Ordinary Photos

Pinhole

2011-11-22T22:35:00.001Z

My good friend and genius Mistern Iclasf Asth suggested that I remove the lens of my camera, find some paper, poke a hole in it and use it as a lens.
I didn't know you could do that, so I did it.
This is what happened.

Houses in the evening

2011-11-22T22:34:00.001Z

Gloaming

2011-10-14T12:26:00.001+01:00

I'll be moving back to Dublin at some point in the fairly near future.
I'm really going to miss having such easy access to this place and the total silence of it.

Late summer

2011-10-14T12:22:00.000+01:00

Dead little bird

2011-06-29T14:21:00.000+01:00

This turned up in my garden

The mother bird stood on the roof of the house calling to it to get away from the man with a camera. I shouted "He's dead, ye stupid cow!" but she didn't listen.
Idiot.

A Nikon film camera

2011-06-20T00:31:00.004+01:00

Owned and operated by Nicon

Rainbow

2011-06-20T00:30:00.002+01:00

Swedish clouds

2011-06-20T00:25:00.000+01:00

really very much like Irish and Danish clouds

Birds and oddities

2011-06-20T00:24:00.000+01:00

Here be skellingbones

2011-06-20T00:22:00.000+01:00

I left Viborg

2011-06-20T00:21:00.000+01:00

and here's a photo to prove it

Here are some other photos

Danish clouds

2011-06-20T00:18:00.003+01:00

A lot like Irish ones, really.

Blue and White

2011-06-20T00:17:00.000+01:00

Sun

2011-04-25T22:17:00.003+01:00

..burnt my eyes a wee bit taking this..

Black and White

2011-04-17T21:05:00.000+01:00

Viborg Walkies

2011-04-17T21:04:00.002+01:00

Spring

More smalls

2011-04-17T21:03:00.000+01:00

Voggy

2011-03-14T18:58:00.001Z

The chair

2011-03-11T23:46:00.000Z

Viborg 1

2011-02-21T09:25:00.003Z

Denmark is a happy place

2011-02-21T09:25:00.002Z

Zoom lenses

2011-02-13T00:19:00.000Z

Dec09

2011-01-26T12:42:00.000Z

old ones

Glendalough

2011-01-25T17:35:00.000Z

Hospital

2011-01-10T02:38:00.000Z

Taken through the window on a bus, hence the mad gradient and shenanigans on the right.

Eimhin by Lisa and Lisa by Eimhin

2011-01-04T18:13:00.004Z

I didn't take these. They did.

...but it was my camera and I desaturated them 'cause the white balance was shite.

Crows

2010-12-26T13:17:00.000Z

Cold out

2010-12-26T12:52:00.000Z

Cooker

2010-12-18T20:57:00.000Z

Snow in November

2010-11-28T19:46:00.000Z

Djouce again

2010-10-25T20:40:00.000+01:00

Weird light today. Some of the colours are a bit bananas.

Kippure

2010-10-18T19:36:00.002+01:00

Rupert Again

2010-10-10T17:37:00.000+01:00

Autumn 2010

2010-10-08T13:41:00.001+01:00

Drip drip drip

2010-10-03T16:40:00.000+01:00

Pigeon

2010-10-03T16:13:00.000+01:00

Burgundy

2010-09-26T21:50:00.001+01:00

Before leaving the house, choose your outfit wisely.

nightlight

2010-09-26T13:05:00.001+01:00

Monaghan

2010-09-20T13:17:00.000+01:00

A wedding in Castle Leslie in Monaghan.

Tipperary

2010-09-17T18:02:00.000+01:00

Seatown

2010-09-11T23:18:00.000+01:00

Rupert

2010-09-11T20:57:00.000+01:00

him again :)

Window

2010-09-10T19:16:00.002+01:00

Blue

2010-09-10T19:08:00.002+01:00

Arklow

2010-09-05T18:32:00.000+01:00

Paws

2010-08-29T22:12:00.000+01:00

Howth

2010-08-02T18:12:00.000+01:00

We cycled out to Howth
I took some photos
We cycled back
I picked my favourite photos and uploaded them to my photo blog
Then I posted about it on facebook and twitter
Then you looked at them
Then you left a comment, remember?
Then I became famous
Then I died
rich and famous.

