First signs of spring and a new beginning for my site
Hello again to everybody still persevering with my blog after almost 2 years of photography posts. I’ve finally managed to transfer my blog to a self hosted domain, so now you can look forward to a more personalised look to my blog with some important new features like video posts soon to materialise.
I’m still ironing out some kinks with the transfer so do bear with me if you encounter any problems with the new layout.
Now I’m armed with new my new camera and website, I’m going to be spending a lot more time in front of my computer getting to grips with video editing and tinkering with web design. So in order to make the most of some free time during a rare bout of decent weather, I thought I’d go looking for some delayed signs of the onset of this year’s disappointing spring.
And in fairness, I don’t think I did awfully bad.
I’ve decided to mess about with the shots of a tadpole that I found in our garden pond in Photoshop, because it’s good for a bit of practice, which I’m sure that you can see I’m in some need of. So please do forgive for breaking one of my own cardinal rules of photography by overindulging in some crass photo editing, but I can assure you that this shall remain a rare occurrence.
The rest are all straight out of the camera though, and I’ve even uploaded them in higher resolution to enhance your viewing pleasure and make the most of another benefit of self hosting my blog- the fact I don’t have to worry about running out of space with wordpress.com anymore.
Anyways, I hope that you enjoy the shots, alongside the new and hopefully improved website.
Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions.
Watching the sun set over the River Corrib
I’m back again after a prolonged absence due to my having exceeded my storage allowance on wordpress, as well as being busy working on my new improved site, whilst also eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new canon 5d mark iii.
So after deleting and resizing a few old photographs on my blog, and having wrestled myself away from my computer for a few hours in order to enjoy my last few weeks of shooting with my old trusty canon 450d. I came across this nice little riverside scene at dusk over the Corrib…
Galway City Protests Against €100 Million Fish Farm Off The Aran Islands
Yesterday I took part in this protest against the extraordinarily ill-conceived and poorly thought out proposed 465 hectare salmon farm in the lee of the Aran Islands off of the West Coast of Ireland.
This farm poses a grave threat to the fragile ecosystem of the already much depleted salmon stocks of Ireland. I strongly believe that it is up to the people of Ireland to protect this habitat from the destruction which will be wrought if big business is allowed to exploit the fishing industry just like they did with the meat industry. Which has already suffered untold damage after the shame of the much publicised horse meat scandal.
The west of Ireland already continues to suffer the exploitation wrought by big business through the Corrib Gas Pipeline controversy. And so yet again it falls to people power to resist the destruction of our country in the face of politicians who don’t seem to give two fucks about selling our precious natural resources to the highest bidder, and to hell with the consequences for future generations.
Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) is the Irish fisheries body that is supposed to protect Irish waters, yet it continuously misrepresents and withholds scientific data and lies to the Irish public about the well established risks posed by open water fish farms.
In order to avoid the obvious dangers of farmed salmon spreading lethal sea lice to our native wild salmon, the BIM proposes to use chemicals to kill parasites. Now it doesn’t take a genius to see the dangers of pumping yet more chemicals into our already damaged waters, yet the BIM doesn’t seem to be able to see the risks that anyone with half a brain can quite clearly perceive, and which scientific research has also proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
All that the BIM likes to shout about is the creation of jobs for the local economy. But I think that the Irish people have heard enough bullshit about job creation that never comes to pass from our politicians as they ravish our country to be rightly cynical about the chances of any actual new jobs ever transpiring.
When the fecal matter from millions of fish is washed into Irish seas, alongside parasites, chemicals, and god knows what else, and then goes on to ruin our pristine environment, kills our fishing industry, and damages our tourism industry beyond repair, then I’m quite certain that more jobs will be lost than could ever be created from such a deplorable misuse of our natural resources.
Local and national media as per usual seem to have little or no interest in reporting the dangers of this farm to the Irish people as well as largely ignoring this protest, and so I felt it that it was my duty to make my small contribution to making this a more widely discussed issue. The Irish Times reported about the protest yesterday here, yet they didn’t even deem the protest worthy of a photograph. The Galway independent reported about the protest here, and again didn’t bother adding a photograph of the protest and also reported that only 500 people attended the protest compared to the Irish Times report of 2,000 in attendance. Quite the discrepancy huh.
I’d say that the figure of 2,000 people was much closer to the mark, and I salute all those who arranged the protest, the few politicians who bothered to attend, the great speakers who spoke with such vigour, and each and every person who attended in order to assert their opposition to this wanton destruction of our local environment.
Fair play to all involved and let’s just hope that the people with the power to put a stop to this monstrous idea for a fish farm will start to listen to the will of the people before it’s too late.
Multicolored droplets of water
Hello again to followers of my photography after an extended absence from posting in 2013. I decided to ease myself into the new year so that I could think of a few new ideas, and having just had the dullest January in Ireland for 50 years, I haven’t come across all that much light worthy of photographing on my rambles through the countryside lately.
So what’s a photographer to do when greeted with an ominous grey sky outside their window?
Well take out some artificial lights, grab some food colouring, fill up some glasses of water, and get ready to create one hell of a watery mess of course! All in the aid of photographically capturing some transient multicolored drops of water during their short lives. Such are the joys of photography…
You might think it’s a little sad and somewhat dangerous for a grown man to spend a gloomy afternoon splashing around with water, high voltage lighting, and food colouring, and indeed you’d be quite right in these assumptions. Yet I can’t help but marvel at the results!
There’s something amazing about seeing life frozen at 1/4000 of a second, even with something as mundane as a glass of water!
Anyhow I hope that you like the results, and if you can think of anything else that might be worth capturing in my makeshift studio the next time skies are gloomy, (so far it’s rained every day in February!) then let me know below!
