Glendalough Round Tower

A Christian graveyard lies at the base of the round tower at Glendalough. Here’s a detail of a gravestone with the tower in the background.
Looking around, we saw graves from the 19th century, but I’m positive there are older graves.
Way back in 2004, I took some shots of the round tower at Ardmore and that town too. I was slightly nervous at Glendalough because I stumbled over a grave at Ardmore, hitting my Sony 717 off something and it died on me shortly afterwards. Thankfully the same didn’t happen in Wicklow!

Aperture ƒ/5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/60s

Glendalough Bridge

We spent last weekend driving – up to Bray in Co. Wicklow, visited Glendalough, The Sally Gap and promptly got lost a few times on the way to Avoca!
On Sunday we returned to Cork, but took a detour via Tullow and Carlow to visit Killkenny. We called to friends in Fermoy and arrived home late last night.
The N11 on the east coast is very impressive! Getting to Killkenny from Bray is a chore however. There are only secondary roads the whole way, but the scenery is amazing and we saw bits of the country we hadn’t been to before!
This is the first photo from that trip taken at Glendalough.
The round tower in the background was built sometime between the 8th and 12th centuries. Round Towers were built to protect monastic scriptures, gold and property from Viking raiders. The only entrance is far off the ground, and easily defended.

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/100s

Oz Haven, Co. Cork

We went for a lovely lunch in Oz Haven in Oysterhaven yesterday afternoon. Wow, what a meal!
I started with Clonakilty black and white pudding flavoured with exotic spices, a steak for the main course, and a delicious chocolate cake with orange sauce for dessert. I’m getting hungry again just thinking about it!
Paul Greer and his staff are great and I heartily recommend a visit here! Sunday lunch is around 26 Euro per person which is very reasonable considering the quality of the food. Ring them on 021 477 0974 and book a table now! 🙂
(No, I’m not being paid for this, but Paul’s a great host and we enjoyed our meal!)

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/40s

Here Feen! Give us dat, boy!

Couple of local lads pictured in front of the Savoy, Patrick’s Street, Cork.

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/1600s

The Look, Dad, The Yawn

An experiment in high-key cross processing.
Pictured on Patrick Street, Cork.

Howto and what is cross processing?
Cross-processing has been around for as long as film has, and is a way of making your images more interesting and abstract by literally mixing colours. I followed the simple instructions here which I had blogged a long time ago but forgot! It came up in a search for “cross processing gimp”!

There’s no magic secret way of doing this. Simply open your image in your favourite image manipulation program, GIMP of course, or Photoshop if you must. Bring up the Curves tool, and play the Red, Green and Blue channels separately until you have something you like! Create S curves to increase the contrast of each colour, and make it pronounced to increase the effect!
Use the saturation tool to make the colours even more pronounced and remember, have fun!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/640s