Looking up at Union Square

A festival or competition was being held on the beautiful August day we wandered through Union Square, San Francisco. It provided ample inspiration for photos although we didn’t linger long because we wanted to see more of the city.

The statue pictured is in the center of the Square and, “commemorates Admiral Dewey’s Spanish-American War victory at Manila Bay.” Here’s more and more on Union Square and the history behind it.

Department stores, Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co can be clearly seen in the background, it’s the center of the shopping world in San Francisco!

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

San Francisco Tourists

Tourists stopped on the sidewalk off Union Square in San Francisco last summer. Despite the city’s reputation for fog the day was sunny and clear.

I had a great time doing some street photography of course!

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

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

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

Animal Care Society Collection

Volunteers from the Animal Care Society were out in force on Saturday collecting to raise funds.
We bumped into Beamish and his owner and I forgot to ask her name, but hopefully she’ll see this picture as I gave her one of my cards. Beamish was lovely and very placid, perfect tempermant for dealing with the crowds on a busy Saturday in town.

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/125s

The most sent around duck photo

I would love to know who made an email attachment of my thieving duck and thank them. The Aflac Duck seems to be a well known part of American insurance marketing and people got a kick out of these ducks stealing money from a lady on the street!

Apparently my thieving duck has become “the most sent-around-ha-ha-look-at-the-duck photo evar” but I wish I had watermarked the image with my blog url. It has appeared on:

To those that linked back here, thank you. To the rest, shame on you, why didn’t you use Google and find my blog?

I’m still chuffed that an image of mine is now an “urban legand” of sorts. Not many can say that! More comments on flickr but please link here if you’re going to link anywhere!

Update – welcome visitors from the Zefrank forum!

Update on June 14th. It appears the News of the World newspaper used the Thieving Duck last Sunday. I sent them off an email this afternoon so hopefully I will hear from them within a day or two.

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 55mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/80s

Gatecrashing on Caroline Street

Another shot from Sunday at Stanley Super 800’s recording of the Gatecrashing video. The multi-shot posts are such a pain to do the rest of these will be single photo posts!

Aperture ƒ/5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/60s

City people in a b/w world

Shopping, talking, walking and rushing. People in the concrete jungle.

Selective colourisation using a layer mask to hide a b/w layer above the original colour layer. Shot from the same place I took this photo in front of The Body Shop in Cork.

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/200s

Drag the child shopping

A mother drags her reluctant offspring up the main street in Killarney in early February. She was in a hurry but he didn’t want to be rushed.
Mom won the battle!

PS. today is Daffodil Day, I’ve made a theme header you can use on your blog if you want to spread the word about cancer research and the importance of their fund raising events.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/160s

The eyes in the bus

A child looking out the back window of a bus.

Weird colours and look due to some experimenting with new plugins. Way overblown I know but I gotta have some fun sometimes!

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/100s

Patrick’s Day in pictures

Revelers who were obviously having a great time at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Cork!

Patrick's Day in pictures

Big and crazy hats were the order of the day for many visitors and spectators

Patrick's Day in pictures

Crowd Safety officials had their hands full with the large crowd at the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Cork. I think they’re worried.

Patrick's Day in pictures

A carousel in Emmet’s Place attracted parents and kids and did a roaring business after the short St. Patrick’s Day parade in Cork. Each time themachine came to a halt parents and children alike both rushed up to grab their places!

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

A Photographer’s rights around the world

Do you recklessly walk around urban areas with your camera like I do? Are you worried?

A few days ago I received an email from John Hennessy asking me about street photography and especially what rights and responsibilities do I as a photographer have when out with my camera on the street.

Many moons ago I linked to this article on photographers rights in Ireland but it’s worth revisiting again because of the comments added since. Comment 11 by Bill is especially useful going into further detail about different scenarios but also making it obvious that the law really hasn’t been tested or is complete.

Irish law has been quite grey in a few areas when in comes to photography and publication of certain types of photos. For example the taking of a photo of a garda while on duty is not illegal however the publication of said photo is, if the member of the force is identifiable.

The photography of minors is a very dangerous area for any photographer and one area I avoid like the plague.

Blasphemy is still illegal in this country, therefore pictures that are considered so will get you into all sorts of hot stuff. This extends to artistic photos too.

A post on Digital Photography School asks Do Photographers have Rights? There are links to photographer’s rights articles from around the world so if you’re going to do a little traveling it might be a good place to start before you get into trouble!

Jpg Magazine’s issue 9 was dedicated to street photography and Chris Weeks reviewed it. You can download a PDF sample of the issue which I have done, but I haven’t got around to reading it yet. Chris likes it but he doesn’t pull any punches in his review. His review is harsh but I’m tempted to subscribe now..