Category Archives: Abroad

Endless Fruits

This was from one fantastic market in Barcelona off las ramblas – furits, fish, sweets of every colour – amazing!

I’ve been dabbling in the world of microstock photography of late – it definitely requires an element of contraint when choosing what to photograph! I’ve submitted to a number of sites with varying degrees of success – Shutterstock has been the most welcoming site by far. More to follow!

3923602447 24e781af15 o Endless Fruits

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The Orange City

I’m just back from a quick stroll around Glendalough in Co. Wicklow (Ireland), so expect the next few post to be suspiciously green, but first here’s another quick shot from Malta. It’s in the city (loose term) of Mdina, where the designers decided absolutely everything should be a shade of orange.

3744049786 27b71b10a0 o The Orange City

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Inch Beach In Kerry: Niiice

I spent the weekend of last week in Kerry visiting four friends and checking out some seriously awesome beaches along the way. This one here though was the best of the bunch – probably because the weather sucked at all the others. I was getting some real impressive driving lessons from my friend Catherine as well, well I was just sitting in the back seat while she bombed along the coast at 160mph – it was still great though!

3592454019 5180cbb101 o Inch Beach In Kerry: Niiice

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The Never Ending Path

There’s a great public garden somewhere in Florence that we took advantage of since our original plan to visit some museums was ruined by the fact that they were all closed for a national bank holiday! Although I didn’t actually walk up here it looked like it went on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever…………………

3534894523 1c41deef90 o The Never Ending Path

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Il Duomo

Not even halfways up the Campanile and one is treate to a fantastic view of the main Dome section. You can just make out crowds of people at the top around the spire section – from there almost the entirety of Florence can be seen.

3514247062 8111bd4087 o Il Duomo

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Clouds With Attitude Over Florence

Viewing the city of Florence from the tower of the Duomo was probably one of the hightlights of my four day trip there. Getting to the top however, 414 steps of stone, winding narrowing stairs only served to work off the load of crap I ate while over there – the 463 steps of the Dome also helped!

3502243210 1ff457e3fa o Clouds With Attitude Over Florence

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The Shack of Gozo

I really have no idea what the purpose of this building is but it makes a good foreground subject. This is my last post for a few days as I’m heading to Pisa and Florence today until Sunday, with any luck I’ll have a new batch of photos to sift through.

3485782708 1a5152a815 o The Shack of Gozo

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Mdina From Mdina

College has been getting busier and busier now so I’ll probably only be posting now when I find the extra time – maybe every two or three days. I have already posting this photo on my Flickr page so if you’ve already seen it well here it is again!

3466073019 b07d453de0 o Mdina From Mdina

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Jetting About In Style

I had been waiting for the sun to rise in Malta on my last morning there and all of a sudden I glimpse a plane streaking throught the sky! This was really the only reason this picture even exists – in fairness I do like the boat bobbing about in the foreground but without the plane the scene wouldn’t have captured my eye.

3460601424 4066f1f1bd o Jetting About In Style

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Another Perspective of Valetta Bay

Following a treacherous trek up a winding road with no footpath, I finally made it to a high point near Valetta. I set my D300 on a ledge to steady it giving a blurring foreground effect.

I’m suddenly heading away again, this time to Pisa and then Florence in about 2 weeks. So far it’s been a good year for travelling – January was Paris, March was Malta, April = Barcelona, and now Pisa / Florence in May – I had aimed to go somewhere for every month of the year but February slipped by; that’s a short month anyway!

3452019477 f9698118a4 o Another Perspective of Valetta Bay

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Napoleon’s Window To The World

Napoleon’s Tomb in Paris is filled with all sorts of shiny thingys – this window caught my eye pretty sharpish while I was meandering through glass cabinets and narrow corridors. No tripod was used here of course – Parisians seems to have some sort of aversion towards them, indoors at least :)

3450700678 8448e4bb74 o Napoleons Window To The World

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Ginormous Freighter Doing Feck All

I had to walk by this ship and resist the urge to hold up my group to assemble my tripod and camera so I had to run back the next morning and grab it then! – It was pretty fortunate though since there were no clouds the day before :)

3447331077 becc50081b o Ginormous Freighter Doing Feck All

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Palm Trees Under A Rather Direct Sun

I knew as I walked alongside these palm trees, with the sun on my back, that this shot was about to materialise – one of the few time I actually predicted a scene before it happened! I don’t recall whether I had a tripod for this shot or not – I definitely was lying on the ground or in some otherwise awkard position. I can still imagine the breeze blowing through the palm trees!

