The Liffey By Night

I mentioned a while back that, after having some trouble with low light shots coming out blurred, I had bought a Gorillapod. Well, the day (night) finally came for me to try it out properly and having threatened to take some pictures along the river liffey after dark for a while, I eventually made it down.

I found that shooting at night presents both positives and negatives. The positives are that the actual subject of the shots is usually nicely lit up, in some instances using some pretty funky colours which can look great when shot against a dark sky, and the reflection from the water adds a whole separate feature. Also, it gives an opportunity to get some pictures of places that would normally be packed with people while they are eerily quiet.

Negatively, I found that it can be difficult to find the right settings ('right' may be subjective here) to shoot with - taking two pictures of the same object a few seconds apart with different settings can result in to extremely different pictures, one with a more white-blue light making everything look cold, while the next could have a warmer sepia-like tint to it. I'm not sure which I prefer yet.

I also got to grips with longer-exposure pictures which, when used at a river setting, can give some interesting effects where the flowing water appears motion-blurred, while the subject of the shot remains still.Again, this can go either way depending on the actual subject of the photo but it was interesting to play around with.

Galway Vs Kilkenny - All Ireland SHC Leinster Final

Just a quick update for this one - tried my hand at some more sports photography by bringing my camera to Croke Park for the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Leinster Final (what a mouthful).

This was the second time I tried to take pics at a hurling game, but unlike rugby or football, the ball (made of cork, wrapped in leather) moves at a ridiculously fast pace (upwards of 150 kmh, according to Wikipedia), meaning getting an action shot takes a fast eye and an even faster lens.

I stuck to the tried and tested method of taking photos of set pieces such as penalties and frees, as well as one or two of the various folks that you come across at this type of game.

Boards.ie Photowalk

I've always been a bit of a lurker on Boards.ie, an Irish message board site covering pretty much every topic under the sun, but never really interacted with it that much. I decided it was time to get more involved with the photography board, and noticed that they were organising a photowalk based around the area I live.

There were about 7 or 8 people in all, ranging from folks with point and shoot pocket cameras to the more serious intercontinental-lens-wielding semi-pro's. The walk took us from Ballsbridge down along the river Dodder, past the new Aviva Stadium and towards the Grand Canal Dock area. I definitely took the most amount of photos from any one event but, as always, there are only a few keepers or ones that I actually felt were good. I also experimented a bit with the Manual Focus settings on my camera which was surprisingly easy to use.

Josh Ritter @ Google

Next up in the Musicians@Google series was Idaho's own Josh Ritter. Josh's set was probably the most polished to date, or maybe it's that I was a little bit more familiar with his songs and style. Either way, it was very good indeed.

Having had some practise already with the other musicians@ gigs, I thought this one went quite well. I'm also a bit more familiar with the camera settings and was able to get everything setup as I wanted for the light, etc. I also had my first play around with contrast settings in GIMP for the B&W shot, hopefully it made it look better!

A Brief Hiatus

And we're back!

I actually haven't even been away, but I have been taking some pics of family events recently, weddings, communions, etc. and decided that I'd prefer not to post pictures of family members or guests on here as some folks may not want their mugs plastered over a blog for all (anyone?) to see!

Steve