2013 365-27

Weather is here. Lots of it. Very hot and sticky weather. Have a few things lined up for this weekend, so hoping to get some good shots.

1/07/13

If you saw last week's post, you'll have seen one of the shots from the graduation shoot that I did with my daughter. Today was the big day (for real) and I could have posted up my photo of Sir David Attenborough who was receiving an honorary degree at the same ceremony. That's my very clever and hard-working daughter in the middle, with the dark hair and glasses.

2/07/13

It's time for Muffin the dog to appear again. Muffin has a collection of rubber chickens all of which have no heads. The average life expectancy for a rubber chicken seems to be around one month. Muffin takes this length of time to remove the heads and the squeakers. She seems happier with them that way.

3/07/13

Dinner with Sarah and Ellen at a new Indonesian restaurant called Happy Angel. The highlight of my meal (and that says a lot about the quality of the food) was my attempt at using the menu to make my own happy angel origami piece.

4/07/13

I've posted several of the roadside memorials photos that I've been taking on this blog. I came across this one on the Lagan Weir this afternoon and wonder if it is a memorial to a young man who fell from the weir into the River Lagan and drowned after an evening's drinking in the nearby Odyssey complex.

5/07/13

I came back to the Lagan Weir to take a couple of shots of the numerous padlocks which have been placed there - an homage to the whole bridges/padlocks thing that seems to go on in other european cities. I'm going to check these from time to time to see if the philistines of Belfast City Council cut them off.

6/07/13

I've gone along to spectate and photograph the annual Belfast Pride parade. This year I thought I'd do something different and actually take part with the Belfast Roller Derby squad. A fantastic day out and a real advertisement for the best that Belfast has to offer. My travelling companions gave me plenty of opportunities for great shots. I picked this one, as the ladies got painted with their rainbows before the parade began. This is Rachel and her face and eyes just look amazing.

7/07/13

Bridges skateboard park this afternoon for the 2nd annual Skateboard NI jam. It was hot with very little shade, but yielded some great action shots. No problem with shooting at high shutter speeds without lights today. Main discovery from the day was that skateboards are much more dangerous than both roller derby and BMX. I got hit three times by rogue boards; once in the chest and once on each knee. The last one to my left knee was the worst and needed icepacks, anti-inflamatories and painkillers in order to get my knee back to its original shape and size.

2013 365-15

Week fifteen, 100th picture posted on this bout of 365-ishness. It's still up and down in terms of what I'm shooting (as well as where and when) but I'm generally keeping busy and making opportunities for myself. Having a couple of long-term photo projects on the go has also helped and it looks like the old faithfuls (i.e. niche sports) are really the gift that keeps on giving.

8/04/13

This was nearly a defining moment for me. I finally bit the bullet and sprung for a set of dedicated wireless flash triggers with reasonable range. The Phottix Ares transmitter and receivers arrived by post at the weekend so naturally it was straight up to roller derby training to try them out. Their advertised range is 200m+, they have 8 channels (with the option to group flashes) and run off regular AA batteries. They fired every time and also will wake up the flash guns if they go into sleep mode. The fact that company I ordered them from accidentally sent me an additional (un-ordered) set of two receivers was just a bonus. The triggers worked brilliantly and allowed me to use three off-camera flashes to cross-light a very large section of the track and their range allowed me to move around a bit more. The shots I got were crisp and sharp (even at 1/200 or 1/250 shutter speed) and the lighting and colours were dramatic and edgy. I'm so happy with the results I could dance a wee jig.

9/04/13

A strange one this. Not by the side of a road, but along the Comber Greenway in East Belfast. I passed it while out cycling and had to go back today to take a photograph of it. This is notable for a number of reasons. I recall the closure of the Greenway and then subsequently finding out about the suicide of this young man. The memorial itself is situated pretty much directly behind my old house which backs onto the walkway. It’s a permanent memorial, although fresh flowers seem to be placed there regularly.

