Port Beach

Went for  a drive over to the east coast around Drogheda to a place called Clogherhead. Actually this place is called Port Beach. You drive through Clogherhead village and then turn right at the church and follow the coast road sign.  After some very nice days of sunshine I had to pick today, dull and overcast,  to take some landscape images. The above image is one from today. You can just about make out The Mourne Mountains on the horizon. I think there is a great image to be had here from this location in the right conditions. I was at this location a good while back at 5 in the morning and have some wonderful images form sunrise with the sun, moon and the planet jupitor in the photo.

What The Duck

Mushrooms

While out for a day shooting some landscape images over on the east coast near Drogheda we can across a bunch of mushrooms at the side of the road on our way back home. I am sure the people in the cars who passed us by must have taught we were crazy. Grown men on the ground with cameras ? I changed the colour image using a infra-red effect in Lightroom. I like the way the head of the mushroom stands out from the rest of the image.

Tiger

This is one of my images from Dublin Zoo. This is of one of the three  Siberian Tigers at the Zoo. Early that morning the were feed some pigs head and chickens. I got some great images of them eating. When they were finished they have a rest and got to fill 2-3gigs worth os images as they just sat down and did not move. Shooting thru the glass can have major problems what with reflections and dirt, but because the light was coming in from the front of the enclosure this made for near perfect images ( no glass would be perfect but I would not be here to tell the tail ).  If you do go to Dublin Zoo you might see some images printed in their leaflets by Neil McShane, that's me as I supply Dublin Zoo with alot of  their photographs. As all the images are in colour I have posted none except of the odd one that I think looks good in B&W.

Turf Cutting's

This image was taken just beside the R251 road  in Co Donegal on a weekend trip with Navan Camera Club. The mountains in the background is Mt. Errigal.  This was the last image taken on the trip as we packed our cameras away and headed home. I took a few different images from this location looking west and turning around to the north and then east. I will post them later just to show you the range of images you  can get from standing in the same spot but just turning the camera around. The reason for this as you can see from this image we were standing in the bogg surrounded by cut turf.  I will have to make another visit some time soon back up here as we had no time to explore Glenveagh National Park.

What The Duck

The Canon 5D Mk2

My dreams have been answered with the arrival of the new 5D.

Follow the Link below to the 5d Mk2  website to see for yourself.

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/index.html

DP Review already have a hands-on preview up on their site :

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos5dmarkII/

Is this new standard DSLR with the New 24mm F1.4L II Lens for landscape photographers.

Oh! no wait what about the 5D Mk2 with the new Carl Zeiss Distagon T 21mm f2.8 lens.

One form the Archive

Another one from the archive's and this time  I am going back a year or so. Not my usual wide open landscape images but one has to make do the the Irish weather sometimes. The was taken along the bank of the lower lake in Glendalough, Co Wicklow. Parking the car in the first car park you come to in the Park a path follows the bank of the Lower lake and end up down at the Upper lake. Overcast and rain, but still got a couple of images. For some reason I like this image. I am not going to go too deep into this image but I think its the relationship between the dead trees on the ground and the living one's standing up. Or maybe its just all the angle made by the trees. Anybody have their views on this one ? 

I bhFocas

Another good Friend and fellow Landscape Photographer Peter Cox was involved in a tv series for the Irish tv channel TG4.

Peter said :

"the work I've been doing for the TG4 series called 'I bhFocas' (In Focus). This will be a 6 part series starting in September . All of the episodes have been shot at this point, with only a couple of small segments still needing completion.
The programme is hosted by Sean O'Donaile and features a different guest every week. The guest chooses a series of locations that are important to them personally. At each location, a photograph is made and a photographic tip is passed on to the viewers. At the end of every programme, the guest is presented with a print from each location and gets to pick their favourite one.
While I am not seen on camera, I was heavily involved in the program's photographic content. Each week, I'll be putting the images from that episode online for you to look at in detail. I hope you enjoy the images and the show as much as I enjoyed making them!"

  

The first episode will air at 8pm on Thursday the 25th of September and at the same time on each subsequent Thursday for 6 weeks total.

And take a look at http://www.inferno.tv/broadcast/files/page8-1054-pop.html - it's the title sequence for the TV show.

Navan Camera Club

Last night, 15th Sept, was the opening night for the new season of Navan Camera Club. It was wonderful to see all the new and old faces. We had a packed room full of new members and lets hope I gave them some insight into the year ahead.

Click here to jump to the Navan Camera Club site.

Carsten New Blog

A good Friend and fellow Landscape Photographer Carsten Krieger has just started his own Blog at The Captured Light. With two books under his belt and new one in the pipeline his blog should be very interesting.  Here is a extract from the blog: 

"The month of August was not a good one for landscape photographers in Ireland. In fact the summer of 2008 was one of the wettest on record in Ireland and the UK.
And so was my trip to West Cork. The week brought a mixture of rain, drizzle and mist, followed by some heavy downpours. After that we had some more rain, drizzle and mist.
After my third morning waiting for some light but getting soaked instead I decided that it would be a good idea to get another day job. Anything indoors would be nice."

Good Luck Carsten and look forward to the new book.

PS: Let me know when its in the bookshops.

Derryveagh Mounatins

This is the start of the look back through my images I was talking about in the last post. This was taken back in May this year ( so not gone back too far to start with ) in a place called Dunlewy just off the road (R251) passed Mt. Errigal, Co Dunegal. Looking up the valley towards Slieve Snaght in the background. I made this a square crop of the image as I like the way the foreground rocks lead you up through the centre to the mountains in the background.  This effect does not work with the normal landscape type crop. It was a very dull overcast day and I don't think it stopped raining on/off the whole day hence the dark and moody clouds in the sky.

What The Duck

Old Stock

After a minor operation and short stay in hospital, I have a couple of week R&R from work. During this time I will going back thru all my old files to see how much if any I have improved ? Also it will be worth while to see if any locations require a re-visit with all this new knowledge aquired over the last few years and stored away upstairs.

Rinroe Point

On the north west point of Co Mayo is a village called Carrowteige which looks out over Broad Haven. From here turn left and head down to the coastline and you will come to this location, in the image above, Rinroe Point. After a morning visit to Downpatrick Head it was time to start the trip back home. However I went the long way (as you do) home by going further west and ended up in Ross Port. I could not go home after seen this landscape so more driving and map reading I ended up at Rinroe Point. I have a great colour image of just my car parked down by the beach. After a few hours it was time to make tracks for home.

MarathonFoto

I was away over in London at the weekend shooting the London Hydro 5K for MarathonFoto. 

"MarathonFoto provides great photos of individual achievements, while making life simple and dependable for event organizers and providing marketing support for their key sponsors.

A team of professional photographers takes multiple photos of event participants at several different locations on the course as well as at the finish for selected events."

I am now part of their European operations and will be covering events across europe, with the next event on the cards in Turin, Italy at the end of September and then the Dublin Marathon.

You can Link to their website from here to see the type of images taken all around the world.

What The Duck