Weed

2010-07-04T19:36:00.002+01:00

Our garden has seen some strange new growth recently. Over the course of a couple of wet but sunny days, the commonplace generic weeds and daisies were joined by...
little trees.

There's two mature trees of this species (don't know what it is) in the garden and now there's about fifteen little saplings in the garden. Now I don't want to cut the grass, chopping down little trees seems more destructive than just grass and daisies.

Bumble Bean

2010-06-29T14:31:00.001+01:00

Just showing off

2010-06-28T23:30:00.007+01:00

I got a new lens this morning..

Hark at the delicious bokeh!

Admire the shallowness of field!

Swoon at the circular blown-out highlights!

Oh, manatee, I love this lens.
More to come in future, no doubt.

Oh, b the w, it's a Nikon f1.8 50mm prime lens if you're so gorgeous as to wonder what kind of lens this is.

Wet birdlings

2010-05-18T14:44:00.000+01:00

More little bundles of fluff :)

Eat!

2010-05-17T13:27:00.003+01:00

We have blackbirds and thrushes living in our garden, with regular visits by sparrows, finches, swallows and tits. These blackbird chicks showed up recently, I don't know where the nest is but it must be in our garden somewhere. Nearly bigger than the parent and reluctant to fly, they hop about in the grass with a ridiculously cartoonish hop and then when the adult appears with a bit of food, the chick does a little flurry of a dance as he gets fed.
Today, the adult has appeared a couple of times with food for the chicks but they refuse to eat for some reason. It's strangely moving to see the adult hop from one chick to the other offering food and breaking it up into smaller pieces in an effort to appeal to the chick but to no avail.
Then he just flies away and comes back with more food for them to refuse.

Djouce

2010-05-03T00:56:00.000+01:00

Ducklings

2010-04-19T13:06:00.000+01:00

Berlin

2010-04-07T14:02:00.002+01:00

Holocaust memorial.

Me and Louise in front of the Reichstag.

Zoo

2010-04-05T19:34:00.003+01:00

I went to the zoo for the last time.

Gull fight

2010-03-01T22:21:00.001Z

The gulls mentioned in an earlier post.

Blue

2010-03-01T22:18:00.001Z

Beach birds

2010-03-01T22:15:00.002Z

Swans - a year later

2010-03-01T22:13:00.001Z

A boy

2010-03-01T22:10:00.003Z

I rarely post photos of humans. Just for future reference, use this as a benchmark. If you're not as lovely as this wee fella, I won't photo you.
He was feeding bread to the swans and ducks but not the gulls because they were being bold.
More on that in subsequent posts.

Björk

2010-03-01T22:09:00.002Z

Crow

2010-03-01T22:00:00.001Z

Dense

2009-11-03T00:43:00.001Z

I killed a Summer

2009-10-17T01:44:00.006+01:00

and gave birth to an Autumn.

Then I went home.

Sea squeeze the boat

2009-09-21T22:47:00.002+01:00

Goodbye fast bird

2009-09-21T22:46:00.000+01:00

You were too quick.

Cormorants

2009-09-21T22:34:00.002+01:00

I had to break the law to get these unforgettably awe-inspiring photos of a bunch of Great Cormorants in Dún Laoghaire so a bit of gratitude wouldn't go amiss, you ungrateful swine.

Seagull breakfast

2009-09-21T22:22:00.003+01:00

I stopped on my way to work to take a photo of this wee gull and accidentally stayed with him for about 15 minutes as he pecked at invisible morsels floating about where I was sitting.

Powder Rainbow

2009-08-17T01:17:00.001+01:00

I like how this looks like a lovely bookshelf at first.

