Strange Clouds

Strange clouds in Glendalough, Ireland 16-10-2010

Studio session 03/10/2010

Spent the afternoon in the studio today. A couple of shots that caught my eye when I went through the photographs so far:

Model: Aisling Danagher Make-up: Lisa Smyth



Model: Maria Keogh Make-up: Lisa Smyth

Mother Earth Dancing by Betty Newman-Maguire

I couldn't resist to post a few more images of my favourite sculpture from the Sculpture in Context 2010 Exhibition in Botanic Gardens.

A beautiful piece of art!

Sculpture in Context 2010 in Botanic Gardens

There is a beautiful mix of sculptures in Botanic Gardens, Dublin until 15/10/2010.
I admire sculpting and below is a small selection of my favourites from the exhibition:


Mother Earth Dancing by Betty Newman-Maguire

This sculpture is so beautiful. I have viewed it several times and will view it again while I still have the opportunity.





I couldn't find this one in the catalogue but it looks like a work of art from Bob Quinn. I love his work!





Flight of Butterflies by Ray Delaney

Beautiful Butterflies and the piece works so well in the current environment!




Onlookers by Sandra McCowen

Eye catching!




Twisted Sister I, II, II by Paddy Moloney
(one of them)

A lady with attitude! I love the burgundy colour.



http://www.sculptureincontext.com/arboretum.htm

Autumn Colours in Botanic Gardens 26/09/2010

Johnstown Castle in co Wexford 05/09/2010

My attempt to capture the castle on a mixed weather day. For a short while there was some colour in the sky. We reached the castle after quite some rally driving on L roads. The GPS we had just loved L roads...

Roland- I found your box!

Spotted in Wexford city on the quays- near the big turquoise boat, ok...

Rain

The weekend rained away so I did not feel like going out and capture some more autumn photos. If it must rain this week I'm hoping that it will all fall during the week and leave the weekend nice and sunny.
Here's a capture from the previous weekend when I didn't let a little bit of rain be a hinder.

Botanic Gardens Dublin 11/09/2010

It's nearly the end of the summer. Autumn is starting to take over. Rain and sunshine. There are more flowers left than I thought. The leaves on some trees are changing into beautiful vibrant yellow and red.
I need to go back to the gardens to capture this autumn properly. So many time I have been there but I always get new photos, sometimes improvements of previous ones but most of the time brand new perspectives.

Boat graveyard in Wexford city

There are several abandoned boats along the quays of Wexford city. It's nearly like a boat graveyard with boats left to slowly rotten away. A bit sad but hey, they are lovely photo subjects... I guess the Casino is thriving though.

Dreamy waves at Hook Head, Co Wexford

This shot was taken around 7AM at Hook Head in Count Wexford. We missed the sunrise but at least there were some waves. Freezing cold and a drizzle but tried to get something out of it.

Pylly vasten pyllyä...

This photo kind of goes together with the embarrassing Eurovision entry from Finland in 1976.

A rough translation of the title is: "Bum against bum..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHO_mFsR9Eg&feature=related

Orange flowers are now in a third exhibition!

I'm currently waiting on more details but I have it confirmed that my photograph "Orange Flowers" is in an exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland.
I didn't expect this photograph to do so well. I chose it to my Couleur & Contraste exhibition in Paris Feb-Mar this year purely based on the colour. Then I entered it into the DCC Photo 2010 competition/exhibition and was amazed that it actually got through as well as getting marked as highly commended.

The exhibition is at the below address:

Photographic Exhibition Centre
68 Great King Street
Edinburgh, EH3 6QU
Scotland

And once more here's the photograph!

Icecream colours in Vienna 15/08/2010

Pretty houses spotted on the way to Hunderwasser Haus.

Wake_up in Vienna 15/08/2010

The aim was to catch the sunset and water-boarders at Wake_up at Danube. The sunset was bland so I won't bother posting any photos of that but it was cool to see water boarding; never seen that before.

Some more info on the link; the page is in German.
http://wakeboardlift.at/willkommen

Heiligenstadt in Vienna 15/08/2010

Heiligenstadt is not far from the city centre. We cycled along the river and walked up the hill. Vienna has great cycle lanes! There are great panorama views over Vienna up on the hill and you can enjoy a glass of wine at one of the Heurigers. Or perhaps a spritzer if you are continuing the cycling. We went to Weingut Hajzsan.

