Posts Tagged ‘photo’
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…
Re-use and recycle a little soul…
We were on the way to a woodland walk with the kids when my wife spotted two of them. ‘Didn’t you see them?!!’ said she. ‘See what?’ said I; and so proceded a gentle negotiation on the retrieval of two plastic buggies, from a skip in someones driveway. I was of the mind initially, that it was a finders keepers situation and, as my lovely wife had seen these items, why, then she could just rock up to the door of this house and speak with the owners.
Of course, and as usual, my approach didn’t and never works. But I persist in being stubborn, and refuse to be assimilated. Anyway, the nice man of the house was delighted that these two buggies would, once again be transporting another generation of kiddies to other worlds. We managed to stuff one of the plastic fantastic motors in the back of our small family car. The other item I would take on a walk, and be picked up by my wife and kids – who were at this stage mimicing a pack of yapping Jack Russell’s in the back of the car – when she had dropped off the first plastic wonder.
Both me and the toy trundled down the road to Delgany and this weird smile started to open up on my face. Weirdly, I was quitely thanking my wife for twisting my arm and getting me involved in this little caper. She always does this to me. I started passing by folks on the street. The sight of a man approaching 40 years with a sweatshirt the front of which proclaims ‘Life is Good!’ proved too much. I slipped into clown mode – one of the true tools in the father, man, work etc. toolbox – and went with the moment. Stange looks/smiles at the local petrol station evinced statements about running on fresh air. ‘I’ll do anything to get a good set of wheels in this recession.’
It was turning out to be a really good day. But it got even better when we had the cars washed down and the kids took off down the street in them. Happiness can cost you nothing. Except a bit of sweat and a wee polishing off of your brass neck, we all have one.
So there I was sitting in my car…
So there I was, sitting in the car in a state of inertia. My wife and kids had gone to the UK to see their Gran and I’m home alone in the village of Greystones, in the county of Wicklow. I’ve spent the last few weeks on interminable doorsteps and hit a low when I realised; “wait a minute, when was the last time I actually went out and made a picture?” Being a press photographer, quite often, the job is as much about not photographing as it is about making a picture.
So, it being a Sunday, it thought to myself; “Church, why hadn’t I gone?, again…”
It started to lash out of the heavens, the sun broke through the clouds and, all I could say was: “Thank you God.”