10/04/13

Yep, one of those "oh shit I need to a photograph days." An empty picture frame, a willing assistant and a small dog.

11/04/13

I ended up spending a hour or so in a furniture shop this evening, in fact it was a furniture shop with no customers, thus making even less interesting. However, I was there for other purposes which greatly lifted any boredom although I did end up wandering around and trying out some macro shots with different bits and pieces in the shop.

12/04/13

Another roadside monument today and like the one above, one with a bit of personal resonance. Ben was a 17 year old pedestrian and a pupil at Regent House Grammar School Newtownards. Ben lived in Donaghadee and was struck by a car while walking home in the early hours of the morning with a friend after attending a Halloween party. This hit a nerve with me, having attended the same school and lived in the same town when I was younger. I'd also walked along the same road after more than one party in the wee small hours of the morning. Coincidentally, a classmate of mine at Regent House was knocked down by a car and killed a little further along the same road while I was at school.

13/04/13

This is the statue outside the Titanic Building in Belfast, and again this is far from original and every togger in Belfast has probably taken a similar shot at some time since the building was opened. It's a noce shot and I suppose the trick was getting the balance right between the detail in the statue and the texture of the outside of the building.

14/04/13

I spent the afternoon with my big son Conor working on architectural photography for his art course. Architectural photography has to be the dullest form of photography ever invented and I can only assume that he's being asked to a module on it in order to put him off photography for life. We did mange to find a rather interesting wall with five of these frames attached to it. See frame, jump inside it, take photo. I can't help that sort of thing. I did not hesitate in pitching this as potential band shoot to a few people. Conor ended up with two rolls of Ilford HP5 film full of abstract shots of various buildings - here's hoping that he has something worth printing off for his course.

367-50 Week 43

Week 43 starts with me feeling worse than I've felt for a long time. The anti-allergy drugs I have to take to counter-act an attack of my eczema have left me feeling completed wrecked. I've been tired and sleepy all day and my mood has been very low. I suspect that the shots from early in the week will not exactly be "keepers" as they say.

3/09/12

It's a crap shot, but the effort was made. The inside of my greenhouse at night on a long exposure. Peppers to the left, tomatoes to the right. The white light trails at the rear are the tracks of the torch I was using to light up the plants.

4/09/12

If i was feeling bad yesterday, I was feeling worse today. Full blown 'flu descended last night and it was mid-afternoon before I was able to crawl out of bed and even then I only got as far as the sofa. I only took this shot because the dog came and sat on me while I as lying on the settee and my camera was sitting beside me. This is Honey, she's not mine (before you jump to conclusions) and her owner had kindly called in to make me something to eat and a cup of tea. The Jameson's was a bonus.

5/09/12

Tonight's post-dinner fun was provided by everyone trying to programme a mini-BigTrak to run through a slalom course made out of our shoes. A test of geometry and logic if ever there was one. I failed. This was the first time for many months that I had all 5 of my children who live in Belfast together in the house for dinner. It was noisy, hectic and there were (as always) dozens of not always linear conversations going on over the dinner table. I'm aware that a lot of the talk between all of us is in some bizarre form of code ("Barbourspeak?") with frequent references to things, events and people that no-one else would ever pick up on or understand. And I just love it. Probably the best pick-me-up after a bout of the 'flu you could get.

6/09/12

First full-blown school run of the year today, and this was breakfast. I'd forgotten the complexities of getting two girls ready and out to two different schools and the painful experience of driving through Belfast at that time of the morning. No-one died or was late for school - have to count that as a success of sorts.

7/09/12

Don't know what to think about this shot; I'm not even sure that I like it. It's an HDR'd shot of Parliament Buildings at Stormont. I was bored after working at home all morning and needed a bit of fresh air, so took a walk up the big lane at Stormont. Took my wide angle lens to take this and when I got home and had processed it the lamposts were doing that "converging verticals" thing and looked a bit like bananas. A bit of a youtube search later and I worked through fixing it in photoshop. Worked out all right. Or as George Formby used to say "turned out nice again."

