My "Photos Only" blog featuring some of my latest images and projects.
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As long as I’ve been taking photographs, Autumn has been my favourite time of the year. I love both the colour and the light, and there’s something cosy about the impending dark days of winter that makes it a special time of year. Recently though, loss has turned my favourite time of the year into a very difficult one.
Read MoreNear to where I live is what is a rather remarkable place to find in a city. Called “Airfield”, it is a 38 acre site which features a 19th century estate, gardens and a fully working farm. Recently, on an overcast and rainy day, my wife and I paid a visit to the estate for a walk around the gardens, to get away from the outside world for a few hours and I ended up taking a ridiculous number of photos.
On the last day of our recent trip around the southwest of Ireland, we stopped at a Lavender farm in Co. Wexford. My wife and I have always been a fan of Lavender, and it featured in the flowers at our wedding, so it was nice to see where it comes from. It also always makes for good photos.
Read MoreLike many people, while I’ve been lucky enough to travel abroad quite a bit, I haven’t actually spent much time exploring my own country of Ireland, and I’ve actually been to surprisingly little of the island. With Covid making international travel complicated and not something I particularly want to partake in right now, we recently decided to take a few days holiday in the southeast of Ireland. One of the most interesting places we visited was to the Hook peninsula to visit the famous Hook Lighthouse
Read MoreThis weekend we visited a stately home and gardens in Co. Wicklow (in Ireland) that has opened up to the public. Funnily enough, this was near to where I grew up, but I never even knew it was there. The Kilruddery estate, which has a “Tudor revival” style mansion based on a 17th-century foundation, and is also a working farm, and has beautiful grounds and gardens.
Read MoreAt the weekend we decided to go on an expedition in the car to the seaside. While we don’t exactly live inland, travelling around has become something of a chore now. While you can take public transport, I’m still somewhat wary of it, and so we try and stay in the car where we can be fairly isolated. On a July weekend, you might be thinking the beach would be packed, but at the height of a typical Irish summer, that wasn’t going to be a problem, as the temperature barely got above 16 degrees Celsius for the day, and the sky looked like something out of a science fiction movie.
Read MoreWhen the restrictions were eased, and we could finally escape, we headed to the sea to get some fresh air and see the outside world. Here is a little collage of photos and poetry to enshrine the moment. Enjoy.
Read MoreAnother virtual exhibit. This time of summer photos, taken over the past ten years, between May and September. Summer is one of my least favourite times to take photos. It’s not that I don’t like taking photos in Summer, it’s just that I prefer Autumn and Spring. But looking back I still have lots of photos of summer, and there’s still lots to enjoy. I love the colours of flowers and the green of the full trees.
Read MoreIt’s been about two months now since the lockdown began here in Ireland. It feels like two years. We’ve slowly gotten used to the new routine, and while frustrating, it’s become par for the course. Everyday, I get up and try and go for a walk to get some exercise, but the government guidelines until recently were to stay within 2km. This has made it seem like the world has collapsed to a much smaller place than it previously was. I guess this is what it was like in olden times when people rarely strayed past their villages.
Read MoreOn one of my trips to New York, back in 2009, I was walking through Central Park on a beautiful sunny day and wandered across a baseball game. I had never seen a baseball game in real life before and was chuffed to see this, it is such an icon of Americana, and this only being my second trip to the country.
Read MoreBeing cooped up at home for over a month now, like many people I’ve resorted to going back over old photos and projects as something to do while we can’t go out and shoot. I was going through my archive and something made me start looking at some old New York photos. I have a lot of fond memories of visiting the city and so, I decided to put together a little trip down memory lane, with a little virtual exhibit.
Read MoreAfter a long winter, the days start to get longer, and the weather begins to warm up. Outside, nature begins to return to life, and there’s nothing more liberating for the soul after months of dark and cold days than enjoying the beauty of nature as Spring takes hold. Unfortunately, with the current situation of a global pandemic forcing half of the world to stay indoors, this isn’t something that we can really do this year. So I decided to go back through my old photographs of Spring and create a little virtual spring exhibition!
Read MoreAfter the incident I had the last time I was out shooting Street Photography, I have been finding it hard to get back to shooting. The attack put me off wanting to do street photography at all, having both shattered my confidence and also my motivation. But slowly I’ve ben trying o make myself get back out there, and this Saturday, I finally did my first street shoot in a while.
Read MoreBack in June I spent a week in New York, and while I was there I didn’t do much photography, as I was mainly there for a holiday, and also I was recovering from a bad chest infection that I had had the previous month. Even so, I couldn’t resist the call of the camera, so I still managed to get some shots in.
Read MoreSometimes when I’m out shooting street photography, I will go out with a theme in mind. Other times, it will just sort of happen organically. I was walking through Dublin in May, and it was still pretty cold for that time of the year, yet there were lots and lots of tourists around and tour groups. I am actually fascinated by how other people view my home town, and when shooting street photography here I try to capture that. In this case, I seemed to gravitate towards catching the expressions of people enjoying their visit to Ireland, and the occasional local who got caught up in the mix too.
Read MoreSummer finally arrived in Ireland last week. It only lasted for a day or two, but we enjoyed it while it lasted! It’s actually been really cold so far through most of June, but we did have a few hot days, and so I headed out to see how people were enjoying the sunshine.
Read MoreI hadn’t had a chance to shoot some street photography in nearly a month, so I was happy to get out and shoot again. I wanted to try and practice and change up the way I shoot a bit, especially for street photography. I wanted to focus on things like shadows, and reflections, and be on the look out for something different to the type of things I normally shoot. I wasn’t hugely successful in changing my habits, but I still got a couple of shots I’m really happy with.
Read MoreSpring has arrived in the city with an unusually warm couple of days, and it really showed on the faces of the people as they went about their daily lives. The ever changing beat of the city seemed more alive, and everyone from the tourists to the locals seemed to be enjoying the nice weather.
Read MoreI’ve had this idea in the back of my head for a few days and I wanted to act on it. For some reason, Ive had this urge to take out my macro lens and shoot some macro shots. So today I grabbed my camera and the afore mentioned lens and headed out to a local park to see what I could see.
Read MoreAs Autumn draws to a close here in Dublin, and the first days of winter begin to take hold, the cold days have one big plus for photography: the light is absolutely gorgeous. The low sun of the northern(ish) latitude brings with it beautiful long shadows and a golden light, while the skies take on a deep hue.
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