Fianna Fail in Cork

Fianna Fail, “The Republican Party”, had an office on the Grand Parade in Cork for years. Last time I looked the building was derelict. Anyone want to compare the state of their Cork office to their policies or chances in the next election?

Fianna Fail have been in power almost continuously for as long as I remember and before that of course. Will you vote for them?

This is next door to no 48 pictured yesterday.

I like this: May Day in California. Great street shots.

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/160s

The red door at No. 48

No. 48 on Grand Parade Cork is an old disused building near the Goat Broke Loose. It’s also next door to the old location of Fianna Fail’s Cork office.

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/100s

The soaking wet happy springer spaniel

This is another photo of Ruby, a springer spaniel that lives in Myrtleville. This time she followed us over to Fennell’s Bay where she dashed off into the shallows after stones. She was deliriously happy!

Unfortunately the same could not be said for a group of teenagers higher up on the beach who threw stones at us and into the water very close to us. Their malevolent laughter spoiled that moment for us and put us in real danger. They weren’t locals and by their accents it wasn’t hard to figure out where in Cork they were from.

There’s more of Ruby here and here. We were down in Myrtleville last weekend and didn’t see her at all. I hope she’s ok and was tucked up at home in front of the fire instead of at a cold and wet beach.

Congratulations to Gavin@Headphoneland for winning best photoblog at last night’s Irish Blog Awards! Get well soon!

There’s definitely something up with Flickr’s “Blog This” function. The URL of the image it passed to my blog was borked and displayed the infamous, “This photo is currently unavailable”. I reported it yesterday but I guess it’ll take longer than that to fix.

The ever vexxing question of privacy arrises on Kevin’s blog here and here. In the USA it’s perfectly ok to use someone’s image for non commercial usage as long as the photo was taken in a public place. I can understand why that woman is suing Yahoo! but I guess it’s the money she wants rather than protecting her privacy. (Is there a difference?) I covered the issue in the past, where things could be a little different in Ireland – the expectation of privacy extends to a private conversation in a public place. Vexxing indeed!

The Digital Photography Show interviewed Bert Krages, the author of the PDF, The Photographer’s Right on the subject of photographer’s rights. I haven’t listened yet but it should be good as he knows his stuff. Obviously laws will change from place to place so do some research locally before shooting on the street! The interview is also mentioned here and here.

Aperture ƒ/7.1
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/125s

City flowers in the sun

Flowers in the Peace Park in Cork flourish in the early April sunlight last year. Does anyone recognise this one?

Good luck to everyone competing at the Blog Awards tonight and have a great night regardless!

What the hell! Flickr gave me a dud URL again. That’s three in a row. Time to complain.

City flowers

Kristy asked for a desktop sized version so here’s a 1024×768 version that is the proper dimensions for a standard desktop. Most of my photos have a 1.5 ratio between sides so I had to crop this to 1.33. Please if you use it, leave in my name and URL at bottom of the image. Thanks!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/800s

Innovative Streets

It’s good to look down sometimes. I think this was used to hold a decorative safety pole but I don’t remember ever seeing it used. There are poles on the other side of this narrow street however.

The street of course is Paul Street behind Waterstones.

I was going to blog that yesterday was World Book Day but time ran out for me and the power cut didn’t help my motivation much. Nevertheless, Cearta.ie blogged it. Check out some of my photos from last year’s World Book Day celebration!

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/400s

The Goat is Dead

In my younger days when I was out on the town on a Friday or Saturday night with the rest of the crowd, “The Goat Broke Loose” was an occasional watering hole for me and my friends. It started out well, with a good mix of customers, although if memory serves there were a lot of preening ladies there too interested in looking in a mirror to notice a poor altruistic open source developer like myself!

In later years the pub became known as a place where a younger clientèle would gather to drink. Unfortunately for them it closed a few years ago but they all moved on of course to a new spot. I suspect it will be redeveloped because it is right next to the now closed Grand Parade Hotel and the City Library which is going to get a major new make over in the coming months if planning goes through.

Munsterpubs.com has a less than glowing review of the Goat but it’s pretty much spot-on. You can see the Goat in the background of Your mom knows kung fuu.

Well, that was strange. I published my post and the url to my image changed. I had to copy/paste it from it’s Flickr page again. First time that’s happened.

Links I like:


Apertureƒ/5
CameraCanon EOS 20D
Focal length18mm
ISO100
Shutter speed1/60s

The Lady Smiles

On her lunch break she smiles instead of smoking, at least for a moment.

This is the second and final image of the Lady on her break series. If you look very carefully at the window you’ll see my face, my hand, and the back of Jacinta’s head as we walked past. Thanks for the comments yesterday!

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/80s

The Lady smokes

On her break, she lights up a cigarette to relax. Who did she see?

The Magnum Blog has been running for a few weeks. I blogged the original opening of the site ages ago, but it wasn’t ready for prime time and it made it’s debut a short while ago. A few days ago, A faked portrait of my generation explored some of the issues surrounding street photography. A legal case in Quebec in effect made street photography illegal in Canada.
Here in Ireland, photographers do have the right to photograph people, but if the subjects have an expectation of privacy then you’re not allowed photograph them. That could include a couple talking on the street. That’s only the opinion of our Minister For Justice but unfortunately many of my street photos could be on shaky ground if that really was what the law said.

Oh, another photo of this girl tomorrow!

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/80s

The shadows have it all

Sometimes it’s the shadows that are the focus of my camera rather than the people in it.

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/320s

Escalator Moments

A one second exposure captures the movement through time of the escalator in Nikeworld San Francisco last August. This is one of a series of shots, including a few of Mark and Andy although I think this is the most dramatic of them.

I wasn’t going to post this at all except that a few days ago another escalator photo made the front page of Digg somehow. Digg away please 🙂

Aperture ƒ/16
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1.3s

Girl reflecting on bus

Waiting at the traffic lights, the camera can still see you, even if it’s not pointed in your direction. Those are the buildings of the Grand Parade in Cork behind her.

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/100s

Mom and the girls

A mother and her daughters on St. Patrick Street, Cork last year. Look carefully in the window. Can you see what time of year it was?

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/640s