Like rain

2009-08-17T00:49:00.004+01:00

I couldn't live in a country without rain.

Swanlings

2009-06-10T00:28:00.007+01:00

Some local swans made some little bundles of grey fluff last week. The parents are unusually docile so I was able to walk right up to the swanlets and sit beside them.
Nothing wrong with taking a break from a cycle home on a warm evening to hang around with these happy little fluffy cheeky chappies.

THERE IT IS!

2009-05-29T00:29:00.001+01:00

An in-joke that's so "in" it's become completely inbred.

Heron

2009-05-29T00:23:00.002+01:00

Can't believe how close I got to this fella. They're usually so nervous.
Shame I didn't capitalise on the opportunity and get some good photos. ...just okay photos, as befitting the brief of this blog.

Quay

2009-04-05T23:19:00.002+01:00

It feels strange to find myself making a kind of defence for industrialism. In fact, I'm not really making a general defence of heavy industry, one look at China and India would blow any argument away but I'm concerned with this place.
Dundalk is turning into a hole of pretence and I'm sure in my lifetime, this quay will be shut down. The slack heaps, the silos and the cranes will be replaced by huge, unspeakably boring apartments that will lie empty just like every other new building and the town will deny it's industrial past.
I post this on the same weekend I found out that the forest near my house where I did my teenaging has been completely removed and is now a barren plot of land. The good news is, it seems it will be a park/recreation space. I hope that's true.

..If anybody tears down the windmill, I think I'll kill them :)
I should take some photos of that soon, actually.

Crow

2009-04-04T15:57:00.004+01:00

One-legged Plover

2009-03-17T16:57:00.002Z

Someday I hope to hear a Screaming Piha with my own ears. Until then, the sound of lots of tiny birds singing every morning will be more than adequate.

Spring

2009-03-06T23:16:00.002Z

"Snow"

2009-02-08T19:41:00.004Z

..my little geo-widget tells me that most of the visitors to this blog are from places who get snow more than once every 10 ten years so when I post these photos of "snow", please don't laugh. Just humour me, it's real snow to me and it's important.

BerryBranches

2009-01-07T00:42:00.001Z

These are my favourite photos I've taken for ages and ages.

Magpie

2009-01-07T00:41:00.000Z

Photos from work

2009-01-07T00:32:00.001Z

Just enjoying light and colour .....rather than interesting subjects...

sorry.

Autumn Evenings

2009-01-07T00:23:00.003Z

I haven't updated this in ages. In the last couple of months I've just been emptying my camera's memory card into my 'Unsorted' folder which took me two days to sort just before Christmas. I'd love to say that I won't let that happen again but I know, deep down, I'm a lazy bastard.
Here's some photos taken while walking a doggy.

and some photos of Autumn taken while waiting for a train home.

A moon

2008-10-16T00:09:00.000+01:00

So long..

2008-10-12T23:07:00.004+01:00

All too often, we take things for granted. I took this photo because somehow I knew that before too long it would be all I'd have to remember.
I was right.

Less than a month after I took this photo, Aidan shaved off this wonderous beard and all that was left was the somewhat dull and pointless human underneath..

Whenever I see him now, he has to strap a bunny or a cat to his face so I can at least pretend it's still there. He keeps muttering something about being allergic but it's hard to know what he's saying through his tears when he's curled up in a ball on the ground and turning a strange colour.

I miss my hairy friend.

Flight

2008-09-20T14:44:00.000+01:00

morning sun

2008-09-20T01:50:00.000+01:00

early morning sunlight on a tree.

The smell of seaweed

2008-09-20T00:42:00.004+01:00

A short walk on a pier.
I persisted with this new manual focus telephoto lens. I can't believe I got any actually in focus.

Linear alignment.

