Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

It is that time of year folks where we by now should be sat in front of the fire, sipping your favourite drink, watching Only Fools & Horses do their thing!!!

I would like to thank friends, family and clients from 2010 for an amazing year and can not wait to tell you what 2011 has coming, it is going to be an amazing year!!!

I was asked a little while back by the organisers would I be interested in taking pictures of the concert to help celebrate the memory of Manuela Riedo. A massive and special mention must also go out to the organiser of the show, Shane Lennon. The support from the artists involved and for those who came along to enjoy the evenings entertainment was a testament to your hard work – well done!!!

Also, due to the amount of images I wanted to share, I am actually going to split the event into two posts so that it allows you to appreciate the evenings efforts. So without any further delay, I present a selection of images taken on the night for you to enjoy

I will warn you now, there will be a lot of images in this post  :-)

Our MC for the night was Mary McGill

Arlette and Hans Peter (Manuela’s parents) in the foreground leading everyone to the beach.



We all headed back inside into the Salthill Hotel where we started the nights entertainment.

The first act were the brilliant Trad on the Prom. If you have never seen any of their shows then you MUST go and see them when they resume in the summer.

Chris Kelly kick starting the evenings entertainment




We then had the amazing Gerard Fahy who gave us a couple of tunes using the Uileann Pipes.

After the Trad on the Prom guys had finished we had Justin Kelly belt some great tunes.

Justin then provided the backing music and vocals to the super talented Lucia Evans.


The next act up were Ruth & Bernie from The Molly Hicks



A little while after they were joined on stage by the talented Mary McPartlan for a few songs

fbd

When I first started getting into photography, long before I even considered having my own web site , I used to use Flickr to host & share my images. One of the advantages of Flickr is the ability to join in various groups that have been created ie portraits, wedding, camera manufacturer or even specific to the model you have, it is pretty extensive indeed the amount available to you. The other advantage to joining these groups is adding your image(s) to them to get critique on them whether it be the processing, the posture of the model – you get the idea. But it really serves a purpose, or it did for me to see what I was doing wrong or what I needed to do to make something even better.

The image below of the American Bald Eagle was posted a while back just to show off some shots I took of birds of prey in the UK. I totally forgot about it for a few months until I got an unexpected email from a gent in the USA asking if he could get a copy of it as he wanted to have a tattoo of it done on his arm.  I was a bit taken back by it at first as it was definitely not the kind of request I was expecting for such a shot. We started trading a few emails back and forth and I eventually sent a low res image across and waited and waited for a picture back to see how it all turned out.

The result is below.

Damaged lens

March 30, 2010

I am a little sad at the moment. For the first time in 3 years of shooting events I accidently dropped my most used lens. Sadly, it is not focusing at all, so off to the Canon A&E it needs to go. Hopefully and fingers crossed (or anything else that can be crossed) I will have it back in time for the next session which is not too far away.

Moral of the story – make sure the zips on the camera bag are done up properly before picking it up!!!!!!

Happy St Patricks Day

March 17, 2010

This is my 5th year in Ireland now and every Paddy’s Day gets better and better.

This year the plan is to shoot some pictures of the Paddy’s Day parade here in Oranmore but focusing on Bualadh Bos, the Oranmore Music & Drama Group especially as they have made such an effort this year with their float and costumes.

I will add some images later when I have had the chance to download and go through them all as I am sure there will be a few.

Have fun everyone!!

I have lived in Ireland and in Oranmore now for coming up to 5 years and I was always fascinated by this castle.

What is more intriguing about it is that it is currently owned and lived in by the oldest surviving submarine commander from World War II, Commander Bill King. Such an interesting chap and with such an amazing zest for life and what a list of accomplishments he has to his name.

In general I do not take many landscapes as I tend to find I do not have the patience to wait for the “right light” but this was simply impossible not to capture. So I thought I would share it with you all.

Spring is upon us …

March 9, 2010

Well, I like to think it is and judging by the flowers starting take a peep to see if it is OK to come out and the sun setting later as each every day goes, it certainly gives that impression.

So as a little momento of the day and to help give everyone that fuzzy feeling with a fantastic Summer looming (we can hope can’t we?), I thought I would share this with you.

Spring 2010 images from Oranmore

Now that I have the new blog sorted, I wanted to share this video that I saw quite a while back. The imagination and simplicity of using just sand to create this kind of art is crazy but yet the results are just breathtaking. It is 9 minutes long so bear with it but it will be so worth it.

Enjoy!!

This is the first proper post for the new blog that I am slowly putting together now that it is here for everyone to see. It still needs a few minor adjustments to get it the way I want, but overall, I am happy with it. It is also taking a little while getting used to using WordPress but like anything when you use it on a regular basis then the easier it will become.

Originally, I was thinking of transferring everything over from the my original Blog but decided to leave it where it is. You know, new blog, new year and all that. So here we go people, fasten your seat belts and lets have some fun along the way …..