Happy Halloween

In Love Again

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I'm in love again and this time it's a camera.

I took a few day holidays as the children are on a mid-term break in school. I sent tem to the mother-in-laws for a couple of days. So myself and the good wife went for a walk in the Wicklow Mountains. Lough Dan is one of my all time favorite places to walk and take photos. We packed the lunch and set off on our walk. The weather didn't look the best on the drive down to the mountains but when we got there it was wonderful. In a way I was happy not to have all my backpacks and tripods with me. I did however bring my compact digital Canon G10.

And here is the "in love again" part. What a little treasure of a camera. The results are wonderful from this little camera. The above image is one such image. It shows the pathway down towards Lough Dan itself. Hand holding with one hand and a ND filter in the other. The light was changing all the time on the walk. I have a wonderful selection of image from the walk and some lovely portraits of Mrs Mononeil.

I have this camera a while now and not used it in a long time. It's back again in my camera bag and will be used a lot more from now on when we ( the family ) go out for walks at the weekend. I will post more of the images taken from the walk next week.

Have a good friday and weekend.

Clare Island with Lr 3 beta

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Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta was released to the public today. You can download if for free and use it the next few months. It's the full version with not limits. Download link here. I use Lightroom Ver2 on my Mac's. I put the Beta version3 onto my laptop just in case it conflicts with my older version. I don't think it will but just in case all the same.

Why I'm telling you this? Well this is the first processed image straight out of Lightroom Ver3 Beta. Nothing added but love and a b&w conversion.

The image above is Clare Island form Atlantic Drive, Achill Island, Co Mayo. Taken last June while staying in Westport. What I did was import my last couple of trips away to test and play with this version. I think this letterbox crop suits this image as there was no foreground of interest.

Hope you have a good weekend. I am going to be very busy this weekend with the Dublin Marathon on the bank holiday Monday. With 14 photographers from Ireland, 6 from England and a few more from Germany and America to look after.

Oh no, can't tile the kitchen this weekend either. How sad I am ( hehehehe)

Sugar Loaf

Here is your Monochrome Maniacs image.

You are not going to believe this but I found one of those magic cards that gets you out of doing the kitchen tiles. It says "Go for a walk in the mountains cards". Now all I have to do is find another one for next weekend.

Yes we did go out this weekend walking in the mountains and when my 6 year old son picked the mountain, that was that. Car was packed and lunches made. The mountain in question is The Sugar Loaf Mt in Co Wicklow. Not a very big one, but very steep rocks near the top all the same. We all made it up with not trouble and had lunch up there. The weather was not the best leaving home, light rain, and we didn't think a walk was possible. However as I always say and do "Just get out and go". In the end, it was a bit cloudy and overcast but nice all the same. I also did manage to sneak the camera with me. My pocket compact camera, in fact this goes with me everywhere.

The above image was the last one as we headed back to the car. All the other image were of the family and you know me they don't get posted. The rest of the landscape image are kind of dull, what with the light not right. But this image turned out very nice indeed.

Hope you all had a good weekend and see you again soon.

Donegal Bay

Here is your Skywatch Friday image.

The past few weeks have flown by and it's Friday again. Very important, no make that a life or death situation has being going on in my house this week as my daughter's school project had to be finished and handed in on Friday. Each had to pick a different country and she picked Austria.

The Internet is a wonderful tool for information on everything. "Daddy can you find out about this". "Can you print this". It never stopped all week. The things we do for our children. That's the reason why I am late with this post.

Now the image above is of Donegal Bay from Mullaghmore head very early one morning. Each time I left the hotel at around 4:30 to drive the short distance, I gave the night porter a heart attack.

A long exposure of 20 seconds or there about was used. The grad filters were also used because of the difference between the sky and the foreground rocks was to big for the camera to handle.

Hope you have a good weekend, as I will be tiling the kitchen walls, so no photography for me then.

Stone & Water

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While waiting for the right light and movement in the clouds, I do get the chance to look around for interesting patterns in the sand or water. In this case it was the light reflection on the ripples in a pool of water right beside the legs of my tripod that caught my eye.

Other than this I can't say anything else about the image as I can't remember. I used my backup camera for this image. Now that I think about it, it's from the shoreline around Bunatrahir Bay, Ballycastle, Co Mayo. I must go back into my Lightroom library and find out the details.

Have a good week all.

 

Gougane Barra

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A bit late but none the less a wonderful sky over Gougane Barra Forest Park. I can't believe that it's nearly a year ago since I was down there. You can see another post form this Link.

If you look at the large version, that's not a spot but the moon. We had wonderful side lighting, as you can see from the light on the fence posts. Also the patterns in the sky are half clouds and airplane trails.

