Tag Archives: Photography

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.

Reach For The Sky In The Phoenix Park

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The Phoenix Park

Another one for my “Tall trees that look like characters from Lord Of The Rings” series for you today. I find something very majestic looking about this particular cluster of trees, they seem so much more powerful than those in the background. It seems to me that some trees are perfectly happy to stretch up a certain distance and then spend the rest of their lives spreading outwards, that’s not a way of life for this particular bunch though. There seems to be some kind of fierce competition going on to find out which one can reach the highest first, I often wonder is the air more clear up there. There is a beautiful sparse look to the lower parts of the trees, barely a branch to be seen until you reach about half way up.

 

On a completely separate note I must say I am feeling very bad about the fact that it has been almost a month now since I have visited the park with my camera. I have been several times for family visits but as far as long strolls in the park with my trusty old Canon friend, well it’s just been too long. I should explain I was away in County Mayo for two weeks, in a most beautiful place called Carrowmore Lake. I will post some of my photos from the Mayo trip on my Flick page as soon as I get them all processed.