Category Archives: Phoenix Park

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

(Click on the photo for pricing info on postcards and prints.)

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.

It’s Back To Nature Time Today.

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Squirrel in the Phoenix Park

 

Ok, so I’m not really one for taking shots of things that move, that would include all kinds of animals and especially human beings. I like to spend a bit of time composing a photograph and if I were to include animals [apart from Sloths obviously] I would end up with just a blank space where they once featured. There is the odd day when I am sitting so still trying to get everything sorted for a shot of some thorny old tree that something or other will come into my line of vision.

This particular day I was lying on the ground at the back of the visitor centre carefully composing a shot of some rather lovely looking tree roots when I noticed something moving in the shot. This cheeky little fella was paying no attention to my presence on his patch, it was almost like he just couldn’t care less about me. I even had time to change the lenses on my camera, put on a super big zoom and he was still there happily eating whatever it is that he found. I would say I was literally only ten feet away from him and once he realised I meant him no harm he pretty much just went on about his business, I suppose some of the squirrels are probably quite used to human beings and are now quite trusting of them.

At a guess I would say I rattled off about twenty shots of this little messer and pretty much all of them were the same. My normal experience of fast moving animals tells me to just keep pressing the shutter because they will run as soon as they hear the shutter click the first time. This fella though was perfectly happy as long as I kept my distance.

You can now purchase prints or postcards of my photos by clicking this link.