On my way up from Drogheda to Dublin for some Christmas shopping over the holidays I thought some shots of my local train station would present some interesting photographs - unfortunately it was overcast as hell (and dark) that morning so I missed out on the classic ’sun splitting the clouds’ scene that always makes HDR photos so surreal (I don’t care much for realistic/proper HDR). Anywho, the juxtaposition of the rather depressing sky and the wall light catched my eye than, and maybe yours now?
While over on InisOirr for the Halloween weekend I travelled around the island until I came to the Plassey Shipwreck that features at the beginning of Father Ted (irish TV show). The ship has been sitting in its place since the 1960s and I suppose it’ll be there for some time more. I only wish I had had my D300 ith me when I was there - I think some great HDR shots would have come from it.
Click for larger resolution image.
If you want to find one sure photography topic that will give you endless great shots then just look up (you’re outside right?). On a good cloudy day the sky changes by the minute and presents to you a multitude of shapes and colours. Throw in the sun for good measure and you can capture something real special. I found myself looking skywards after my climb of Ben Bulben. It was extremely windy, and I can not over-emphesise how windy, so my interest soon turned from making myself dizzy looking up to not falling off the edge of the mountain. In spite of my near death experience I did take three not too shabby shots of the sun passing across my lens - I was standing in the same position and merely shifted my lens to reposition the sun. TA-DAA! I also did a little touching up on them - I altered the curves to darken the darks and lighten the lights, and also saturated the blues and yellows a little to bring out the colour in the sky and sun. As soon as I get home to my camera I think I’ll start a sky portfolio of sorts - look out for more sky pictures as they happen…
For A Panoramic View, Head To Croagh Patrick
Sunrise Pictures
On the morning of the last day of my travels in Corfu, I woke up unusually early (about 6:00am as I recall; it was just before sunrise) and decided to grab my S9600 and venture outwards to see if I could discover any worthy early morning pictures. It was a clear morning and sunrise was about to hit the horizon. Luckily the hotel I was staying at was situated on Kommeno Bay, giving a wonderful view past the hotel swimming pool out onto the horizon and across to the other side of Corfu Island. Unfortunately by the time I was got into position the sun was already into it’s journey across the sky! I missed it breaking the horizon by a few minutes but I think the sunrise pictures below are still worth showing to the world. Click on each one to get a much larger sunrise picture (3696 x 2464)
Next up in our ‘Photos From’ collection is Corfu! Corfu was the first place I had ever taken my S9600 to so I simply stuck it on Auto and clicked away! I had the privilege of going to Corfu for 5 days in 2007 and do you know what the best part was? - I didn’t pay for any of it! I was sent there for a conference meaning my college pays for the flight and accommodation - possibly the cheapest holiday I’ve ever been on! The hotel was without doubt the most amazing hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I say hotel but it’s more aptly described as a palace. It deserves 6 stars it was that good - every morning there was a huge buffet breakfast of fruit juices, cheeses, bread, eggs, hams, fresh vegetables, the works. And there was another buffet in the evening! I learned a whole two words while I was there: Kalimera (Good morning) and Kalispera (Good Evening), very useful for meeting and greeting. I had fantastic weather for the five days and the accomodation was excellent - everyone had their own little apartment / villa type house; not just a dank room, but a proper living space with a balcony overlooking Kommeno Bay. Corfu Village was just 12km away and could be reached easily by bus - it’s a very touristy village, but nice anyway. I took a boat trip around the north coast - nothing on the coast but hotel after hotel after hotel, it’s crazy! The competition must be immense.
I’ve got about 600 or so photos from Corfu so I’ll likely do a Part 2 to this short collection.
Photos From London
Photos From Paris
Photos From Berlin
Technorati Tags: Corfu, S9600, Kommeno Bay, photography
Third in the series of my random city photo postings is from Berlin! - dating back to March 2008. I seriously just had to get away from Ireland for a few days as college was getting crazy, so when I heard the college German Society were planning a cheap trip away I jumped immediately on board (despite the fact I knew exactly zero people there). Now I’m not one to turn my nose up at a free meal - the holiday and the people were fantastic, but in hindsight we didn’t pick exceptionally well timed dates to travel - the weather was also great but the S-Bahn and bus systems were on strike! For the single week that we were there for! To rub salt into the wounds there was an S-Bahn station directly outside our hostel and the nearest U-Bahn was a nearly 30 minute walk away:( We hung out mostly near the Reichstage and passed the River Spree when getting from out hostel to the U-Bah station. I you go to Berlin make sure to check out the Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station) - it’s like a mini town! Other places to check out are any KDV (huge shopping centres; someone correct me please if that abbreviation is wrong) and also the fanstatic backery Kamps. Now on to the photos - in no particular order…
Following yesterday from the pictures of Paris, I’ve put together a few more; this time from London. I was visiting a friend for a couple of days and like always I was carrying my S9600 about. The trip wasn’t specifically photography oriented so the opportunities to get some decent shots were few and far between. We did get to the Tower Bridge and get into the Natural History Museum, but it sucked. My favorites from below is of the pigeon - it landed just as I was walking past. I only got to take the one picture below - the S9600 writes RAW files to the Compact Flash card very slowly and by the time the camera was ready to take another the pigeon had taken flight - damn! My other favorite is the second image - I like the contrasting feeling between the dark sky and calmness of the bench. I think I’ll continue with this “Photos From” theme, next up: Germany!
My sister was recently in Paris and took my camera to take photos of some old documents she wanted to have digital copies of. She also took some shots around Paris since I’m always interested in getting new pictures from as many different countries as possible. I’ve never been to Paris apart from Charles de Gaulle so having someone else do the work for me was the next best thing! I ran them through Photomatix from the RAW file to touch them up a bit, some areas of a couple of them are washed out but I don’t think it affected any of them too much. Each photo below is a link to a 1200×900 larger image, help yourself to any you like but if you’re using them on your website a mention back to this site would be nice! I’ve posted seven here that I particularly like - though apart from the Eiffel Tower I don’t know the landmark names - any ideas?
