I love shooting film (especially 120). I love that it forces me to be more decisive about each frame, because there are a very limited number available at any one time. It’s not like I carry around pockets full of film with me, not at recent prices anyway. The process forces a much slower and more focused (yes I know, I’m sorry) type of photography, which at the time is a wonderful thing but can be a world of painRead More
It wasn’t until we were back at the car after our first time out of the house in 2023 that my phone helpfully pinged and told me what we were doing at this very time in 2022. No surprises, it was the very same thing we’d just done. I suppose that makes it an unofficial tradition to walk around Fota Gardens in the new year. Not exactly as colourful as usual and with a couple of areas closed, but aRead More
After two years of delays and many more years of wasted opportunity, we did finally get that Norway trip done. Seven thousand plus kilometers of roads, road works, mountains, fjords, ferries and fantastic fun. Or if you look at it the way I chose to do it, 3000km of motorway across multiple countries and about 4000km of actual Norway. Having the bike shipped directly to Norway from Ireland just seems like cheating. It’s not a holiday until you’re stuck forRead More
A little while ago, I came down with a very serious case of nostalgia. I think it started right around the time I was watching some film photography videos on YouTube. The nostalgia built over the course of a few days, at which time I could take it no longer and dug around in the cupboard of piled mystery and quickly found my Bronica 645 medium format camera. More impressive still was that after sitting idle since we moved to CorkRead More
The marina area in Cork has long been a favourite destination of mine for photographing general grime and grunge that everything down there is covered in thick layers of. So I was a little disappointed but not entirely surprised today to read that a developer is looking to spend upward of €350m to restore/rebuild/rejuvenate the Odlums building into a now pretty standard mix of offices, apartments, shops, and so on. Part of this would also be to tear down theRead More
Although the first set of photos I took with my new Fuji-X to FD mount adaptor haven’t made it here yet, here is the second set, taken with the FD 50 f1.8 during a short walk around Crosshaven. Because I got a sudden attack of nostalgia for black & white (and because I haven’t shot anything in B&W for B&W in a long, long time) these were taken in the Acros profile baked into the Fuji X-T3 with the electronicRead More
We’d been out on Île de Ré once before, back in 2014 when we were celebrating our honeymoon. In fact much of this years trip will mirror that holiday seven years ago, except for some of the less than superb accommodation we chose back then. I have indeed learned a lot over the years. We were quite lucky to get a place to stay on the island, it being the height of the aoûtienne and in a location that isRead More
A little bit of a spur of the moment walk by the sea with the camera in early August. This location blends together two of my favourite things; The sea and industrial grime. It also works out quite well for my general sense of laziness, not being that far from home. This feels a little bit like the last post, somewhat of a stream of consciousness except in photos instead of words this time around. As I’m posting again soRead More
I’ve have been an Adobe Lightroom user pretty much since day one. As much as people will argue over anything these days, they’ll do so quite passionately over their chosen photo editing workflow and software. After getting the hang of Lightroom, I found it to be invaluable for both minor edits (which is pretty much all I ever do anyway – no Photoshop for me) and for library management. Mind you, this was back when I took thousands or tensRead More
The latest in the long list of things that was “bound to happen eventually” is buying a drone. I went a bit too far down the drone landscape photography rabbit hole on youtube and instagram, then before I know it I’d hopped on the bike and was making my way to the nearest shop that sells lovely things for Ryan. Above and below are from the first flight and it’s only fitting that it’s the Old Head of Kinsale, aRead More
It’s been a while since I was at Inniscarra with a camera. It’s been a while since I was at Inniscarra at all. Shameful to admit, but I didn’t actually realise there was much more to this place than just taking the 2 minute walk to see the dam, stalk some herons, and then hopping back in the car. I tried my best to capture something interesting, then tried to reproduce what I wanted to capture in Lightroom a weekRead More
The Bluebells may have been out, but as usual I was taking pictures of everything else. Taken mostly in Ballinspittle woods with a small amount of Old Head of Kinsale thrown in for good measure. I’ve been thinking that a telephoto is missing from my landscape lens line up. Might have to rectify that problem.
Photos may be unrelated to text, as I’m sick and tired of hearing, thinking and writing about how much of a pain in the ass it is jumping from one covid-19 lockdown to another. With that out of the way, here are some photos of a pre-Christmas (2020) jaunt to Currabinny to engage in one of my favourite types of photography, beach and forest stuff. In case you were wondering, there is no hierarchy of ‘stuff’. The list generally includesRead More
Instead of writing one of my usual long and bewilderingly boring all-in-one holiday posts (which I’ve already got half written thanks to some 2am insomnia a few weeks ago), I’ll try something a little different this time around. As I’ve probably mentioned in the past, Switzerland is a country that I’ve been wanting to stay in and explore more of for several years. I always seemed to bypass it for what seemed like legitimate reasons in the past. Primary amongRead More
Waaaay back in May, I bounced the thought around in my head and eventually here on paper that I needed to be procrastinating less and doing more of the things I love doing. At the time I’d been forced to completely give up on the idea of getting to Norway this year and cancelled or rebooked everything. Ironically, it turned out that we could almost have gone, with travel to Norway opening up again less than 24 hours before weRead More
I’ve been trying to structure this post in my head for a few weeks, with only marginal success. I partially blame not being able to get out on the bike for this, as that’s when I usually do my best thinking. When I got the new bike at the start of the year, I made one of those plans. The ones that end up being carried out about 30% of the time. I was going to wait until the weather gotRead More
I feel like I’ve put up some photos of this place before, but I can never be sure what I’ve put on Instagram or on the blog anymore. This was one of the last times we ventured beyond two kilometers from the house. Just on the cusp of the world going to hell. Social distancing was all the rage and lockdown was on the cards. Ahh March, seems so long ago. Thankfully, social distancing wasn’t a problem on this visitRead More
The five reasons you haven’t gone touring yet. I originally wrote this back in mid-February and planned to edit and publish it not long after that. However, with current world events as they are, I really tried to stop thinking about being on the bike so much. After a few weeks in the Covid-19 uncertainty bubble now, I’m coming around to the realisation that life must go on. Whatever that life ends up looking like. A recent post got meRead More
When my mind drifts, it’s usually to the same old recurring thought. “Wouldn’t it be grand to live on the doorstep of the Alps”. Even my wandering subconscious is ruled entirely by thoughts of being on the bike. To be able to ride into the tallest mountains on perfect roads at the drop of a hat or at the slightest passing fancy. But more recently, albeit mostly when I’m looking out at some fantastic scene such as the above, IRead More
This, like many others, is a post that came out of an extended journey on two wheels. I got thinking about miles covered, places seen and where it all began. It was back in 2002 when I got my second bike, which was also my second that I’d bought from new. Back then I had more money than sense. Having written that, even now in 2020 the balance hasn’t quite reached equilibrium. It was my second bike, but my firstRead More