Expectation

Car drivers rev their engines in anticipation of the lights changing at a busy junction.

This is the junction of Bridge Street, Patrick’s Quay, and Patrick’s Bridge in Cork. This photo was taken from the far left of Yellow Boxes. Patrick’s Hill is visible in background as you follow the road up the incline.

Bloody dangerous junction too. Very busy one.

No sign of baby yet, I guess it’ll be tomorrow. Stand by your Twitter for updates!

Aperture ƒ/13
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/320s

Co. Cork Cemetery

A graveyard in Co. Cork attracted my attention last summer while walking with Oscar down a small road. I didn’t go in but I got a few nice shots from over the cemetery gate.

This is a the result of sandwiching two versions of this image together. One is overexposed and the other underexposed. It’s difficult to get the bits around the trees right but I think I did a pretty good job!

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

Kilbrittain 6 miles

A sign points to Kilbrittain in Co. Cork near the beach at Garrettstown.

Has it been 2 years already Ryan? My Flickr account expires in February 2008 so I have a bit more time on my hands. It’s been well worth it however!

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

Clever panoramas with CleVR

Photocritic found a neat bit of software for displaying panoramic images in a scrollable window. It should make showing them off in a blog much easier.

The beauty of the CleVR system is that the panorama uses Flash instead of Quicktime. Flash is installed on a lot more machines than Quicktime making this more accessible. Unfortunately I think it requires Flash 9 as it didn’t work in Firefox on my Linux desktop. Can anyone else confirm? According to the comments on the post above, the CleVR software is lot easier to use than Quicktime too.

The CleVR software itself is written in Java and loads using the Java Quickstart system. Not everyone will have it installed but it worked fine on my Macbook.

Instead of stitching a few photos together in CleVR, here’s one I made earlier. Much earlier in fact. I made this panorama of Cork City back in 2004 but I never uploaded a high-res version of it anywhere. Now I have. Enjoy!

I would love if the panorama image files were stored on my own server. If CleVR go out of business, or change their site, or something unforseen happens then my panorama is lost. At least with regular images hosted on Flickr, I can simply move them elsewhere and they’ll display fine. Hopefully they’ll address that in the future. They’re not making their money from hosting so they might as well get rid of that cost base.

I’d also love to be able to change the size of the viewing window. I tried changing the embed code but the Flash applet still only displays a 450px wide image. Please, please, please CleVR?

Blue skies contrail and clouds

A wall of the Beamish and Crawford Brewery blocks the sun in this shot taken on South Main Street, Cork.

Blue skies are great for sun worshippers but photographers don’t like them. It’s always better to have some cloud or interest in the sky. The fluffier and more solid the better, as long as some blue sky can be seen.

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

Daisies in the ruins

Boarded up windows, grey walls, overgrown vegetation. It can only be an Irish hospital right?

This is the final picture in my Old Hospital series.

Beautiful – Lough Gill, 2

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

Letters only

The post box at Garretstown, Co. Cork pictured last year but in pretty much the same condition yesterday when we drove past on the way home. I love the worn texture of the paint!

I like this: Headphoneland

Aperture ƒ/10
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/250s

Daisy drops of rain

Rain drops show on the white petals of a daisy that struggles amid the ruins of an old hospital building.

I wonder if that building is still there? I’ll have to go look someday.

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/125s

Doorway into the gloom

Taken almost a year ago, this doorway leads into an old building on the grounds of a hospital in Cork. A cherry blossom can be seen blooming outside contrasting with the gloom and ruin of the interior.

While on the hospital theme, I wrote up our experiences at the new Cork University Maternity Hospital yesterday. They have major problems there and most of them can be traced back to under staffing of the facility.

This photo was made from two exposures. I didn’t use a tripod, instead placing the camera on a chair to avoid any shakes. I quickly bracketed a few shots and merged them together later in the GIMP.

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/30s

Father and son in the square

A father and his offspring walk about after the parade on St. Patrick’s Day in Cork this year. Normally this is a busy junction but it was closed off for a few hours to make way for the festivities.

Patrick’s Street can be seen in the background with the statue of Fr. Mathew rising into the air.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/500s

Feline eyes stare at me

I love cats. There’s nothing quite as relaxing as rubbing a cat’s soft fur while he basks in the heat of the sun. Some people hate cats however and I’m non-plussed. Perhaps it’s a primal instinct in them?

This is a friend’s cat as he was eating from a bowl. It’s my desktop picture!

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 144mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/60s

Girls on the street

St. Patrick’s Day brought out a huge crowd onto the streets and here’s a group of girls we bumped into on Patrick’s Street.

We were on our way to a cafe for refreshment when I spotted a bicycle chained to a pole, but it had fallen down. As is my way I crouched down to get a shot of the wheel and the pole receding into the sky and when I got up this group of girls were looking at me. One asked what I was doing and of course I had to take their photo since they were enjoying themselves so much!

PS. Thank you Meg for linking to my blog at Cute Overload. Your blog must do some savage amount of traffic if referrers from your site are anything to go by. I did as much traffic here yesterday as I’d normally do on ocaoimh.ie!
PPS. Greetings to Zefrank too. I agree, check out the show, although can there be anyone left who hasn’t seen Ze Frank at least once?

I like these. Claire went exploring an old house: part 1, part 2.

I like these too – Donal’s Stomp photos are particularly good especially as they were taken at a live performance and in a darkened theatre! Very good!

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 13mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/40s