Archive for the ‘landscape’ Category
Realignment
Facebook, two weeks from now and my account will be deleted. Linkd In is next. My blackened toes and moments of clarity in-between evenings imbibing cans of Devils Bit have brought me to the simple and sweeping realization. Now is now, now is gone. Now is now. Everything hinges on now.
Found Objects with iPhone
Sometimes the beautiful and intriguing come along when one least expects it.
And sometimes the beautiful can be intriguing.
The Leica 50mm Elmar
The Leica 50mm Elmar is the country cousin of the 50mm Summicron. But it has something special. Shooting with it takes a similar élan to using hands to print an image in b&w wet process. It has a long focus throw and while I’ve enjoyed it’s unusual ergononomics, I could never make up my mind about it. Untill I sent it off to Malcom Taylor Leica repair in Hereford, UK. It came back in almost new condition, not bad for a fifty year old lens. So the Elmar is a keper. Beautiful low contrast images. Processing the Leica M8 files in the latest version of Aperture is a painless way to process. More time to shoot, that’s the way it should be.
Loads of Travelling
Once again it’s copious amounts of car time. The last three weeks have been just one constant road trip after another with a couple of days at home. The kids are beginning to notice my absence. I picked up a hamstring injury preparing for a marathon in November and thanks to all the car time it’s not really improving, it just seems to rotate around and around the upper leg and hip. Bummer. 
I’ll just have to parcel up some sympathy and leave it under the christmas tree for Christmas day. Mmm, some sympathy, with a few glasses of Connemara Peated Single Malt, some good food and the kids creating havoc. All this before 7am. Never mind the hamstring, bring on the nut loaf…
Halloween
I took a break from press work to cover a gig lead by Simeon Smith an old friend and leader of Masamba, they hit Dublin’s Templebar area evoking Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and his Uumpa Loompas. It was a fun gig and, for me the reactions on the faces of Dubliners after the gig was just priceless. Sparkle and smile…
Skellig Islands
The Skellig Islands, off the Iveragh Penninsula, County Kerry. It’s said the monastery on Skellig Michael. the larger of the two islands in the photo below was founded by Saint Fionan. Why he chose one of the most bleakest outlying regions of western Europe is one for a long nights discussion. Possibly he was trying to get away from it all. Too many sheep, viking raids, and bothersome local authority looking for taxes or something similar. Maybe it was a statement. But when I looked over from Bray Head on Valentia Island and saw the islands shrouded in mist and, the sun setting, a little of the magic of the place was instilled in me. The Skelligs speak of natures silence. They were one of the last places in the known world at the time where the suns rays last would fall on a day of prayer and penance. A hard life for anybody, by any standards, but did it give much to the monks?
Going through Stuff
Never having the time, or never making the time to work on personal photographic project is something of a bug bear with me. I’ve a dose of pics, some panoramic for a trip to New Zealand from four years ago that I have to dig out and start processing into usable images. The funky thing is, most of them were shot with a Fuji S1, the original Frankencamera, and this one is a true cliché.
takeaframe 