It’s 2006 here in Ireland, and we’re celebrating in style! I can’t eat any more after dinner out in Aroma, a visit to a pub, an hour or two spent at a friend’s party and a visit to my brother Donal and Celine!
Fireworks marking the end of the year in which Cork was European Capital of Culture lit up the sky over the city! I wasn’t there to record it because the driving rain and cold wind made it very inhospitable outside. Donal should have a few pictures online in the next few days!
Pictured is the Jeanie Johnston in Waterford last July. She took part in the Tall Ship’s Race from there on the weekend of July 9th.
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Welcome to 2006!
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A flock of birds on the Lee
I love the old style nature of this shot. The fog that day made the far distance disappear and the middle distance was shrouded in white!
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English Market Seller
There’s a wonderful looking olive and spice stall in the English Market!
Unfortunately it is always mobbed with customers making it difficult to capture a photo of it but I raised my camera into the air and shot this blind.
The original is quite grainy as I used a high ISO of 3200 to compensate for the bad light.
Workflow:- Increased the saturation slightly.
- Unsharp mask with a radius of 5 to bring out the grain more.
- Duplicate layer and used the Threshold tool to isolate bright parts.
- Blur the top layer with a radius of 25 pixels.
- Set the top layer mode to “Soft Light”.
- Saved a .xcf version, .jpg and a resized jpeg too. I didn’t unsharp mask the resized version.
Hope you find that useful!
Aperture ƒ/3.5 Camera Canon EOS 20D Focal length 18mm ISO 3200 Shutter speed 1/320s -
Fog Laden Trees
Trees in Blarney on a foggy day
Aperture ƒ/6.3 Camera Canon EOS 20D Focal length 18mm ISO 200 Shutter speed 1/50s -
Run around and around!
Children running around a labyrinth on The Grand Parade.
Schools, churches, community groups and businesses around Cork were asked to design them as part of the closing ceremonies of Cork City of Culture 2005.Fediverse reactions
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Audience
Through a break in the crowd I spotted a little girl watching a band play on the street in front of Brown Thomas.
Nollaig Shona daoibh! (translation)
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Santa’s on his way!
Tonight Santa visits as the Christian world celebrates the birth of Jesus over 2000 years ago.
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Scapa Flo, Blackpool Shopping Center
Scapa Flo played for free in aid of the Belarussian Orphanage Project. Pictured here are 3 of the band members.
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Christmas Goods For Sale
At Blackpool shopping center there was a charity event for the Belarussian Orphanage Project. A band played inside and just inside the main doors they were selling Christmas cards and small gifts. Not sure if I should have left this as a colour image but I think as a character study of the boy and woman it works much better in black and
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Off The Wall
Pictured at the Blarney Woollen Mills a week ago.
Links of the Day
- Retouching Magazine Cover – magazine photos have to feature pixel perfect beautiful men and women. This girlpower Flash presentation goes through all the little touch ups that go into improving a model’s eye, nose, cheeks, lips, breasts, waist and more until she is not the person who stood in the studio. (via)
- Digital Photography World has published some great articles recently including image management now that he’s gone completely digital.
- John Engler’s photography section of his blog has lots of good stuff, including 3 introductory articles: What’s an SLR Anyways?, Film Speed, Aperture. (via)
- I posted the last two US photos: Chatting and Shopping and Crowded Cork. The collection is complete!
Don’t go to bed reading a photographic book, you’ll get up again to “try out” the new techniques you read about.
Sunset at Drake’s Pool (2006)- A new Noise Ninja release candidate is out now forNoise Ninja Beta (2006)
2 bikes in Daunt Square (2007)- Instead of obsessing over composition, is the flas
Spotty Cactus (2008)
Roof Support (2009)
Arrow (2012)
Bread Delivery (2013)
The Night is on Fire (2016)
Making Headlines (2017)- Almost There (2018)
Refugees Welcome (2021)
An Impossible View (2022)
Wind Blown Clouds (2023)
The Pacific Park in the Sea (2024)