Tag Archives: Film Photography

Crucifix Tree

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I should point out that I am no great knowledge on matters of lightening strikes and their frequency but quite a few members of staff in the park have assured me that they regularly see the results of trees being hit by it. I can honestly see no other cause to the damage done to this particular tree so lets just go with the flow here and assume that this poor fellow was a victim of nature and the cruel tricks it can play on its own.

I have passed by this particular copse on several occasions and have intended to wander a bit further in to investigate this tree sitting right in the middle. It’s a fairly muddy and damp little spot, surrounded by some very tall trees on the outside, so not a lot of sunshine gets through. The ground is very thick with grass and almost swampy in places but I finally kitted up in wellie boots and headed in. The day I picked was quite dark and was threatening to rain at any moment. It seemed like the perfect day to go on an adventure in here. Most of the tree trunks are covered in this beautiful lush green moss at the bottom and the smell is just wonderful. There is something rather wonderful about the damp smell of a thick cluster of trees when you get to the very heart of them.

Anyway, as usual I digress. When I was actually setting everything up I met one of the park rangers who told me about the lightening strikes and after a few minutes conversation he started to wander off, just then he turns around and tells me “It looks like a crucifix doesn’t it”, I couldn’t argue with him on that one.

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

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To purchase a signed 12 x 12 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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Wellington Testimonial

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The Wellington Testimonial

Ok, I think we are finally at the end of my [slight] obsession with the Wellington Testimonial, to use it’s proper name. If you are reading this Conor, then look, I have finally used the official name.

Most people, including myself I should add, call this particular structure the Wellington Monument, well I have news for you now my friends, it’s actually called the Wellington Testimonial.

The Wellington Testimonial was designed by Robert Smirke as a testimonial to Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. It was completed in 1861 and is the tallest obelisk in Europe at just over 62 metres tall. I gather it was once the largest obelisk in the world, but alas no longer, that medal belongs to the Washington Monument in, er………………Washington.

There are lots of great stories attached to the building of the monument but I think my favourite has to be the poor butler who allegedly managed to get himself sealed up inside the plinth. The story goes he slipped inside with lots of dirty crockery after an al fresco opening party and nobody noticed he was inside when they laid the final few blocks to seal up the entire structure. The poor guy wasn’t noticed missing for a few days. I wonder did he stash any food inside on the sly.

See ya soon.

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

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To purchase a signed 12 x 9 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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Fallen Tree

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I am beginning to think I have developed some kind of subconscious love of fallen or broken trees. Not sure when this actually started but I have discovered four or five posts on such subjects at this stage. I suppose it is just the nature of photographing trees that I am obviously going to stumble across many of these things, but what makes me have to photograph them I just don’t know. I suppose there is some kind of obscure beauty to these trees, nature tries to defeat them but they just struggle on and slowly repair themselves.

The trees in the background have appeared on this blog before, they are becoming regulars at this stage but I had to explain to them on this particular day they would have to play second fiddle. They were very understanding about this scenario and behaved themselves very well indeed.

The little stone bridge on the left hand side has also been captured before, who knows I may just have it set up on wheels and I bring it everywhere with me.

Enjoy.

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

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To purchase a signed 12 x 12 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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Another One Of The Dog Pond

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Phoenix Park

Ok, I have actually published another shot of this particular little pond in the park before (see here) but this time I decided to get inside the cluster of trees and see what I could make of the outside world from within.

It’s kind of ironic as the previous post from outside the cluster of trees was captured on a digital camera and then processed to look like medium format film, whereas this one actually is medium format film. I’m still madly in love with the square format of the pictures that come of out my borrowed Bronica [thanks again Caroline] so I find myself revisiting many places to see just how differently I frame a shot within the same area.

It’s quite a simple photograph but hey, I kinda like it.

The photo was shot on a very old Bronica film camera using Kodak Tri-x 400 film.
The print was made by my very own hands in the darkroom in The Gallery Of Photography in Temple Bar.

Blast Off.

