at the library

 

 

This is from the ‘Rodchenko y Popova’ installation at the Reina Sofia gallery, Madrid.

The new wing of that modern art (modern going back to Dali times in some cases) museum is impressive, striking rust-metal facade which catches the evening light beautifully, a huge roof terrace with panoramic city views, and spacious themed galleries which are happy to allow non-flash photography.

This exhibit was an interesting reproduction of the soviet workers’ clubs… design, chess, reading for the working classes. Perhaps if we provided something similar in Ireland we could get away with the necessary public sector pay cuts

Madrid is a great place too… I have family living there, summer lasting into November, plenty of great bars and restaurants, and lots of football to watch

one little piggy

One from the offshoot.ie “product photography” night. An interesting evening of playing around with lightboxes, remote triggers, and of course props. Got more comfortable with manual mode although I was just taking the recommended settings (from the light meter) on trust from another photog, don’t fully understand how metering works in conjunction with flash.

Was good to meet some of the camera club members, I’m considering joining a club to exchange ideas and chat. Not sure if product photography is my thing, as it seems a little soulless, although “Colin” did not seem to mind… An Goban Saor found him in a strange position with a bottle

Portraits and motor vehicles

Have just been looking at the webpage for the highly successful Japfest a few weeks ago, a fun day out and am glad to have been invited to the “Mondello Masters” for more of the same ! Have got plenty of ideas from looking at other people’s photos, postprocessing, angles, blur, etc. Of course was happy to see my drift photo on that page too, be interesting to see who wins the trackday prize for best photo !

For me one of the highlights of that day was the portraiture / model shoot; thanks to Derek McAuley for setting it up on the day with the professional models. After seeing his results with off-camera flash, I have been experimenting a little more; the pic above is an first attempt towards night-for-day – the blurring effect is quite crude and the lighting needs to be worked on, but this style of photography  is something I enjoy. Think I’m on the slippery slope of gear addiction too … thinking about lightstands, remote controls, and more

My Japfest set is here.

photography practice…

Just looking back at my flickr from August, feel that my photography is starting to come together: went on a night photowalk with Kyle, Sinead, and lots of others including some guys from the Dublin Strobist group (my fave here is after the official walk ended, the ghostly rollerblader on Stephen’s Green); contributed a gallery of transport photos to the ten-thirteen.com project (nowhere near as trainspotterish as it sounds !); and enjoyed a seaside photowalk at the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures.

The People’s Photography project is worth a mention too – caught the tail end of this on Stephen’s Green, lots of people exhibiting and selling photos, some of whom I chatted to and recognised from photowalks and boards.ie . Am considering joining a club too, tho am finding much criticism and advice happens informally on twitter and pix.ie after internet posting of shots; Ad-hoc photowalks are happening too which is great.

My shots are on flickr with a skeleton account on pix.ie ; I am considering becoming more active on pixie though ;  people seem to comment more there, although flickr currently wins on ease-of-use, for me at least.

London Art

The Monday of my London trip was mostly free for sightseeing. Went to the Saatchi Gallery as recommended to me. Beautiful building overlooking a green space, near Sloane Square (so you can pop in there on a break from high fashion shopping ), large windows, high ceilings and plain walls makes an excellent backdrop for a varied selection of contemporary art.

Took a few pics of my favourites, the “wheelchair” exhibit was strange and oddly moving… the guy set up a half dozen wheelchairs with wax dummies on autopilot (think slow-speed dodgems !) .

The pic above is me posing in the empty Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern on the way to the City… flew home on CityJet from LCY, a much more pleasant experience than any of the other airports, starting from the trip on the Docklands Light Railway.

plenty of other art along the South Bank, as always… next time promised myself will take more time to take it all in (tho I know I probably won’t!)

Photography of a different type

Recently I travelled to London for a few days to catch up with friends. Just before I left, I heard that a photographer acquaintance (Christian Carella) needed a backup photographer for a funeral – when I mentioned this to people their initial reaction was one of surprise; however the family wanted a record of the day and treated it as a celebration of the elderly man’s life.

From the technical point of view, it was interesting – moving around the church and service to get angles, taking photographs of the family at the service and burial without intruding too much, and classical posed-portrait photography at the meal. It was my first time concentrating on portraits and I learnt a lot about using flash and dealing with posed groups.

I also felt privileged to attend the day as a guest of the family, they organised a good ceremony with hymns and drumming, they looked after myself and Christian during the day and fed us with fine African food, it was an unusual insight into African culture which I’d never really encountered before.

