Category Archives: Black and White Photography

Some Of My Favourite Trees

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Lets get a few facts out of the way before I go any further, I don’t own the Phoenix Park and I am not the only person who uses it………but, you knew there was a but coming didn’t you, I don’t like when things change in the park and cars are allowed to travel down paths that were once strictly only for walkers and bikes.

Ok, so they are doing work on the main road through the park so they had to make some concessions to traffic that needs to use the park but really, did you have to open up one of my favourite walks through the park. I went to take photos of this area near the papal cross with my lovely new medium format film camera and to my horror discovered cars travelling at speed in my direction as I was about to set up a tripod in the middle of the quiet roadway. To be honest when the first car came along and sounded his horn I was about to throw him a couple of my favourite words that I’m no longer allowed to use in front of my three year old son, but then I noticed that there were more behind him and one thing that was lacking from the scene was the lovely white metal barriers at the top of the road. Bleedin vandals, I first thought, can they not leave anything alone. What use could they possibly have for three small metal poles, maybe they planned on using them at the entrance to the driveway on their house to stop people stealing their car.

I make it sound like this scene went on for ages but to be completely honest it lasted no more than about twenty seconds before I made a run for it. I wasn’t going to risk getting my [borrowed] camera damaged and this guy didn’t look like he was genuinely planning on stopping completely.

I like to think I was a gentleman about this incident, but really I’m just a coward with a skinhead.

You can purchase prints or postcards of this photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

(Comments and opinions are greatly appreciated, please feel free to let me know what you think)

Silver Tree Roots, Phoenix Park

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Am I allowed to pick my own favourite photographs on this blog or should that honour be given to others who may possibly be a little bit more objective on this matter. Well, I am going to stick my neck out on this one and tell you that this here shot is one of my favourite shots in the last few months. I think I love it so much because it was taken on my new favourite toy [that being a wonderful Bronica camera, thanks Caroline by the way, in case you are reading this] and my new favourite film [Kodak Tri-x]. I promised I would always keep the geeky photographic tech speak off this blog so I won’t get into the reasons for liking one particular film over another, I can see your eyes glaze over at the slightest mention of tonal ranges, grain size, etc, so that’s the end of that already. I will also avoid explaining the joys of the wonderfully loud clunk of the Bronica camera when you press the shutter button, I think some of the deer several miles away get a bit of a jump each time I take a photo with it.

I love this photo for many reasons but I think the first one is the over-riding silver colour in the tree bark and the roots. To be honest it is something I have noticed that seems to be lacking a wee bit with digital shots. The Canon Eos is perfect for most shots but it seems to only feature black, white and hundreds of shades of gray but for some reason there is no silver in digital images, it’s also very possible I am doing something wrong in the processing stage but that’s all behind me now.

The image was taken on the grounds of the visitor centre in the Phoenix Park, regular visitors to this blog will have noticed at this stage that I like to photograph in this area quite a lot, but if you’ve been there yourself you know I can’t be blamed for loving it.

I was actually in the park this very morning [without camera by the way] and my son and I spent about half an hour watching two young swans practising how to fly. This involved the pair of them basically running across the top of the water whilst flapping their wings frantically. It was a truly wonderful sight to see, I must admit I spent the entire time wishing they wouldn’t succeed as the noise of them running across the water was breathtaking. I’ve never seen them doing this before and I felt very lucky to have stumbled upon them, although after about five minutes my son did keep asking me what I was looking at all the time. “Look Daddy, a stick”, “Look son, a swan trying to take off”, the sticks won in the end so I duly picked myself a good stick and began beating the fallen autumn leaves until they too attempted to take to the air. I must admit I do rather enjoy a good run around in the leaves, something very invigorating about it all.

You can purchase prints or postcards of this photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

(Comments and opinions are greatly appreciated, please feel free to let me know what you think)

Picnic Bench in the Visitor Centre, Phoenix Park

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Phoenix Park Visitor Centre

I kid you not, this story is completely true.

A friend of mine lent me this rather beautiful Bronica medium format camera recently.
It’s a rather daunting looking beast of a thing at first look so I briefly read the manual, loaded the camera and headed to the park for the day with about twenty rolls of film in my bag. I proceeded to buy a take away coffee in the visitor centre and sat down at a picnic table to see if I could remember all the details from the manual I had read the night before. I open up the top viewing mechanism and have a look through it to see if I can start by getting my head around how to use a very different way of looking at a photograph. To start with everything in the view finder is back to front and when you move the camera everything seems to move in the wrong direction. So for example, if you want to move the camera left you need to swing it to the right, sounds complicated, well it is at first. I take my first look through the camera as it sits on the table and this very cone is sitting right back in the middle of my vision. I rapidly learned how to focus the lens, don’t forget everything is manual on this camera, there are no automatic buttons you can press to do anything for you. After that the only thing I changed about this scene was to move the camera slightly closer just to make the cone a wee bit bigger in the image.

