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The Sexy New County Hall

Grabs your attention doesn’t it? Exciting design isn’t it? Wonderful work of engineering eh? Well, ok, it’s only the Cork County Hall but it is the tallest storeyed building in the Republic of Ireland at 67m so that must count for something? No?

The County Hall has been renovated over the last few years and does look better than it used to. I saw someone walking around on it’s roof a week or so ago, bet you’d have a great view from up there. Anyone know how I’d do that?

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

Keep a lookout

Keep a lookout

A father and two sons on St. Patrick’s Street, Cork. I presume they’re waiting for someone from what I heard of the dad talking on his phone as I passed.

Blown out details are on purpose to give it a slightly edgier effect. Hope you like it!

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

No climbing the poles

No climbing the poles

A sign that points upwards? It either forbids drivers from driving down a road, discourages people from climbing up a light pole or local government don’t want people to look up. Your guess is as good as mine. I’m stumped!

Aperture	ƒ/14
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/400s

Balloon Boy

Balloon Boy

A boy is dragged by his mother up St. Patrick’s Street at the Ceili Mor. He was playing with a balloon by punching it continually. I saw him approach and as luck would have it, err, I mean, I quickly composed this shot. I love the expression on his face and I’m very happy that I caught this moment!

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

The road to Ceili

The road to Ceili

People stroll along the closed off St. Patrick’s Street to the Ceili Mor.

Technique: I had to rotate the photo and crop it a small bit to get a straighter horizon, then some dodge/burn to bring out the contrast, and fired off the GIMP lomo plugin that creates two layers – one to highlight the centre, and the other to provide the vignette. I added a layer mask to the vignette and by using a gradient knocked off the top half of the vignette.

Aperture	ƒ/9
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	1/160s

ESB – Broadband – Eircom

ESB – Broadband – Eircom

Power, Internet, Telephone. The combination of critical services that keeps my job going. When they work we don’t care but failure in even one is disastrous.

Pictured on St. Patrick’s Street while I was kneeling down and preparing to change lens. Anyone know which shop this was taken in front of?

Aperture	ƒ/7.1
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	1/100s

Looking out for the kids

Looking out for the kids

A wary father carries his son on his shoulder at the Ceili Mor as his photo is taken on St. Patrick’s Street last weekend. Looks like his passenger is enjoying the festival!

I like this: State of Emergency – pictures from Vogue of models and Police. They’re scanned from Vogue Italia so buy the magazine if you see it and enjoy this photo essay.

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

Girls dancing on the street

Girls dancing on the street

People of all ages joined in the fun dancing on St. Patrick’s Street last weekend at the Ceili Mor, but there was a noticeable lack of male participation. Any man out there had his pick of the women! Are guys too shy, or are women better dancers?
Me? I was taking photos! If I didn’t have my camera I’d have been out there like a shot, yes sir, definitely, no doubt about it at all…

Aperture	ƒ/7.1
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	200mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/250s

Pure joy! A child on drums!

Pure joy! A child on drums!

Can you imagine the noise? Well, don’t worry, it was in the middle of the street! A child took control of the drums while the adults took a break during the Cork Folk Festival.
From the programme I guess the group singing and dancing with accompanied drums and music were the “Christ Restoration Ministries Gospel Choir”. A large crowd gathered around so it was difficult to get any shots of the dancing, not surprising really because they were very good.

I like this: Battersea Power Station and Grosvenor Bridge because the photographer, Dave Gorman, had a positive experience with the police. (via)

Aperture	ƒ/10
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	200mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/400s

All the fun of the Ceili Mor

All the fun of the Ceili Mor

The Ceili Mor on St. Patrick’s Street, Cork, last weekend. Last year the Ceili Mor attracted 8,371 people who broke the world record for the largest Irish dancing event!
This year was a more modest event but still the people showed up and joined in, slowly at first, but there was a decent crowd out enjoying themselves later!
Photos from last year: part 1 and part 2.

I forgot to mention. I saw so many people with cameras that I’m surprised there aren’t a lot more Cork-based photoblogs. I’m not talking about parents with a compact camera and kids in tow, I counted at least 5 solitary people silently working the crowd and the dancers with everything from bridge cameras to Digital SLRs and zoom lenses. I really need to get business cards printed and spread the word about WordPress.com

Aperture	ƒ/7.1
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	28mm
ISO	200
Shutter speed	1/80s

O’Connell and Quane

O’Connell and Quane

Daniel O’Connell and Michael Quane on the beach at Fountainstown. They’d been out on the kayaks for several hours but were kind enough to chat to us and allow me to take their photo.
Michael Quane is a celebrated artist who has exhibited internationally and has many public works to his name including the statue, “Horses and Riders” , on the roundabout in Mallow! You can find out more about his work by searching Google.
Daniel O’Connell of course shares his name with a famous character from Irish history.

I forgot to mention. the photo of the kayaks had to be rotated about 1.35 degrees right to get a horizontal horizon. I filled in the white spaces left behind with a liberal use of the clone tool. Thankfully a sandy beach is easy to clone! To get an even exposure I copied the image into a new layer where I brightened it up. The sky was over-exposed but by using a layer mask and a gradient I hid that sky and was left with a nice bright area right at the sea shore.

I like this: What the soldiers see

I have been deployed all over the world from Bosnia to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq for the first part of the wars with the 101st Airborne Infantry. Currently I am back in Iraq in OIF 3 attached to a Signal unit to help them out, I have been here since May 2005, I have just volunteered to stay till Jan 2007 well I hope you enjoy these pics I will have more of the day by day

(via)

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	800
Shutter speed	1/30s

Staring at me

Staring at me

Am I feeling conspicuous or what?

I tried shooting from the hip yesterday with the strap of my camera over my shoulder and my camera in a horizontal position instead of being wrapped around my hand in a vertical orientation.

It proved useful, but I found that:

More of my shots were blurry, perhaps because either the back and forth movement of me walking. I tried shooting in Tv (Shutter Priority mode) and even at 1/200sec and higher there was shake.
It’s great getting more of the surroundings in but I miss the feet.

Aperture	ƒ/6.3
Camera	Canon EOS 20D
Focal length	10mm
ISO	800
Shutter speed	1/80s