1/250s

  • Making the top ten of Interestingness


    Making the top ten of Interestingness

    The Swan Gang, a photo I posted three days ago, became the 4th most interesting photo on Flickr two days ago.

    How?

    Nuggets of Gold
    Flickr Interestingness uses a secret algorithm to decide what is interesting, but is biased against users who consistently get a lot of attention. Up until last month I would add my photos to many groups in the hope of attracting attention and eyeballs and yes, a number of my photos are in the interesting list but it was getting harder for me to get high results.
    Last month I got married, took the month off and hardly touched a computer. Most of the photos published that month haven’t been added to any group so I think that helped me when it came to publishing this photo.

    Groups
    There are a number of photo groups on Flickr where members are encouraged to leave comments on the photographs of other users. If you look at my Swan photo again some of them are listed down the right hand side. That’s a good way of getting attention. Don’t even consider posting to these groups if you haven’t got time to participate yourself. For every photo you post, you may have to leave comments on up to 5 other photos. It’s extra work, but viewing other people’s work is inspiring and always a good way to improve your own technique.

    Thumbnail
    The thumbnail looks good. The swans have these bright orange beaks and are looking into the camera. It screams “Click Me!”

    The Swan Gang

    Time
    I uploaded the photo to Flickr around 10:30am Irish time but I didn’t add it to any groups until much later in the day when the US is awake. I have consistently noticed that photos I add to Flickr groups early in the morning don’t build up the same number of views as quickly as when they’re posted later on in the day.

    Links
    One other factor that interestingness is judged upon is where traffic comes from. If someone links to your photos from outside Flickr like happened here that will help a lot. I have seen this a few times and each time it made a noticeable difference to how high a particular photo went.

    Magic
    And then add some Flickr magic to finish off!

    Further Reading:

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