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

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

Shadows of prison and freedom

A crow flies off into the freedom of the air with a crumb of bread he found on the pavement. The railings of nearby houses are like those of a prison keeping humans in and trapped and closed off.

Who is free?

Aperture ƒ/10
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/200s

Standing free

Shot down in Garretstown Beach last year. Connectivity continues to be a problem so this will be short.

Aperture ƒ/10
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/320s

The red door at No. 48

No. 48 on Grand Parade Cork is an old disused building near the Goat Broke Loose. It’s also next door to the old location of Fianna Fail’s Cork office.

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/100s

Innovative Streets

It’s good to look down sometimes. I think this was used to hold a decorative safety pole but I don’t remember ever seeing it used. There are poles on the other side of this narrow street however.

The street of course is Paul Street behind Waterstones.

I was going to blog that yesterday was World Book Day but time ran out for me and the power cut didn’t help my motivation much. Nevertheless, Cearta.ie blogged it. Check out some of my photos from last year’s World Book Day celebration!

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/400s

The red and white man

A street entertainer on stilts entertained the crowd at the Midleton Food and Drink Festival last September. I took photos of him in Cork too and I think he recognised me and my wife as he made a beeline for us and stopped to chat.

This was shot from below as he was towering over us, but I cropped a much larger shot. I used flash to illuminate his face against the bright sky.

Aperture ƒ/9
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/250s

Caution Children

A sign at the entrance to my estate warns motorists to watch out for children playing on the street.

Just to prove that you don’t need a big digital SLR to take interesting photos, this was taken with my Panasonic FZ5. I saw the great cloudscape in the sky and illuminated the sign with the onboard flash.

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera DMC-FZ5
Focal length 6mm
ISO 80
Shutter speed 1/1600s

SF Weekly

San Francisco Weekly is only one of a number of free publications available in that city. Not sure what day it’s out though. Doh!

My photos went down reasonably well at Photography Ireland yesterday. There’s a good street photography forum there. It’s worth a visit if you’re looking for inspiration or critiques or simply want to talk to like-minded people!

4 Easy Photoshop Techniques to Make Your Pictures Pop! has a few techniques I’ve used myself in the past. I meant to blog about those techniques, but hey, they’ve done the hard work now, including screenshots and everything. Good post!

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/250s

King of my world

A child is carried atop his parent’s shoulders on St. Patrick’s Street, Cork a few weeks ago.

I really like this shot, for what reason, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s the brightness and flowery design of the clothing worn by parent and child compared to the passers by. I’m sure both parent and child are in a happy place wandering around town.

“Here’s Health” and a sign advertising the Mutton Lane Inn can be seen in the background.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/400s

Up up and away

Yesterday the Elysian’s tower reached the 18th floor, 72m above sea level and one of the tallest buildings in the country. Apparently St Finbarre’s Cathedral is 75m to it’s central spire but there won’t be a 2400sq ft penthouse at the top of that!

While we Irish congratulate ourselves on building an 18 storey lift shaft, here’s one I made earlier in San Francisco. I tried counting the floors but lost count around 14!

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

Buildings in the sky

I live in a city where the tallest building is one that will be 17 floors high so when I travel to far off lands it’s always great to see tall skyscrapers looming over the streets.

This might bear a striking resemblance to a previous image but it is a different one and was one of my entries in the Patterns Around Us competition at my local camera club.

I have another 3 or 4 similar images but I’m not going to bore you to death by posting all of them unless I can come up with a nice montage effect or something. I’ll have to think about it.

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/320s