8/09/12

The 3rd annual Belfast Zombie walk was on this morning in the grounds of Stormont Estate, as part of the Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival taking place across the street in The Stormont Hotel. Poorly attended this year compared to last but fun none the less. On the left is George Clarke, main man of Yellow Fever Productions who will forever live in my memory as the man who brought us Battle of the Bone, Belfast's first (and only) kung fu zombie movie and the only film where I was able to attend the international premiere. I also had my picture taken with two Start Wars Imperial Troopers. Just saying - not that I'm a Start Wars geek or anything.

8/09/12

But seriously - this was the dashboard of someone's car. I must have looked a bit suspicious standing pointing my camera in through the windscreen. These were blowing around in the breeze but think I've got them sharp enough. Loved the colours - couldn't resist taking this picture and just saw it as a nice wide crop right away.

367-50 Week 41

Week 41 will be along shortly so I hope you'll be patient.
I received an anonymous comment on this blog last week and have been mulling over how to respond. It went along the lines of:

"who is this silly and self-indulgent man who thinks people are interested in his pictures. They're pretty average."

I don't make a habit of publishing anonymous posts but this really pissed me off at the time that I read it. My natural reaction was something along the lines of suggesting that the person posting this hadn't even the balls to leave their name, but that would have been crass and ignorant. After due consideration, I'd offer the following slightly more measured response:

I've been called worse than silly and self indulgent in my time, although it's hard to take on a year long, shot-a-day project without coming across as a wee bit self-obsessed. When I'm trying to find things to photograph each day, I often come back to what I'm doing, seeing or experiencing that day. It can't be avoided and therefore a lot of this project is about me and what's going on in my life but then given the rationale for my 367-50 project, it was always going to be. I'd like to point out that I'm also lazy, feckless, insensitive, selfish and impulsive and also have a tendency for self-destruction. I don't actually spend time worrying if anyone is interested in my photos - although it's nice that people take the time to have a look and give me feedback on shots, and I'm flattered that some people make a point of checking the blog each week for updates. Again, this was my attempt to document a year in my life, not to gather an audience for my photography (whatever that might be). My photo's are pretty average? I'd probably take that as a compliment, although I'm tempted to wonder what or who I'm being compared to. If my anonymous poster would like to drop me a line with a link to their own pictures/photography then I'd be happy to have a look and see what I'm being measured against. I know a lot of very good photographers and I'd be well pleased to be described as being average in their company - although in that company I'd be probably well below average. Now - wasn't that much better than my original response?

Week 41 it is. 41 is a pretty big prime number. I can't even remember being 41 anymore. This week looks like being a wee bit barren, with no photoshoots lined up and a serious lack of inspirational mojo. That was what prompted me to go walkabout on Monday. God knows what the rest of the week will bring.

20/08/12

Ok - this was taken yesterday but processed today. I have gotten a day behind in posting shots. This is a  (hopefully) lightly HDR'd shot of Ballycopeland Windmill near Millisle, Co Down. I had never visited the windmill, even though I grew up about 3 miles away from it in Donaghadee. All I remember about the old windmill were ghost stories of hauntings and horrible suicides inside it. It's now a pretty nice place to visit and you even get to go inside and see the workings. Based on being inside, it's fair to assume that millers were either quite small people or they spent their lives with constant headaches from banging their heads. I'm just noticing now that the mill is slanting to the left - obviously I corrected the horizon in a bit of hurry. Whoops.

21/08/12

Street shots are maybe my favourite things when it comes to photography and particularly shots of people doing what they do. In terms of photo's I do tend towards taking them without the subject knowing they're being photographed rather than asking permission and getting something posed and maybe unnatural. Caught this while on walkabout in Belfast City Centre when I had an hour to spend and took my Lensbaby for a walk - just for the practice.

22/08/12

God, but the skies have been absolutely beautiful these last few evenings. Bright blues, fluffy clouds and then big red sunsets. Thought I'd grab a shot before it all turns grey again and starts to rain. One of those cables is my phone line - this is the the pole with everyone's phone line in our little cul de sac; 21 houses, 21 lines.

