Tivoli Docks on the River Lee as seen from The Marina in Blackrock in January 2020.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 8s |
Tag Archives: Long Exposure
The Lights of Llafranc
The lights of Llafranc in Spain shine brightly near 1am in the morning after a wedding ceremony in a nearby hotel.
Swimming there was a highlight of the year for me. Lovely calm and warm waters. As it’s the Mediterranean, there was barely any tide, so you could be sure how much beach was there at any one time!
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 48mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 5s |
The Valletta Skyline
Fireworks At Cobh People’s Regatta 2022
I barely made it to Cobh on Sunday night to photograph the fireworks display that started promptly at 10pm. On the way there, the cloudy sky was lit up by peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. Rain fell in light spatters on the car, and I’m told there was a downpour just before I arrived.
Luckily the rain held off for the duration of the fireworks that night. I met Vivian and Michelle in front of the Cathedral where they had saved a space for me. I set up my tripod quickly and grappled with an umbrella while I secured my camera to the tripod and connected a remote release.
Before I could manually focus the camera, the bells of the Cathedral rang out and the first firework flew into the sky and burst with a bang.
If you’re interested. I shot at around f/5.0, ISO 400 and timed the exposure manually with the shutter release when I saw fireworks fly into the air and explode. It worked most of the time, and to help focus I tapped the screen on the water in front of the fireworks, which adds a focus square there on my camera.
| Aperture | ƒ/5 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 38mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 2s |
Spike Island Fireworks
A few photos from the fireworks display on Spike Island in Cork Harbour last night. 1300 fireworks were launched in just under 10 minutes!
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 124mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 4s |
Reaching for the sky
The enormous (for Lanzarote) Arrecife Gran Hotel & Spa sits in the harbour of Arrecife and dominates the skyline. It’s the tallest building on the island and not without controversy. Some time after it’s construction a law came into force forbidding the construction of such tall buildings on the island.
This page says it was built almost overnight in 1988, but Wikipedia and other sources mention 1970 or 1971. It suffered a huge fire in 1994 but was then reopened as 5 star hotel in 2004. I think I need to go up to the rooftop bar next time for the views ..
This is a long exposure shot. I didn’t have my tripod with me so I had to rest the camera on a wall, with my wallet and a lens cap under the lens to tilt the camera up. Making things more precarious was the very strong gusts of wind that blew through the area that would almost knock you over that day. Certainly if you were huddling over the camera, trying to keep it steady for the 10 seconds or so of this image.
| Aperture | ƒ/16 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 16mm |
| ISO | 50 |
| Shutter speed | 25s |
The Road to Femés
Every time I go to Lanzarote I like to photograph the road coming from Playa Blanca to Femés. It leads to a very steep hill that some cars have problems with. Our hired car included, as it was very underpowered!
If you look carefully you’ll see the ghostly image of a car near the pole in the foreground of this image. They stopped for a good few seconds before successfully getting to the top of the hill.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 30s |
Fireworks Over Cobh
Fireworks lit the sky over Cobh last night as part of the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. I’m glad Henry heard about the event as I had no idea it was on!
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 65mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 2s |
The hurler and the buses
The stunning mural of a hurler on the wall of a house on Anglesea Street and South Terrace stands watching passing traffic on a cold January evening. The mural by Dublin artist ACHES is amazing to look at during the day but I liked how the hurler is just visible between these passing buses.
You can read more about the mural in this Examiner interview with ACHES.
Q: People love to know the facts and figures of a job like this. Can you hit us with some numbers?
A: The dimensions of the wall were approximately 14.5 metres wide by 19 metres high.
I used roughly 205 cans of spray paint. The piece took 10 days to paint and I had to take two days off during this as the winds were too high to be on the lift as any winds over 45km/h are deemed unsafe to work in an elevated boom lift.
Q: What has the feedback been like?
A. The feedback has been great so far. As I was painting the mural I had numerous chats with passers by who were super friendly, often offering to buy me a coffee or some lunch and even in one instance a bottle of whiskey. I was also looked after well by the local businesses, Twenty Sandwich Bar and Cupcake Cottage who kept me fed and watered for the duration of my stay. After finishing the mural the feedback online has been great too, with multiple online resources sharing the image, which is great. It has also been photographed by a lot of people so far who have uploaded their own images of the wall online. Hopefully when the 5k limit lifts even more people can enjoy the piece.
| Aperture | ƒ/2.2 |
| Camera | SM-G998B |
| Focal length | 2.2mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/2s |
The Spinning Ferris Wheel
December Fireworks
Fireworks illuminate the park beside Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Blackrock tonight. The fireworks were part of the “Magic Nights By The Lee – A Winter Solstice” series of events but unfortunately due to Covid 19 they didn’t tell anyone where the fireworks would be launched from as reported by The Echo earlier today,
For public health reasons, viewing sites will not be provided at launch locations. However, the wider public is invited to enjoy the display from a safe, socially distanced vantage point and can tune in to Red FM for the accompanying audio.
Local residents were informed and a small crowd gathered to watch. It was a superb show, with a huge variety of colours and explosions. Made for a hectic ten minutes while I pressed the shutter button again and again hoping for good shots!
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 160 |
| Shutter speed | 5s |