Wildlife

2008-09-16T23:38:00.003+01:00

Hello again

2008-09-15T23:43:00.006+01:00

I'm really happy to be back posting on this, my favourite of my blogs. My silent, unvisited little pleasance :)
My broken camera has been replaced by a bigger, better, more attractive device.
Now, some photos. Reminders (to myself and anybody who cares to look) that if you happen to look up on any ordinary day, there's a good chance you'll see something spectacular, beautiful and immense. It's also a reminder to be grateful for having eyes that work, not only for practical reasons but for aesthetic reasons.

Unordinary

2008-06-17T00:29:00.009+01:00

..these aren't really ordinary. A photo of a country (in this case, England or possibly Wales) taken from over a kilometre up at a few hundred kilometres per hour doesn't really count as ordinary in the way this blog is supposed to be but I think it looks like a little blanket.
I suppose clouds are part of this blog in an ironic kind of way... They're ordinary in the sense that we see them every day but usually they go unnoticed or unappreciated even though they're some of the most amazing scenery this planet is capable of producing.

Crepuscular rays

2008-06-05T00:17:00.003+01:00

Finally, an excuse to use the word crepuscular. I wanted to call them vespertine crepuscular rays, but that'd just be pleonastic. ..which is unfortunate because they're two of the nicest words in the language and they're pretty much interchangeable.

Everyday stuff

2008-05-01T23:17:00.003+01:00

My strange little ups and downs are becoming more frequent and stronger this past few weeks. Every day swings from the incredibly boring to the spectacular.

Boring:

Spectacular:

...except sometimes a cup of tea does seem absolutely spectacular to me ...but I've never seen a boring cloud.
This is anything but consistent.

Motorway trip

2008-04-11T04:47:00.003+01:00

That's an hilarious pun on the word triptych and a 'trip' meaning journey.
I'm amazing.

....

Anyway, it's not like I haven't done triptychs before but, for some reason, this feels like a nod to Sanna Nilsson's photos. She has a great blog located here SANNA'S BLOG!
Go and look at it, enjoy it and ...give her some money or something.

March Dullness

2008-04-11T04:35:00.008+01:00

These are the things I find the most interesting from day to day. For some reason I'm completely fascinated by the dullest things imaginable. I recently got a book called 'Boring Postcards' compiled by Martin Parr. It's a collection of genuine English postcards of places like Bridge and Restaurant on the A1 North of Doncaster, Bus Station at Halifax and the CEGB Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire. I love it.

March clouds

2008-03-08T19:51:00.004Z

Walking the dog again today. Beautiful, rainy, windy day. Along the river here there's no shelter from the wind. I love it.

A collaboration

2008-02-28T22:34:00.003Z

For some reason, my parents think they have no talent and seem to mention it if they see me painting.
... but look at this photo:
I did that gorilla painting as their Christmas card, randomly choosing green when there isn't really a room that suits that colour, but it ended up in the sitting room with cream and brown, then mam put these flowers beside it.
There couldn't be a better combination of colours to have beside it.
So this is a bit of a collaboration.. I did a painting, mam put the flowers beside it and I took this photo.. :)

The third weekend of February

2008-02-19T00:27:00.007Z

Last weekend was spent with my brother's puppy, Rupert. My brother's in hospital for fairly baffling reasons but coming home tomorrow.
I took him (the dog) for a walk on Saturday. It was the first time I ever walked him and the first time he decided it'd be fun to get up to his belly caked in mud. He's the nosiest dog ever.. he has to know what's going on. I stopped to take a photo of a tiny little flower that had just breached the surface after several months underground ..and he came boundin' over to see what I was up to.. he stood on the camera, licked my face, then stood on the poor wee flower.
RIP poor wee flower.
Now, here's the walking natural disaster that is Rupert...

Christ for sale

2008-01-26T16:00:00.001Z

Only €799

Nice Things

2008-01-26T15:50:00.001Z

Ireland being just a bit too cliché.

Paws. In the Guinness book of records for being "the world's loveliest thing"

This post is for the benefit of somebody who needs a bit of cheering up.
Summer's coming.