I am into a second week of teaching and enjoying myself. All the students came back the following week. Either they are interested or have nothing else better to do with in evenings.

As you can see from the posts below, more animals images from the Zoo.

I believe it's my wedding anniversary this weekend, so I might not be around next week if I have nothing planned ( which I don't woops ). Oh well it was good while it lasted.

I hope you have a good week end and hope to see you next week ?

Baby Chameleon

A Camera Critter image 

One of the six baby Chameleon in Dublin Zoo. This one may be no bigger than a 1 euro coin, but he could  move fast. And try to get a clean image with no movement was fun.  As I was saying in the post below, I did manage to get am image when converted to b&w that the background had enough tonal separation so that it would work.

If it's your first tie here from the Camera Critters site than you can click on the Animal Link to take you to all the animal posted on the site. 

Elephant Shower

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Well no black and white landscapes for you today. Too much work on my hands at the moment. Two weddings to finish and another full weekend down at the Zoo. Above is one of the images I was ask to get of the Elephants when they were being cleaned by Gerry, one of the Keepers. There is a big international talk on Elephants in Dublin Zoo next week and a selection of images will be used in the lecture to highlight the work and enclosure in the Zoo. I also had to photograph a baby Chameleon, which was smaller than a 1 euro coin. Small, but they can move. I might show you that image tomorrow. I am not happy with the b&w version, it lacks contrast. It was taken as a colour so my choice of backgrounds is too close to the colour of the Chameleon when converted. Ah, I will give it another go and see what happens. This image works because of the contrast between the dark Elephant skin and the bright water spray. The composition not to bad either.

Skerries Today

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It's been a good while since I have taken any black and white landscapes of late. Too busy, a good complaint in these troubled times. You get to a point where you don't care any more. I have reach and passed that point now.

Back to photography. This image was taken today over on the east coast in a place called Skerries. We went for a walk around the village and beach area. I managed to slip away from the family with my camera and tripod. How did they get into the car? It's a mystery. Traveling very light, camera, 24mm tilt&shift lens and cable release. I managed to get a couple of images around the shoreline from Red Island. Red island is what they called the land around by the harbour. In the image above you can also see Colt Island.

This was a straight shot ie none of my usual grad filters. Processed using DXo Optics and dodge and burn in Photoshop.

What's in store for me this week coming:

Monday sees me heading down to Dublin Zoo for the Launch of the book on the history of the Zoo. Many of my photos are included. Tuesday is the opening night of the "Art of Photography" course I am teaching for the next 8 weeks. Wednesday is the opening night of "Digital Photography for Beginners". Another 8 week course I am teaching. I think I will bring a photo of my family with me as I don't think I will be seeing much of them. ( Good or Bad ? ).

Hope you have a good week and drop by during the week to see more B&W Landscapes.

Bundoran Sunset

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It's being a week since my last post. I can't believe that week has flown by. I was away in Turin last weekend shooting a Marathon. I'm also putting the finishing touches to two adult education night course on "The Art of Photography" and "Digital Photography for Beginners". After buying a 500mm lens it's still in the box and have not got the chance to use it yet.

Enough of that, the above image was taken from my last family holiday in Bundoran this year. The great thing about this location is that the hotel we were staying in was just to the right of the cliffs in the shot. So a simple was out the car park and bingo here you are. But the down side as I was saying in the last post it's too close to the hotel and you will get a fair amount of people out walking on the beach. ( Oh if I had a shotgun !!!!! ).

Again with shooting into the setting sun, the exposure can be very hard to get right so that the highlights are not blown out too much. In this image I was able to control them just right with the help of my ND Grad filters. The tide was also right so that the foreground rock helped the composition.

Have a good weekend and see you next week with a couple of more post I promise. 

Dunluce Castle

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This is another one of the famous visitor attractions on the Antrim Coast, Dunluce Castle. It's located between The Giant's Causeway and Portrush. Usually to get to this viewpoint you have to climb down the cliffs on the left side ( out of view in this image ). However on this occasion we had an easy walk down a man made wooden walkway. Hence the reason it's not in the above image. We were blessed with the weather and a low tide also. It was tricky to get the exposure right as the foreground rocks were in shadow and the sky was very bright. Using a couple of ND Grad filters and some dodge&burn I was able to balance the image nicely ??

Once again we had to work fast. Why ? The plague of all landscape photographers, the wandering tourist who just walks into the frame and stays there. Because of the walk way it was easy fro people to get down here and we had two families with children to content with this time. We should bring in a law so that photographers can shoot tourists ( and not with a camera ).

In the mean time have a good weekend and see you here next week.