I will finish off by letting you know I managed to shot only two rolls of film in the entire day, what was I thinking by bringing so much with me in the first place. You tend to spend a lot more time actually thinking about a photograph when it’s film you are using, it’s a very different experience to shooting digitally when you can just fire off shot after shot and then worry about editing at home on the computer. I have found with film I tend to spend rather a long time looking through the camera and asking myself if this scene is actually worth capturing or is it just ok at best. I think I now take fewer pictures but my success rate has increased dramatically.

You can purchase prints or postcards of this photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

(Comments and opinions are greatly appreciated, please feel free to let me know what you think)

Gates Of The Magazine Fort, Phoenix Park

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Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park

These are the gates of the much neglected Magazine Fort, not too far away from the Islandbridge gates, if you ever get a chance to have a ramble around then I highly recommend it. The Magazine Fort is up on a hill and you get some really amazing views of other parts of the park along with the truly spectacular War Memorial Gardens in Kilmainham. Maybe some day I will get something going for the War Memorial Gardens but until I am finished with this project I think I will have to continue to dedicate my time to the Phoenix Park, in fairness this could take me another few years.

I really love this area of the park, there is a lovely quiet walkway to one side and then on the other side you can find the wide open expanse that is the sports playing fields. Part of me thinks it is a total shame that this wonderful building has been left to fall into such a state but it also fits in perfectly to the general feel of the park. This is a very large natural public park and most of it is simply left to its own devices, the deer run wild, the trees look after themselves etc, so there is something very fitting about this building being allowed to slowly crumble and fit into its surroundings.

On the other hand I also wonder what it would be like if it had been kept in working order and maybe turned into some kind of museum or visitor centre. Neither of those things have happened so there is no point in dwelling on the past, lets just enjoy it for what it is, there is still something beautifully desolate about the building.

Just after taking this photo I met a French man who lives and works here in Dublin having a leisurely stroll around the area on his lunch break. He noticed I was carrying around a rather large film camera and immediately produced his own film camera from his work bag. He was telling me he has just starting taking photographs on film all over again, it was nice to know I am not the only maniac who is going back in time with his equipment. I’m sure it would have been funny to overhear our conversation giving out about all the advances in the digital age and how they have almost ruined some of the simpler things in life, like using film and not having a mobile phone in your possession for a couple of hours. Its one of my little rules when I go to the park, I tell my close friends that they will have to do without me for a few hours, I leave my phone in the car and just wander aimlessly. If you are an opportunistic thief reading this I drive a …………………… and I always leave my phone, keys, money and other expensive belongings in the car, I don’t bother locking the car either, at least that way I will still have my windows intact when I come back.

You can purchase prints or postcards of this photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

(Comments and opinions are greatly appreciated, please feel free to let me know what you think)

Phoenix Park Magazine Fort.

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Phoenix Park Magazine Fort

It’s not a long story, it’s a short story for a change.
I took this photo with a really old medium format camera which involves lugging a large tripod to rest it on, it’s far too big to just hold in my hand. Most of the photos take at least 10 to 20 seconds to expose. This chap passed me by when I was setting everything up and then seemed to disappear around the corner. By the time I had actually pressed the button on the camera I didn’t feel the need to look up, when you have already spent 10 minutes getting everything right there really is no need for one last look, so I click the button and wait for the second click to tell me the photo has been taken. As I am waiting I do look up and see this fella strolling [with intent] right in the centre of my shot. I cursed and then patiently waited until he was gone again. I then took exactly the same photo but obviously without the annoying intruder this time.

A week later I’m in the darkroom printing enlargements and I happen to print the wrong photo, it is this one you are looking at now. I leave it to one side to dry out a bit and then work on the print without him in it. When I actually compared the two photos I have to admit I much prefer this one, the other one is fine but quite simply, it’s lacking the man.

This is one of those great instances when you think you have a great eye for photographs and a simple mistake rubbishes everything you think you know. This is something I love about photography, experts can try and teach you so much but mistakes tend to teach you so much more.

I feel I should have chased after the chap so I could put a name on him.

You can purchase prints or postcards of this photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

(Comments and opinions are greatly appreciated, please feel free to let me know what you think)

Scene From The Visitor Centre, Phoenix Park

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This shot was taken on the grounds of the visitor centre in the Phoenix Park. It is one of the best kept areas in the entire park with some of the most interesting and dare I say it, one of the most exotic collections of trees to be found anywhere in the park.

This photograph was the result of knee busting half hour crouch over the camera as I waited for the very large family of squirrels to come back out and graze in the area just to the left of the photograph. As I was setting up the tripod and camera there must have been at least ten squirrels happily munching on seeds and nuts that had fallen to the ground, they didn’t seem that perturbed by my presence so I thought I would slowly set up my camera and just wait for them to come back out. As you can probably make out from the photo they obviously had enough to keep them going at this stage because they didn’t come back down again, I did see them way off further down the line of trees so either they moved on or were just having a laugh at my expense.