I do a spot of mountain hiking every once in a while and during the middle of June a few fellow hiking friends and I decided to tackle two mountains on the west coast of Ireland; Croagh Patrick in Co. Mayo and Ben Bulben in Co. Sligo. I say mountain but they are only 764 and 526 meters high respectively, Ireland is pretty flat compared to the rest of the world! Anyway, number one on this list was Croagh Patrick. The view from its summit is supposedly spectacular; composed of Clew bay, the Neiphin Beg mountain range and Achill and Clare island. It sounded like a great opportunity for some valuable photography time so I packed my camera and hoped for some good weather. Every year on the last Sunday of July (Reek Sunday) over 25000 pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick as an act of penance. Many of them do it carrying crosses and go barefoot!, some Irish don’t fell like they’re doing any good unless they’re in pain! I however would not advise doing this since most of Croagh Patrick is basically just a big pile of scree. There’s also a church on the summit, apparently built by St. Patrick, if you want to pray for an easy way down once you make it up there!
Our trek began in the car park at the base of the mountain….
Click for higher quality 3488×2616 image. (about 1.6MB)
In my eagerness I bought a high tech (if that’s possible) telescopic walking stick for a criminally priced €40 - as it turned out proper sticks, possibly cut from Sequoia Giant Redwoods, were being sold in the car park for a bargain €3. I felt cheated but I had to grit my teeth and accept it. From the car park our journey led up some steps and progressed to a rocky path that was really just too long, steep and winding for my liking. My mind soon wandered from taking scenic photographs onto my heart beating like a yo-yo - it actually felt as though it was going to explode on more than one occasion! To give you some idea of the path, check out the image below; we can see the carpark where we started in the background. This photo was only taken near the start of the first path that makes up the first leg of the climb! The second more difficult path soon followed!
Click for iger quality 3488×2616 image. (about 3.3MB)
Once overcoming the first, treacherous part of the walk it started raining in buckets and we took shelter beside a bank that gave us protection against the wind and to a lesser extent the rain also. The middle stage of the climb is generally flatter than the rest and gives you a much needed break to recuperate for the final stretch, which is made up of a 40° inclined struggle upwards while dodging falling scree and other pilgrims who lacked the willpower to keep going.
If you do manage to overcome this (and you should), you’ll be treated to a great panoramic scene of Clew Bay to the West. I’ve stitched together three images I took to the the photo below. Noise becomes very apparent as you move closer to the sides of the picture but the made focus (the Bay itself) is reasonably clear to see.
Click for higher quality 17346×2789 image. (about 9MB)
Despite my grumbles earlier about my walking stick I would thoroughly recommend bringing one along for this climb; the scree means that every step forwards is potentially followed by three steps back. The walking stick allows for greater balance and has a great swinging motion to it if you’re in the mood for a bit of a swagger. While it’s handy for the ascent, it’s practically essential for the descent - getting down Croagh Patrick is akin to rock surfing - sneeze while jumping down from rock to rock and you’re likely to have a scree avalanche in close pursuit!
As you can see from the next image I attempted to create a 360° panoramic shot from Croagh Patrick’s summit. It worked to a certain extent but the manner in which the summit is shaped (oval is the best way to describe it), the ground appears to ebb like a wave as it moves closer in and farther away. In spite of this I decided to post it here for your own judgments.
Click for higher quality 16492×2101 image. (about 3.3MB)
It’s one of the more difficult climb I’ve done in Ireland but the satisfaction at the end, combined with the great view to be seen makes it well worth it.
Just a quick update on my latest trip away - I spent 5 days in Vienna at the end of May as part of a college trip I had to take part in. The college part (also the boring part) was over by the 30th, leaving the 31t for me to wander the streets of Vienna to see what all this fuss I was hearing about. You see, Vienna has got the reputation of being the “Cultural Capital of Europe” and I wanted to find out why. I was staying in the Golden Tulip Hotel on Wallgasse, near the city center. It’s a four star hotel and my room was on the top floor, with a small but open roof terrace to boot! The brochure stated that there’s a wonderful view of Vienna from these terraces; that might have been true if all the other ugly buildings weren’t in the way! Anyway, leaving at 9am, my first stop of the day was to be St Stephens Cathedral (also called Stephansdom) in the Innere Stadt (Inner Town). A quick trip on the subway from West Bahnhof brought me there. I should mention that even though the temperature that day was a sweltering 31 degrees celsius, and I was literally running from shadow to shadow so to avoid catching fire, St Stephens Cathedral still managed to impress. For those statistically inclined, it was built in 1147 and is a whopping 136.7m high at its peak. The immediate area is a tourist magnet, with plenty of photographers making the most of the busy streets. Stephansdom provides a spectacular view from the roof and I’ll be putting up some pictures from there as soon as I go through them properly, keep an eye out for an Austria entry at Pictures Around The World. Nearby in Neumarkt is the Donnerbrunnen, the most extravagant fountain in Vienna and well worth a view. A trip to the Hofburg followed but pathetically I surrendered to the sun and ran back to my air conditioned hotel room 
Once the sun had subsided a little I headed out again for a few more hours. I tried to checked out the Schloss Belvedere but it was closed for some unknown reason. I did manage to get out to the Schonnbrun before the sun went down - I’ll be putting up photos of that also at Pictures Around The World.
It’s a pity but I didn’t make it out to Danube Island (Donauinsel), which I hear is a great way to spend a day in Vienna. Maybe next time!
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