The Girls of Cork City

Two girls standing at the edge of a crowd on Patrick’s Street, Cork.

A quick search for irish cork girls hoops earrings led me to the answers.com page on scanger. Judging by the definition of both male and female clothing, there are plenty of them about!

Stereotypical Appearance

* Very short haircuts (sometimes with a short fringe or quiff at the front) in males. The wearing of a high pony-tail in the girls (usually at the crown of the head), negatively referred to as the “knacker knot”, “scrunchie” or “Annie”. The wearing of ‘quiffs’ on women is also becoming quite popular.
* Peroxide blonde highlights, usually on the top of the head and quiff of males, and as streaks in females have been popular in the Summers of recent years but are losing out to shaved-in patterns among short haired males.
* The wearing of thin moustaches, (“knacker-taches”), such as that made famous by Irish Boxer Barry McGuigan.
* The wearing of branded baseball caps (such as the Burberry check pattern). The cap is often worn at a sharp 70-90 degree angle. The Nike brand has a high take-up rate traditonally among this market segment. In recent years Burberry has also emerged as a strong market player.
* Prominent jewellery: sovereign rings (on men); large earrings, especially hoop earrings, (on women); and thick chains (worn around the neck or wrist) is another characteristic of the scanger; another overt display of affluance, these are often hallmarked silver or gold, or at least gold in appearance—another similarity with the british chav.

Females can be identified by the so-called “Knacker Facelift”; a ponytail with hair pulled back so far that it stretches the facial skin, hiding the wrinkled skin developed from years of eating chips and smoking since childhood.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/800s

Clontarf Bridge at night

Clontarf Bridge in Cork City joins Lapps Quay to Albert Quay where the City Hall is situated. The construction cranes in the background are those at the site of the Elysian pictured previously.

This picture was taken on Monday night when several members of Mallow Camera Club walked the streets of the city taking photos of the streets and the people out on a cold December night. I didn’t have a tripod with me but there is enough street furniture to suit most circumstances and if not, then a wallet stuffed under the lens makes a shot from the ground more interesting!

Google Maps has a relatively good shot of the bridge if you’re interested!
I didn’t know the name of the bridge but this page came to my rescue. Thanks Blue Dolphin!

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 30s

Girl and the bear

A young girl greets a bear on Patrick’s Street, Cork.

Shopping is in full swing but it’s the small things like the smile of a child that bring light to the world.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/250s

I look good!

A street performer from Cork Circus, a street theatre company, poses for a photo on Patrick’s Street, Cork.

That reminds me, I must email him the URL of this blog as he was interested in photos!

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/1000s

Shopping Expressions

Worried looks accompany the average male during the Christmas shopping season. While this was taken at the end of October I bet that young man is still walking around with the same harried look.

My quest for a graphics tablet is complete. The Wacom Graphire4 arrived yesterday from Pixmania. As I promised to myself, I haven’t opened it yet and won’t do so until Christmas Day, or after because the 25th is going to be so busy!

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/640s

Oh those lines!

Pedestrians gather at the traffic lights on Grand Parade and wait to cross a busy city-center street. Yes I got a few funny looks as I crouched down with my camera but I’m used to it by now!

This was a construction site a few months ago but work is progressing well and most of the work is done.

This was an entry in the MCC Patterns around us competition a few weeks back.

The city shoot last night with the club was a great success. I didn’t have a tripod with me and in the dark that posed a challenge sometimes but at other times it was a blessing. There’s enough street furniture to rest a camera on if needed.

Aperture ƒ/9
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/200s

The anxious look

A young woman looks around anxiously in the crowd filled St. Patrick’s Street before she crosses at the traffic lights.

I was standing on one of the new marble blocks shooting a scene across the road when I saw the gathering crowd below me at the traffic lights. I saw the glance and quick as a flash I got the shot. It was originally slightly blurry but a little bit of b/w conversion and a duplicate layer with a touch of blur set to screen mode created a nice effect.

  • I like this: Looking up.
  • David J. Nightingale of Chromasia fame announced that another baby is on the way for him and his wife. Congratulations on that, and on going into the photography full time!
  • I never knew there was so much trouble over Photo.net.
  • 10 Dollar camera?
  • Legoize any image. That’s definitely something I’ll try out! (via)

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 200mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/160s

Bike Lane

Riding a bike anywhere on today’s streets is almost a suicidal pursuit but bike lanes help. Here a bus drove past as I took this shot in an urban tunnel in downtown San Francisco.

Aperture ƒ/22
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/1.3s

Ready to go!

You better be good at hill starts if you live in San Francisco! I presume it’s slightly easier with an automatic transmission rather than manual?

Highly processed image via multiple tools in the GIMP until I came up with an effect I liked – multiple layers, b/w, gaussian blur, layer modes and more.
I had to rotate the image at first and reconstruct parts of the image, but I think it came out reasonably well!

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/250s

White and Red

Tourists in the town of Dingle walk along a street in late September.

I love the contrast between white and red and yet the two houses mirror each other in other ways. This was another entry in the Mallow Camera Club’s Patterns Around Us competition.

Aperture ƒ/9
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 72mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/1600s

Yellow Boxes

Yellow boxes on the junction of Bridge Street and Patrick’s Bridge in Cork. It’s illegal to enter a yellow box if you can’t exit as has happened with a few cars here.

This image was entered in the Patterns Around Us competition along with my Autumn Leaf but this was my favourite one because of the strong colours and unusual contrasting effect.

How I did this: take an ordinary photo and clean it up, fixing levels and all the usual things. Duplicate layer, then play around with the top layer and the curves tool, creating a curve with two waves. You’ll see unusual rainbow hues and the colours will be distorted in other ways too. Now, change the mode of the layer. Each mode will make the image look different, but I settled on “Grain Merge” for the final effect here.

PS. the Blogger’s Dinner last night was most excellent. Luigi’s staff did an outstanding job at creating a tasty meal!

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/400s

The streets of San Francisco

San Francisco is rightly famous for it’s hills and steep slopes. The city streets go up and down and, and no matter what the gradient, cars will always be parked at the side of the street. Local bylaws state that a parked car on a slope must have the front wheels pointed towards the sidewalk so the car won’t roll if the handbrake fails. As you can see, not everyone obeys that particular piece of legislation!

I can’t remember what building this was, but I was struck by the sheer lines of it, and the grey gloomy and despondent colour. There are no entrances visible and the building seems to grow out of the hillside as if mocking the gradient of the land by standing tall and straight.

PS. Happy Thanksgiving! It’s a normal working day around the rest of the world but the Internet is much quieter now that US visitors are off work, relaxing and enjoying the day!

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/80s