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.

Big Day Out @ Merrion Square - St. Patricks Day Festival

Catching up on some uploading this week - The St. Patrick's Day Festival Big Day Out at Merrion Square in Dublin happens over a week, a few days either side of the actual day itself. It's a family affair, as the song goes, and it's a great few days of street performance, music, food and entertainment, with the entire square closed to traffic and one side housing a fun-fair complete with ferris wheel, etc.

I went for a stroll on the Sunday, and was hoping to get some candid shots of people going about their business and enjoying the day. However, I still haven't managed the art of taking a picture of someone or capturing a moment without the people actually noticing you taking a photograph of them!

Either way, I grabbed a few shots of the performers, and a random shot of a kids balloon which I realised a few days later wasn't a million miles away from a shot in the actual TV ad for my camera, the Lumix G1 - guess I'm on the right track!