Birthday Boy

I photographed this handome young man on his 4th birthday last week, and his big brother also posed for a few. The shots are informal with no studio lighting set up, the toughest part of it was to get everyone still for more than half a second, but we had good fun.

That was the week that was.

We had beautiful weather this week, the first signs of spring are appearing. Tuesday morning was very misty before the sun broke through, I just had to stop in Cootehall on the way to the studio.


Wednesday's sunset was spectacular, so I stopped off at Rockport lake for a few minutes. These are straight out of the camera - no post processing whatsoever.


This evening I took Ossie out for a walk by Lough Gara. The abandoned Culfadda schoolhouse had a dramatic backdrop. Then the view from the bridge.


I did some informal portrait shots of a young man on his 4th birthday on Friday - I'll post a few when I've had the chance to review them.

Extras

Three more from Saturday, in colour this time. I'm not sure what the monument represents, but liked the early morning sunlight reflecting off the top of it.

On the high dunes, the wind whipped up and created a brief sandstorm - not good for camera gear - this was shot from the hip under my jacket.

This crow can read.

Strandhill Revisited

It might not be apparent from a lot of the pictures I've posted on here, but I much prefer black and white to colour photography. In the digital age, I often miss the rituals of enlargers, test strips, the tang of chemicals and standing in the darkroom's red gloom watching the image magically appear in the developer tray. So when I had the chance to spend half an hour in Strandhill yesterday I had it in mind to think in black & white; where texture, tone, patterns and form eank higher than colour, hue, saturation or light temperature.

Back in the darkroom, a lot of care and attention was dedicated to 'dodging and burning' highlights and shadows in prints by controlling the amount of light reaching the paper. This technique was particularly used to create interest and drama in skies. While there are digital equivalents, results can be mixed, and I have more experimenting to do before I find a method I'm happy with.

Here are a few -





The obligatory Ossie pic to finish -

Snow Shower

It came and went very quickly, but I got home before dark on Friday evening and grabbed a few shots of the snow before Saturday morning's thaw..