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

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To purchase a signed 12 x 12 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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Broken Tree Stump In The Peoples Gardens

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The Peoples Garden

It’s a tree, I know that but it’s neither a full tree nor are there lots of them.
I know I said I was trying to challenge myself by moving away from trees, for a little while at least, but this is not my usual kind of view of life. I am not really one for getting up close and personal when it comes to photography, I do like to stand back from things a little bit. This shot, like many, came about completely accidentally. I am on a mission at the moment to try and photograph as many of the lodges in the park as I physically can, there are up to 35 in total so be patient with me on this one. Anyway, I was in the Peoples Garden one beautiful sunny day trying to get my hands on a decent shot of the lodge within the gardens. The lodge itself is completely surrounded by a five foot hedge so it was taking me a while trying to find a decent angle to allow the lodge rise above its surroundings. I found a rather large tree stump and after standing on it and setting up my camera discovered I could almost get the entire house into the shot from this elevated angle. By the time I had tripod set up, camera tested, light meter sorted, focus tested and retested, a crowd of about twenty teenage Italian students arrived on the scene. No problem there I thought, in fact they may just add something to the scene. Then they all started to practise some bizarre form of group dancing, you know the kind you see in really bad R’n’B videos. I’m not putting that in my photograph, sorry if I seem a bit snobbish about it but come on, group dancing in a black and white landscape photograph. So I waited……….and waited.

I sat down on the ground and held my head in my hands waiting on this to end.

Then I noticed this little fella looking straight at me with his “Please photograph me” stumpy branches. And so I did, and I ended up really liking the results.

By the way, I have absolutely nothing against Italian students, they just happened to be Italian students. In fact, I’m a part time Juve fan so you could say I have a love of all things Italian.

Arrivederci

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

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To purchase a signed 12 x 12 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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The Boot Monument

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The Boot Monument

Ok, this is officially the last one in my series of photos about the Wellington Monument.

I am going to keep this one short and sweet, I’m breaking the mould here with a lovely sugary sweet story about the funny things that little kids say sometimes. I tend to keep these kind of things out of the blog, everybody’s kids say funny things so it’s really nothing new for mine to do it.

So, here’s how the story goes.

We are down in IMMA playing in the gardens one day, that’s the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in case you are wondering. From the gardens you can see the Wellington Monument rising up into the sky. I was simply testing my three year olds memory and asked him what was the name of that giant thing over there amongst the trees. He replies “It’s the Boot Monument Daddy”, I must admit I was a tad disappointed that he didn’t remember what it was called, trust me I tell him enough times the poor little fella. We tend to visit the park quite a lot, I always feel I could be missing something if I don’t visit the place at least once a week. Anyway, back to the main story. So I don’t tell him he is actually wrong I just tell him “Good guess but it’s actually the Wellington Monument” and we move on. A few minutes later I ask him again, he pauses looks over at the big stone structure and informs me yet again “It’s the Boot Monument”. I simply have an internal sigh and we just move on with no more comments. A few minutes later I finally realise what he is doing, pat him on the head with one of those “I’m so proud of you son” looks on my face and tell him “You are right son, it is called the Boot Monument”.

I hope it doesn’t take you as long as I took to realise the crazy [but superb] logic that was going on in his head.

Now, that’s the fluffy feel good post out of the way for the year.

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

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To purchase a signed 11 x 11 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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My Name Is Wellington

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Wellington Monument

The Wellington Monument, eh ?

It’s beginning to seem like a little personal dual between the two of us at this stage.
Ok, I am well aware that this very large inanimate object doesn’t purposely try to elude me but sometimes it just feels that way. All I am asking of this massive stone structure is to simply situate itself in one of my photographs so that I can finally be happy with it and then move on to something else. Every time I pass by I spot another opportunity to catch it unawares, set up my camera and quickly snap. Actually it never really happens like that, I usually spend about twenty minutes looking through the lens trying to get everything just right, there is nothing quick about setting up a huge medium format camera on a tripod and then measuring all the different sources of light.

I have to admit I really like this one. I think it almost looks like I managed to slowly sneak up on the gigantic pillar and press the shutter button before it ran away. Ok, I will repeat myself here, I know it can’t move or run away but I am taking no risks at this stage.

For those of you who have never been in the Phoenix Park, this thing is really huge. For those of you who have been in the Phoenix Park, it’s huge isn’t it. Tell the rest of them how big it is.

I should warn you, this is the beginning of a series of three new shots I have of the monument, so if you don’t like this one then I advice you stay away for a week or two.