Some links:

http://www.wien.info/en/shopping-wining-dining/wine/heurige-3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuriger

http://www.wien.gv.at/english/leisure/bike/

Rax Mountain in Austria

Reichenau is around a 90km drive from Vienna. You can also get the train there. The Rax mountain is a fairly easy place to do a bit of hiking for the inexperienced. There are frequent cable cars going up to about 1.5km height and then you can hike to Ottohaus for lunch or refreshments. Views are spectacular depending on how low the clouds are. Proper clothing and hiking boots is recommended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rax

http://region.austria.info/at/guide/152785sy,en,OEWE/objectId,RGN110620at,_site,uk,_area,provinces-regions/home.html

A few shots from Rax 14/08/2010

Belvedere, Vienna

The original Gustav Klimt painting- The Kiss is in Belvedere in Vienna. It's well worth a visit, such a beautiful painting! We had a pleasant morning and suddenly the sky turned dark and dramatic. I didn't mind as I got some shots and we made it inside before the rain started lashing down.

Link to Belvedere:
http://www.belvedere.at/jart/prj3/belvedere/main.jart?rel=en

Here's one capture:

Karlskirche, Vienna

Karlskirche is a beautiful church in Vienna. It's currently going through some restoration but the front is done. The clouds were lovely and made a nice background when just shooting part of the church to avoid the tourists sitting on the steps and walking around. There are classical concerts in the evenings in the church; I can particularly recommend the Vivaldi "Four Seasons".

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/austria/vienna-karlskirche.htm

Der Stadtpark in Vienna

I've been on holiday in Vienna. The below statue is located in der Stadtpark where I was strolling around on Wednesday.

More information about the park on these links:
http://www.wien.gv.at/umwelt/parks/anlagen/stadtpark.html
http://www.suf.at/wien/ringstr/stadtpark.htm

Rose d'un Bum

The real name is Willow Herb but the nick name for the flower in Finland is "Rentun Ruusu" which could translate as "Rose of a bum". They can be found in any ditch so if you ever receive a bouquet of these you can say that you got roses from a bum.

Two different takes:

Seen its best days



On the way out

Around 10PM in Flatland

The archipelago in Finland is beautiful. It's rocky and shallow so you need to know the buoys and drive the boat accordingly. Finns have their summer cottages on islands and there are plenty of them too. Finland has nearly 188,000 lakes but I have always preferred the coast and the sea.
The photograph below would have been better if I had used a tripod but try to balance that in a moving motorboat bumping off the waves... I didn't even bother bringing the tripod with me on the boat trip.

A lovely tune to go with my photo can be found on the below youtube link.
Lasse Mårtensson - Myrskyluodon Maija
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuLkrDZq7OU&feature=related

Tourist information:
http://www.visitfinland.com/web/guest/fishing/waters/coast-and-archipelago/gulf-of-othnia;jsessionid=E620ED8FF3327090D7A24DD99870AF65.liferay011

Bumble bees

There are plenty of bumble bees in my parent's garden. Peacefully they gather nectar for hours. For some reason they all get stuck on the ugliest flowers when I would prefer them to sit for ages on bright blue, red or yellow flowers. I guess they go for the best quality nectar/pollen? They will collect nectar from pretty flowers too but they do it so quickly that I just can't keep up with my camera. I think I have to start thinking of buying a macro lense to get sharper photographs of close-ups.

First person to let me know what the name of the below flower is will get a photo! Biology is not one of my stronger points... :-)

Porvoo 18/07/2010

I've been on a 2 week holiday in Finland so I haven't been active on the blog. The weather was great and I visited places I've been to before but saw them with new eyes.

Below a few photos from Porvoo, a pretty town 50km east of Helsinki.

http://www.porvoo.fi/

Photo 2010

I have ten photos in the Photo 2010 exhibition which is open until 29/07/2010

Dublin City Library,
138 Pearse St. Dublin 2

Opening hours:
Monday to Thursday: 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Friday and Saturday: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Photo 2010 is part of PhotoIreland Festival 2010
http://www.photoireland.org/




The photo on our poster is by Paul Timon

Studio session 11/07/2010

I was in the studio this afternoon with two models and make-up artist Lisa Smyth.
It was a great session with some experimenting with both make-up and light settings.

Gina:



Niamh:

Botanic Gardens 05/07/2010

Flowers again...