Buy a hot dog

I’d call them hot dogs simply because I’m ignorant of the German name used on the sign outside this stall. Whatever they’re called they were delicious!
Pictured during the St. Patrick’s Festival Cork 2006.

Aperture ƒ/4.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/60s

All good stuff

Is chocolate bad and contain calories if it’s all organic and good and pure and sold in a homely fashion? Go on, you know you want some!
Yummy looking chocolate brownies for sale at a stall during the St Patrick’s Festival Cork 2006!

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/60s

Hangers on

Clothes hang unnoticed amid the crowds and stalls down Academy Street Cork during the St Patrick’s Festival on March 18th 2006!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/400s

The French Soap Seller

One of the stalls at the St. Patrick’s Festival Market sold perfumed soaps and other crafts. This French gentleman owned the stall and cheerfully told us that he’d be travelling the country until his stock ran out, at which point he’d return home and have to do household chores for his wife!
I think he enjoyed life on the road.

Aperture ƒ/5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/60s

A riot of colour from Peru

One of the more colourful stalls at the open air market during the St Patrick’s Festival in Cork!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/125s

The candle seller’s red hat

This man was selling scented candles on a small table in front of the Crawford Art Gallery. The sense of smell is one of our most primitive and releases memories and stirs emotions. He was doing a brisk trade.
When I saw his woolly red hat I had to make a portrait of him!
Pictured during the St Patrick’s Festival Cork.

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 72mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/125s

Cork St Patrick’s Festival Market

One side of Academy Street was taken up by a long line of stalls populated by an international host of sellers! There were biscuits and cakes from Brittany, soaps and wooden toys from France, clothes and trinkets from Peru and lots more.

I took a few shots of this scene but I like this one because the famous tower of St. Anne’s Church, or Shandon Bells as it’s more commonly known is visible in the top right. Nobody could mistake it for anywhere but Cork. That Barry’s Tea sign is a pretty big give away too of course!

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 106mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/160s

English Market Seller

There’s a wonderful looking olive and spice stall in the English Market!
Unfortunately it is always mobbed with customers making it difficult to capture a photo of it but I raised my camera into the air and shot this blind.
The original is quite grainy as I used a high ISO of 3200 to compensate for the bad light.
Workflow:

  • Increased the saturation slightly.
  • Unsharp mask with a radius of 5 to bring out the grain more.
  • Duplicate layer and used the Threshold tool to isolate bright parts.
  • Blur the top layer with a radius of 25 pixels.
  • Set the top layer mode to “Soft Light”.
  • Saved a .xcf version, .jpg and a resized jpeg too. I didn’t unsharp mask the resized version.

Hope you find that useful!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 3200
Shutter speed 1/320s

Christmas Goods For Sale

At Blackpool shopping center there was a charity event for the Belarussian Orphanage Project. A band played inside and just inside the main doors they were selling Christmas cards and small gifts. Not sure if I should have left this as a colour image but I think as a character study of the boy and woman it works much better in black and
white.