Taken on a Bronica medium format camera filled with Kodak Tri-x 400 speed 120mm film. I printed the photo myself in a traditional darkroom [sorry, I like to boast from time to time]

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

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To purchase a signed 11 x 11 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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The Lonely Bench

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The Lonely Bench

I always find something very sad and lonely about park benches during the winter months. I often wonder if these benches had feelings then how would they feel during the winter when literally nobody wants to sit and spend a bit of time with them. I started to think this myself as I sat on this exact bench only a couple of minutes before taking this shot. I had just bought a coffee in the nearby boat house restaurant and decided against sitting inside on such a beautiful winters morning. Don’t get me wrong here it was actually bloody freezing but still I always think if the sun is shining then get out and enjoy it. When you live in a county like Ireland you really do tend to appreciate these kind of sunny winters days. When I open the curtains in the morning during the winter and see just a sliver of sunshine I usually make up my mind to get out and about in it.

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

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To purchase a signed 11×10 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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Farmleigh House

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It has been coming a for a long time but I think I have finally taken a picture of Farmleigh House that I actually really like. I’m not really a great photographer when it comes to buildings, I think my big problem with buildings is they tend to get in the way of trees I am trying to photograph. So to solve this little problem I have incorporated lots of trees into my shot of the house, it’s a very beautiful old building and can be quite difficult to get far enough away to capture the entire structure in just one frame. There is a stunning old arboretum to the right of the house, you can just about see it in the photograph.

The area around Farmleigh is so well looked after by all the staff working there, it really is a credit to every body involved. They used to have free concerts on the beautiful grounds at the back of the house during the summer, a perfect place to enjoy an outdoor concert, but unfortunately this country is rather broke now so the funds are no longer available for these things. I know from speaking to some of the staff from time to time that they are personally very disappointed that the funding is not there but what can they do about it.

Anyway, this is not going to be a rant about the economic situation in this country, I would need an entirely new blog to even contemplate starting on that one.

This is all about celebrating something that is very very beautiful and also still available to the general public for free. We should still be thankful for the wonderful things we still have in this city, you simply have to make your own fun and I for one think that’s perfectly fine.

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

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To purchase a signed 11 x 8 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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Fallen Tree Near The Dog Pond

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This is one of those occasions when I stood for a while pondering whether to take this photograph and decided it was worth it. I liked the scene but I just wasn’t sure if the tree would come out properly against the……….well let’s face tree lined background. I just wasn’t sure if a tree against a tree background would come out that well. This is one of the very few disadvantages of black and white photography, sometimes you get a scene with varying shades of green but obviously you can’t seen green in black and white. The problem then arises as to whether the entire shot will just blur into one big blob of the same colour. Thankfully the fallen tree in the foreground was almost completely without foliage and it’s almost brown like branches gave me just enough contrast in colour to the rather fluffy evergreens in the background.

I am so glad I took the time out to take this photo, I actually only took it two weeks ago but I went back there yesterday to show my three year old son and he was looking at me with a rather quizzical look on his face. Why?, well, it’s gone actually. I have no idea how long it had been there but lo and behold it’s all gone, not even an aul stump remains.

The tree was situated just at the back of the cricket pavilion and I have noticed a huge pile of earth and rubble in the car pack at the rear of the pavilion, if you don’t know where that is and you have ever been to the zoo then chances are you have parked there on many an occasion. Sometimes I write or tell people about places in the park that I just assume everybody knows about but alas many of you don’t. If you ever feel the need to explore the cricket pitches [yes there are two] then let me direct you there. When you enter the park through the main gates just keep going straight through the first roundabout. After that you need to look over to your left, don’t try this whilst driving though, you can drive up a little bit and you will see two very small little roads one after the other. Take either of these roads or even park on the main road and walk over. Once you have stopped you really can’t miss the cricket fields. You might also like a little trip into the beautifully secluded pond, for some reason named “The Dog Pond”. This is a great place to just sit for a while and basically think about a huge bunch of nothing.

Now, that’s the end of Dave’s mini tour of the cricket pitches and their environs.

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

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To purchase a signed 11 x 8 inch print of this photo, just click the button below.

You can either pay directly via paypal or with your own credit card. The Prints are €25.00 each and that includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Your print will be made to order and will ship out within 48 hours.
If you would like a bigger or smaller size please don’t hesitate to email me with your requests.

Alternatively you can purchase unsigned prints or postcards of this photo from the Redbubble site from as little as €2.50 by clicking this link.

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