A very brief visit to Airfield Farm/Estate/Gardens yesterday. First time there in ohh, probably about 6 or 7 years. The place has changed a lot. Nice even when it’s packed with people, you can still find a nice quiet spot or two.
Instead of joining the crowd milling around the docklands, I chose the lazy option and photographed the entire FlightFest event from my living room. While I may not have had the best seat in the house, it was certainly the most comfortable 🙂 When I got over the initial fear of seeing a Boeing 737 descending and flying that low over the city, I enjoyed the show quite a bit. That first pass by the Aer Lingus plane was boneRead More
IMMA is and has always been too damn handy. As I have mentioned before, it literally is the neighbours front garden. If it was any closer I wouldn’t have to put my shoes on to walk over there. Quiet neighbours too, never any trouble from them. They have a couple of wild parties every year and a couple of more sedate ones but I’ve never had to go up there and bang on their door to tell them to keepRead More
Or so I thought anyway. Just something to pass off as an update on an otherwise run of the mill ( so far) weekend. About a week ago, I spotted a screaming (i.e. great) deal on B&H for a Canon 60D. Presumably because it’s an old model and due to be replaced by the 70D next month. However, while the 70D will be all the latest gadgets and gizmos, bear in mind that I haven’t bought an SLR since myRead More
A little over a week ago, something bright and warm appeared in the Dublin sky. When it didn’t disappear within a few hours/days, people began to accept it as the norm. As usual, this sends people out into the world in droves. Every square inch of beach will be occupied (or used as some kind of scalded scobe battle ground), scenic drives will be jam packed with tourists and fair weather cyclists/motorcyclists and ice-cream men begin to form complex battleRead More
Sitting at home on a Sunday morning, needing to get out for a few hours despite the cold and the threat of rain. Wiclow? Kildare? Wait, we haven’t been to the Botanic Gardens in ages! Every time we go up there, I seem to get the great notion to try something new. “This time, I won’t take photos of any plants”. How very obscure I’m sure. After all, plants are so mainstream. Things like that. This wasn’t much different, althoughRead More
I thought a little ‘year in brewing’ review was probably called for as the end of 2012 will mark my first year as a home brewer. If at the same time it serves to give a few of those currently on the fence about taking up the hobby a bit of a kick in the right direction, all the better. As I said, I started brewing at the start of 2012 after humming and hawing about it (as usual) forRead More
A quick Christmassy post before the annual pilgrimage to the rebel county for for festivities. About this time of year, wonderful things start happening. Possibly the most wonderful of all is when Julie announces that it’s time for some experimental gingerbread baking. This year, I took it as an opportunity to skulk about so I could both test my new camera and so that I could possibly munch on the rejects of the experimental gingerbread baking process. But first, theRead More
It’s a while since I was last down in the War Memorial park taking photos. In fact the last time was probably some time in 2010 on a trip down there with Julie to photograph all the trees shedding their blossom. It’s somewhat appropriate to post this now given that I’ve we’ve gone back on the ol’ running (or at least shuffling along at slightly faster than walking pace). The War Memorial park is one of the top locations forRead More
IMMA has become more or less that; A place to bring new or recently dusted off camera gear for a stroll around the grounds. No cat photos and not a focus chart in sight. Just a few from this visit before I drag and drop the set into the abyss that is the 2011 archive.
Grabbed this on my way out the door to work yesterday morning. Had I actually thought about what I was doing, I’d have put the 70-200 on Julie’s 5D2 and not my own 5D. It all went a bit wonky in post processing. It’s a bit of an odd feeling, going from shooting a photo to processing, uploading and posting within a 48 hour period. Worse still, I was almost tempted to post it last night. I don’t know ifRead More
Been on a bit of an analog thing of late, thanks in no small part to the quantity of velvia scanned some weeks back. No updates in a while because I started a new job a couple of weeks ago and outside all of the settling in, trying to remember as many new names as possible and all that, I haven’t been hugely inclined to udpate the blog. These three were taken with the Diana fisheye lens that Julie gotRead More
Now that all the France holiday posts are done, I can get back to reviewing some of the more recent additions to my lightroom catalog. This was from a batch of Velvia I developed recently (and had been sitting on the shelf in the spare room for about a year previous to that). How do I know that? Because other shots on the roll were from Christmas/New Year 2010 at the Botanic Gardens. This was shot with the Diana, somethingRead More
While Julie was doing her “turn this way, turn that way, smile” thing in Iveagh Gardens last weekend I took the opportunity to tag along and skulk around the gardens getting better acquainted with my X100. It’s not quite there, but it’s getting there. I spent most of the day at ƒ2… I’ve only used the thing in jpeg mode so far but I’m quite liking how good Lightroom is to the files. Specifically what it’s doing when I applyRead More
The inaugural ‘Coffee & Beer Photowalk’ (so obscure you probably haven’t heard of it) took place today in Dublin city. The guest list was severely limited by a committee formed specifically to decide on the Coffee & Beer Photowalk guest list. They’ve since been disbanded due to allegations of nepotism. The walk was carried out at a determined pace, planned out with military precision and executed with such preciseness (if that’s even a word) that it would have made babyRead More
Back to the grounds of IMMA before I retire these two rolls worth of scans into the cavernous expanses of my photo archive. First, some Pan F 50 lovingly modified by lightroom. Secondly some SFX, split toned in the only method I know; Ham-fisted. That’s about it for IMMA this time around I think. Of the 26 or so photos from this session I haven’t put up, I think they’ll have to remain semi-retired sitting in the ‘current jobs’ folderRead More
Another from IMMA, this time shot on Ilford PanF+ (5o ISO) to somewhat illustrate the difference between this and the previous shot in SFX 200. Both rolls processed using Rodinal for the recommended time. I love using PanF+ but at 50 ISO, a tripod is quite often if not always necessary. Again I’m very impressed with how the metered prism did with the exposure and I’ll continue to use it now instead of carrying around the light meter or justRead More
After yesterdays ‘oh shit I can’t post what I wanted to post so I’ll post something else taken with the same camera’ entry, here’s what I wanted to post. Having got my hands on some fresh developer, this is the result of the test SFX 200 roll I’ve had sitting in the fridge for over a year. It taunted me every time I went in there for milk so it had to get used. Having looked over the roll, I’dRead More
Procrastination, I’ve got it. For the best part of, if not more than six years I’d been talking about how some day I’d take a mad notion and do this. Jump on the bike, book the ferry and go see some people in Chorley that I haven’t seen in probably close to 20 years. Maybe more out of the feeling that if anything happened to them and I hadn’t gone over, I’d regret it for anything between a year andRead More
This was Wednesday, my fourth flight of the week. The week started on Sunday morning with two alarms set for 4 and 4:05am. No snooze. It takes two alarms to wake me up and get me out of bed. Quick shower, no breakfast (that’s what the Aer Lingus lounges are for after all) and into the car for the drive to the airport. Playing dodgems with the taxis for 20 minutes or so before locating a free space in sectionRead More