January Sales

The Christmas rush is over. Sales have been bad for retailers as people suddenly realised, “Oh! The mortgage has to be paid!”

Anyway, I’m half-hoping I’ll be able to pick up a Nintendo Wii somewhere. I don’t suppose they’ll be on sale will they?

I celebrate 10 years online this year! Go me!

Check out Donal’s new photoblog, Pana Vision!

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

Highrise Construction Over Cork City

Cranes still rise into the air, towering over everything else, even the Elysian Tower pictured on the right of this image.

The Irish economy may be slowing down but there’s still plenty of life in the old dog yet!

Happy new year! May 2008 be even better than 2007!

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 75mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/640s

The sun sets on 2007

The final day of the year 2007. It’s cloudy and misty and rain is in the air. Very mild for this time of year actually.

2007 was a mixed bag for many people. It was a year of extremes – joy and sadness in equal measures, but life changing for myself and my wife as our son Adam was born into the world this year.

This sunset was shot at Garrettstown Beach a few weeks ago. Dedicated to the memory of Gerry who visited that beach with us before she passed away.

Aperture ƒ/16
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/1250s

The Anarchist Postman

Graffiti of a postman, or could be a police officer on a wall off South Main Street in Cork.

This was taken several months ago but was still there last time I looked! Sorry for the large file size. Jpeg compression doesn’t like random pixels.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera DMC-FZ5
Focal length 17.700000762939mm
ISO 80
Shutter speed 1/400s

Starlight headlights

A long five second exposure at f/22 captured cars stuck on Patrick Street about a month ago.

They’ve done some fabulous work on the pavements of Cork’s main thoroughfare but it hasn’t made a jot of difference to vehicular traffic, except to make it more dangerous to pedestrians as they saunter across junctions blissfully unaware of the cars bearing down on them ..

Aperture ƒ/22
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 5s

So many light trails

Light trails from passing cars fill the frame with a golden glow on the corner of The Grand Parade and Washington Street, Cork.

Long exposure shot made possible by the traffic light switch on which I rested my camera!

Aperture ƒ/22
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 13s

Irish rugby was rubbish in 2007

Irish rugby player Ronan O’Gara was the face of Samsung and many other brands this year. Apparently Samsung announced that their sales dropped because of their association with the hapless team. 😉

“We had no idea how poorly he would play,” continued the Samsung spokesperson. “Not just Ronan, but the whole team. In hindsight the ‘I’m converted’ caption is quite embarrassing because his conversion record in the World Cup was shite. We’re quite disappointed with Ronan, not only did he let himself and the country down, but he let us, a multi-billion dollar company, down as well.”

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

Christmas Baubles

Christmas Baubles hang in Porter’s newsagent, Cork. Christmas decoration is everywhere but reflective surfaces present an opportunity to take a self portrait. Yes, that’s me reflected! 🙂

Hope you had a great Christmas Day. We went travelling and I must say it was the best Christmas Day in a long time. I think I must invest in a WII next year…

Sparkling Flowing Christmas Lights

Blue glowing and sparkling Christmas lights flow down from the roof of Benetton on Oliver Plunkett St. in Cork.

I loved the reflection in the car and had to take this shot. It was hand held and I’m quite sure I pumped up the ISO quite a bit to get a half-decent shutter speed. Resizing helps to hide and smooth out the noise!

A busy moment

Freeze what you’re doing. Right now. The world has stopped.

A busy moment on Patrick’s Street, Cork captured forever.

I liked this image because of the solitary motorcycle rider, but then I noticed all the activity: the people walking, cars *all over* the frame, the parked security truck with the driver leaning over to get his papers.
All frozen.

School girls sing the carols

A group of girls from a local school sang Christmas carols in Blackpool Shopping Centre earlier today.

They were brilliant! I wasn’t much in the mood for listening but they lifted my spirits. They were full of life, happy, joyful and really seemed to be enjoying the experience.

Unfortunately we were in a hurry or I’d have stopped to ask what school they were from. Does anyone know? Their uniforms were purple..