It was only after they moved further on down that I actually lifted the camera up a little bit and saw this rather beautiful scene through the lens, so take that you pesky squirrels, I don’t need you to make my pictures complete. I suppose I should really have thanked them for making me wait here for so long, by the time I actually composed the shot a rather shy sun had finally decided to shine on my back again and gave enough light to create some really fine detail in the tree bark. For some reason I am becoming rather obsessed with squirrels these days, they poor things, they don’t ask to be stalked in this way.

Also, if you look really closely right down the centre of the image you can just make out a person standing with their hands up against a tree, I didn’t actually see them at first. It was only after blowing the picture up in the darkroom that I realised what it was. A friend of mine has speculated that they are probably feeding the squirrels by hand, they just don’t like people with cameras annoying them.

This shot was taken on a Bronica medium format camera and then was hand printed by myself in the darkroom. I am very much falling in love with the square shape of medium format photography so I should warn you all to get used to this shape of photograph in the future.

You can purchase prints or postcards of this photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

Where Do These Steps Go To.

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The Clocktower in Farmleigh

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I think the best thing I can do with this image is maybe not tell you where the stairs lead to, it kind of adds a bit of mystery to the photo. Most people I have shown it to have asked that exact question and the reaction is always best if I don’t tell people. Let’s just say it was taken on the grounds of Farmleigh House but that’s all the information you are getting for now. Sometimes I think images like these are best if the fine details are just left to your imagination, maybe you could leave a comment below and let me know where you think they are leading to. Suffice to say they don’t end up in heaven, I know because I’ve been to the top of them and I am still on this living world.

The photo was taken on a very old Russian made Kiev 6C medium format camera, I just love the almost antique like feel about the way it turned out. The photo was taken using Ilford Xp2 Super 120mm film and the print was made using my very own hands in a darkroom.

You can purchase prints or postcards of this photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

My First Roll Of Film In ……….Years.

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Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park

This here photo that you are looking at right now is the first roll of actual photographic film that I have shot in approximately six years. I have had a real desire recently to start shooting on film again, a few people have questioned my sanity but to be honest I think it’s for my sanity that I am switching back to the old format of photography again. Let me try and explain in the shortest and simplest way possible. I was on holidays a few months ago and as per usual with my holidays I took rather a large amount of photographs. At the end of the first week I began to notice the large amount of time I was spending in front of a computer screen processing these photographs, it was something I wasn’t really enjoying any more and because of this I wasn’t really putting the right amount of work into actually working on my photographs to look the way I visualized them in the first place. I was getting bored spending so much time working out all the ins and outs of Photoshop, it just didn’t feel like photography to me anymore. I have always had a great love of printing my own photographs in a darkroom and changing over to a computer screen just didn’t suit my lack of patience in learning something new.

This is all just a personal choice, I’m not saying one form of photography is better than the other, maybe I just enjoy one more than the other.

Anyway, I have finally had a chance to get back into the darkroom again, it took me many hours to get the skills up to speed again but I think I’m getting there now. I find the whole process so therapeutic, it’s a great way to empty all the thoughts from your head and just recharge the brain while you spend eight hours counting seconds and watching images slowly emerge on a piece of paper. It’s actually quite exciting watching an image slowly appear over the course of thirty seconds as you gently ripple water over a piece of paper that turns into a photographic image as if by magic.

The photo was taken on the grounds of Farmleigh House, not too far from the Clocktower. If you walk around the side of the house near the gallery and the cowshed there is a lovely short little wooded walkway which then brings you to the Clocktower.

I hope you enjoy the photo, there’s lots more to come really soon First I have to go and figure out how to use my scanner all over again.

You can purchase prints or postcards of his photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

Two Deer Recovering.

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Deer in the Phoenix Park

This is a shot from a misty winters morning excursion to the Phoenix Park.
I am not sure whether these lads were just resting in the morning sunshine or if they are indeed trying to recover from a heavy night on the booze. I often wonder if all the animals get together in the late hours in the park, when all has gone quiet and dark. I can imagine the scene with the squirrels arriving weighed down with nuts, the ducks with lots of stale bread, wild dogs with biscuit treats and the deer being the main offenders with a selection of home brews. The deer spend the entire winter using all manner of windfall from the trees to brew up some brain melting concoction that nobody even likes, but hey, when you’re stuck in a park all night you gotta take something to keep you warm. I would say it all starts very formal and slowly degrades into one great big shouty singalong. My guess is the squirrels are the biggest messers, they can travel great distances and also tend to get closer to humans so they can gather all the best [and latest] jokes that are going around. You think they are scavenging for food when they hang around your lovely picnic table, but no, they are actually listening in to everything you say and saving all the funny moments for later. I have often tried to photograph squirrels in the park and for years assumed those cute little hands were delicately trying to prise open nut shells, think again, they are in fact scribbling down humorous happenings in tiny miniature notebooks.

This is not something I have made up myself for the purpose of this blog, I know this all to be fact but my sources have asked to be anonymous.

You can purchase prints or postcards of his photo from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.