Am obviously wary about posting many photos of the day, but here’s one of the more memorable moments, the drummer at the service.

R.I.P.

Night at the Dublin quays

Here’s one of my favourites from the night photo walk at Dublin’s quays, organised by Kyle Tunney… You can see the new Calatrava bridge in the background, I love the way the DDDA have redeveloped this area, the architecture and lighting make for pretty pictures. There are more shots on my Flickr and on Kyle’s blog.

(For architecture and history buffs, this is the Samuel Beckett Bridge – the other Calatrava bridge in Dublin is the James Joyce bridge, on the way to Stoneybatter.)

There are also some HDR shots in that set, processed using a trial version of PhotoMatix… I will probably upgrade to the full version; It’s easy to use and gives impressive results, helped by some simple tweaking in Lightroom.

first update…

This blog is still very much a work-in-progress. In the past month or two I’ve spent more time with many Irish photo-walkers ( @icedcoffee, @kesouthall, @shane_murphy, @kjtphotography, @nonsequitir to name a few ); I’ve experimented and learnt about night photography, HDR, and took part in Scott Kelby’s “Worldwide photowalk”).

I’ve also been mountain-biking with the cool riders at MAD-MTB … although not as much as I might have liked, due to the gray Irish weather and more importantly to the knee injury I picked up at running training… Thanks to Aidan at Pearse Street Physio who has me well on the way to recovery, he has worked with the Irish rowing team and really knows his stuff.

Lots and lots of other cool stuff, too much to mention… I’ll look forward to blogging more, the best way for you to connect with me is by introducing yourself (online or real-life).

Into the forest

One from the XC NPS Series 7 race at Three Rock Mountain yesterday.

This was my first real experience of sports photography; working with Canon 450d, Sigma 17-70 F2.8-4.5, and popup flash. Very interesting adjusting to lighting conditions (sunny but with forest cover) and trying to get good positions.  Good day out, nice to chat to some of the MAD club crew who organised the race and it was good being able to move easily around the course.

Discussed the photos afterwards on twitter and boards.ie; some ideas for next time would be to use an external (fill-in) flash, and possibly try motion blur. Also to shoot RAW (had issues with sky/shadow exposure). And bring midge spray

MTB races are a good opportunity to practice photography, people are always glad to see photos of themselves and access should be straightforward (be nice and ask the organisers). Look at irishxcmtb.com for details of upcoming races.

Bloc weekend 2009

I was looking back (months later) at some photos of Bloc 2009 which reminded me what an amazing experience it was.

BLOC is a techno / electronic music festival, where several thousand dance music fans take over Butlins for the weekend to listen and dance to some of the best acts in the UK.  The main action happens in 4 arenas, there are also the “amenities” of various pubs, food venues, a chill-out room with graffiti wall, pool hall, even a swimming pool with water slides and a jacuzzi .  The various after- and pre-parties in the Hi-de-hi style chalets meant you could party all night if you wanted;  I was glad to have a beach to run on, and a grassy knoll to sleep on.

The drive down was pleasant, with some random London heads, scenic views of the sea and Somerset hills.

Anyway after catching up with some techno friends and running the highlighter pen over the lineup, Friday started with FSOL – who were a bit rubbish as they had a weird AV show involving alien corpses, and played remotely … but ended with an absolute belter set from Ben Sims and Surgeon, part of the “Birmingham Scene”.

FSOL

After Surgeon's set !

After wearing myself out even more on the wave machine, Saturday was a juggling act; the big decision was Rob Hood or Aphex Twin. Before that caught Rob Hall (excellent) and Colin Dale (always reliable ) together with lots of other names familiar from Tilted Disco scene.
Was lucky to get into the queue for Aphex early, his set was so freakin intense, the bass was turned up extra loud and it was like being in a cement mixer full of beats from his older albums like “I care because you do”. Crowd was so into it and the light show was not for anyone with epileptic tendencies.

aphex twin

Sunday was a bit of a blur, I heard that Green Velvet were excellent, the crankiness was seeping in (not helped by Dubstep which I hate)… someone who shall remain nameless didnt know what day it was ! Zion train were unexpectedly good as a reggae band, I-F played safe with a selection of old-skool, the night finished early which was a good idea.

Zion Train

Monday morning brought sore heads and a quick clean-out before a scenic drive to the airport and home.. Beautiful views, a vomit-stop brought us to a scenic country pub. Home, but took a while to wind down from a weekend of more technoism than this pair of ears had heard in too long.

Rory playing on the swing