23/08/12

A warning about shooting portraits with a wide angle lens. I was outside the house trying to take a wide angle shot of the street I live in with little success. I had grabbed my back-up D60 since it still had the 10-24mm lens attached and was less than impressed with the results of my street shot. My dog, Muffin, decided to sit beside me and I happened to take a few shots of her with the same lens. It's not a great shot, but I like the distortion on her face, if it makes her look like a very sad dog. I think she's having issues at the moment - she's started randomly chewing anything made of paper (mostly work stuff, NIPA photography certificates and my car insurance documents) and has become very clingy. Maybe she is just a sad dog at the moment. Not sure how to cheer her up, apart from walks and a bot more attention.

24/08/12

I spotted this place this afternoon while picking my daughter up from a friend's house. It turned out to be a derelict nursery, boarded up and falling into serious disrepair. I only wandered in out of interest but ended up taking a load of shots of the detritus that was lying about. Cups, walkers, toys (especially duplo bricks) were all over the place. Lots of peeling paint as well. I had fun.

25/08/12

My daughter was modelling at the Retro Show at the Baby Grand this afternoon. Stars of the show were the BelleHoppers who put on a fantastic spot of 1920/1930's Charleston and Swing dancing. The fashion show (courtesy of the Rusty Zip) was OK, but I have to say that my girl was the only one who looked like she could actually model clothes. This is Jenna from the BelleHoppers, by the way.

26/08/12

Belfast Mela festival today - very big, very busy and bursting with colour. Seeing this guy on stage reminded me how long it's been since I pointed a camera at a musician - it's been way too long. Way too long. Time to track down some music photography opportunities I think.

367-50 Week 5

Another mixed bag of goodies this week, and this was the first time I nearly forgot to take a shot on one of my days.
Monday brought a chance to go and take a few shots of my eldest daughter's cross stitch workshop at the Black Box in Belfast. Vonnie was taking some cross stitch virgins through the basics and was being extremely patient. Tea was drunk.

12/12/11

Tuesday saw the emergence of the Christmas tree. Trish had been slowly sneaking decorations up around the house for about a week - trying to break me in gently to the idea that Chrsitmas was just around the corner. Any way, after a bit of cutting and sawing accompanied with a spot of swearing, the tree was in its stand and decorated. You can't beat little reflective glass balls with twinkling lights.

13/12/11

On the way to work on Wednesday morning, a blizzard hit around the A26 turn off on the M1. Within five minutes everyone was driving at 30 miles and hour in one lane of the dual carriageway. There was a good 3-4 inches of snow within a couple of hours. I fought my way out to school in Ballymena only to find that half the staff and a similar number of children hadn't made it in; a day's work cancelled but I did get tea and toast. This was the scene outside my office at around 9am.

14/12/11

Schools were open again on Thursday, and I spent the day in a local Primary School which makes a big deal of promoting healthy eating with its pupils. I was standing considering this fact while looking at the table in the staff room. Pot Noodles - Check. Chocolate biscuits - Check. Full Fat Coke - Check. Go on - how many unhealthy things can you spot?

15/12/11

Was pottering about the back of the house on Friday at a wee bit of a loose end when I spotted Muffin poking her nose through the gate. I had been trying to take some pictures of our little Robin at the bird feeder, but everytime I got anywhere near him he buggered off. May have to re-think that one.

16/12/11

I had been contemplating getting a few self-portraits worked into this project and had an idea to try to do a black and white movie-star type thing. Got a few good shots but then Lightroom decided to stop playing with me and I had to resort to post-processing with Photoshop. This made a relatively simple job much longer and more complicated. Anyhooo - here's the net result of it all.

18/12/11

I've chalked up five weeks now and am still enjoying this project. Heading into Christmas week fired up. Here's hoping Santa brings me some kit and a wee bit of inspiration.