3445758086 a6d4807cc9 o Palm Trees Under A Rather Direct Sun

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Peering Through Azure Window

Azure Window is one of those strange rock formations that you wish was hear your home, but in actual fact is no big deal once you see it. Standing on top of it and looking out towards Sicily, you wouldn’t even know this huge gaping hole even existed!

3441206850 e532dd6215 o Peering Through Azure Window

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Crashing On The Shores Of Xwieni Bay

This is one of the most northern arts of Gozo, 60 miles north lies Sicily. The photograph really doesn’t capture the magnificence of the place unfortunately; I distinctly remember my WOW-meter going off the scale when I was actually there. Just to the left of this scene are the salt pans where seawater is evaporated leaving huge deposits of salts to be later collected. I was more than impressed by the ingenuity of it all!

In other news that probably I only care about, I had planned to go to Kerry this Easter weekend to visit some friends there, only to find that a train ticket there would set me back €78! From Dublin to Kerry is under 300km as the crow flies – it’s actually cheaper to fly there!! I’m sure there would have been plenty of time to get the D300 out for some landscape photos but €78 just proved to much for my wallet :(

3437257603 77025f1b14 o Crashing On The Shores Of Xwieni Bay

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Looking Over Into Rabat

Here’s a rather nice scenic view of Rabat, a town in Gozo that I did not manage to visit. We were on a rather tight schedule with out bus driver – “OK so you have one hour here. Get out, look around but be back in one hour. Then we’ll go to the cliffs, you’ll have 30 minutes there, no more, then we’ll go somewhere else and I’ll rush you about some more!”

Taking a bus around Gozo though was well worth the expense – we had planned to hire out a couple of bicycles and go where we pleased, but from the bus window we soon found out after zooming around un-signed roads and windy cobbled streets that we would have been utterly lost on a pair of bikes!

3430499949 c0d0c32cd9 o Looking Over Into Rabat

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7000 Year Old Ruins At Ggantija

When I heard that I be going to see some 7000 year old temple ruins I, for some reason, envisioned grand walls, golden gates and all sorts of wonderful architecture. The 7000 year timescale didn’t seem to register in my head that maybe mankind hadn’t reached that level of sophistication just yet. The pile of stones I found there didn’t exactly impress me from an archaeological perspective, but the stone textures do allow from some interesting reflections.

3428967764 ff3d01843f o 7000 Year Old Ruins At Ggantija

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Waiting For The Ferry That Never Arrived

Upon finishing up our day long bus tour around the dusty roads of Gozo we headed back to the docks to find that our ferry had already left! What followed was over an hour of staring blankedly into the sea, watching a fisherman with the longest rod I’d ever seen until the next ferry finally arrived.

It was a pretty nice view though, the sea sounds being all swishy and calming.

09 ferryless docks malta Waiting For The Ferry That Never Arrived

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Obeying The Rules Of The Road

I took this shot quickly while waiting for the traffic to chill out but then felt I should take it again since the little green man wasn’t lit the first time. This was on the first day in Barcelona, and one for the short periods when there wasn’t any rain either – it was raining in Barcelona while it was sunny in Ireland! WHAT!!!!!

08 hdr d300 trafic lights barcelona Obeying The Rules Of The Road

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The Green Green Grass Of… Malta?

REALLY?? Don’t you imagine Malta as being yellow? (em, isn’t that racist?). This was undoubtedly the greenest part of Malta, I believe it was near Mdina if my memory serves me.

07 green grass fields The Green Green Grass Of... Malta?

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