ACTUAL LIFE

Good things come to those who wait!
or so the saying goes!
Last monday night,I arrived at Heuston station just after dark.

Only to find it open with a train arriving at 11.45 from cork.
I had been down the previous sunday on a look see and it was closed so i assumed this was the deal every night(not so)
As it happened The station being opened did not effect the shoot in any way.
A little later I was joined by Artur and then Brian and we waited in the car for our co-conspirator Soraya Beyer.
On ariving in Ireland 2 years Ago Soraya(from Dresden,Germany)was put to work by her new employer in the Zumo smoothie bar in Heuston station,hence her affinity with the building.

When myself and Soraya reviewed the test shots from my look see we both settled on the portico
as a good location to make this glorious parting shot.
Unlike any other part of this very well known dublin building,It had a fresh comforting,unfamiliar appeal at this particular perspective.

Soraya had come to Dublin after completing her studies,
she craved a break from academic life.
She wished to discover somewhere new,find an uncomplicated job,something to fund her through a long break,a kind of holiday from her actual life.

I know when she looks back at this photo in years to come she will understand everything about the reality of her stay here and how it actually filled in the Gaps for her as she progressed from student to teacher.
Her reason to return to Germany came all of a sudden as she was offered a teaching post she understood would not come her way.

As always this shot was powered by a bowens flash head and battery pack,2 pocket wizards,and of course Brian Dalyand Artur Sikora

It has taken me till friday to make a space to edit this work,
but the wait was worthwhile!
thank you Soraya,and good luck with your recently renewed actual life!!
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Comments as always are welcomed and replied to!!

Tales from the promised land

Last monday night I have to admit I was on a bit of a high.After a week of the amazing photoIreland photofest It was a delight to move on to another phase. The act of making,
Rather than looking.
(that said I am really looking forward to photoireland 2011)
I met Jacinta sheerin last year when a freind asked me to do a publicity photoshoot for an upcoming play.
It turned out Jacinta had co-written and played one of the lead roles.The play waiting for ikea.was a fringe hit and subsequently had successful runs in 2 other dublin theaters.
The same friend on hearing of my project suggested I contact Jacinta again as she was planning to move to London.
This i did last friday she was in Galway till sunday,and moving on tuesday.
Loving the work already shot she agreed to make her self free to shoot monday night.
Now thats painting yourself into a corner!!

She mentioned some grafitti that spoke to her in volumes about social reality in Dublin
and so I went to check out her suggestion!
Saturday and sunday afternoon were spent dodging showers and checking out the angels to find the perfect perspective.
Pinned that down then drew up a plan.
As always Artur Sikora,and Brian Daly were on hand to light up the night,Gemma Geraghty was charged with keeping us all invisible(a job completed with a little help from the Gardaí)
On a technical front we definitely pushed the gear as far as it could go and there was a part of the building we could not light because the little pocket wizards could not do the distance and pass thru walls as well.
To allude to the process of this and all of the leaving dublin shoots to date I have included a little video piece made up of the layers as they where seen on the ground.Leaving dublin is a documentary piece and is shot at night on location,the scene tripodded the set lit with one flash head ,a little bit at a time!
I hope it serves to add to the understanding of this a complex work.
My warmest thanks again to all who have sat for me at this a very emotionally charged time of their lives.
please comment,oh it helps!!
also if curious you can click the title at the top of the page for details of the social redevelopment that has never happened!!

Bravo-PHOTOIRELAND!!

I was delighted this week to travel by bicycle around the city from venue to venue
feasting on the treasure that has been the PHOTOIRELAND FESTIVAL
Real thought has gone into the program and i have to say all the diverse elements which make up the photographic spectrum were catered for.
That i feel is the real achievement of this the First photoireland festival and for this we have to applaud the team who put it all together,Heres to inclusion,here is to the PHOTOIRELAND FESTIVAL.
On a Personal note I will be contributing to a talk on photoblogging tomorrow at the back loft La Cathedral hope to see some of you there.


ON the top of the page there is an Image shot last week in an arichchoke field betweem stPol de Leon,and Roscof,bretagne,france
The shot is part of a sequence i have been working on and just incase you missed it on the last post i have created another link to it here please click!
My mission is to attract some other users of this medium in order to stage a small exhibition in homage to this now lost film type!!


Leaving Ireland steams on and I have 2 shots to set up for the next few weeks,lets hope the rain holds off as i am painted into a corner on the first one. It can only be done monday night and the person ships out tuesday!!

BIRD STRIKE!

Some times life can throw really strange things your way.
For example yesterday i made the journey from Rennes ,France,back home to Dublin.
On landing at Rennes our Aircraft experienced a birdstrike
which led to a very long delay of 7 hours to our flight.
The main reason was that there was no one available locally to certify the plane fit to fly at Rennes airport.
The answer to this was to fly in another Aer lingus craft
with a technician on board to certify, if possible, or to fly the passengers home if not.
As it turned out all was good and the plane took off around 9.30
7 hours after the scheduled departure time.
The Irony of the the night was that in compensation for the delay we where offered free refreshments on the flight
and for some reason the only item available from the extensive menu of sandwich's was chicken and Stuffing!!
Bird strike number 2!!
An hour and twenty minutes later we arrived in Dublin
So we jumped into a taxi to make the journey home and we where delighted to make it back to fontenoy street in less than 15 minutes.
And now for the weird bit!!
After a couple minutes I entered the main room of the house which had been closed up for most of the previous 2 weeks but
checked on friday afternoon by a friend( who confirmed to me since that it was an empty space)
Sitting on the couch was a Racing pigeon I scanned the room quickly, all the windows where closed, the fire place had a fireguard in place,and apart from the odd splattering of pigeon shite around the place all was sound.
I immediately worried about the health of the bird and tried to pick it up ass i closed in on it it bolted and it left four tail feathers in my hand (which i quickly dropped to the floor)
Bird strike number 3.
In the past I have had some photographic experience with racing pigeons and their owners and when i finally picked it up
its ring showed it was a bird born in 1996 so it was probably over 14 yeqrs old as most hatching happens in spring!!
Well the fact that a bird could make it to this ripe old age and find itself in my living space on "the night of the bird strike" is just mind blowing.
So as is so often the case in Irish Documentary photography, I decided to revisit the site of this final bird strike after the event and photograph the traces of what was left behind in an effort to capture the essence of a strange day.

Unfortunately I had cleaned the shit up immediately so all that was left to me was the tail feathers.

I HOPE I HAVE DONE THEM JUSTICE!!

By the by I visited 3 photography exhibitions,all part of the photoireland festival,and I was most impressed at the breath and depht of the content of all, See the program for the remaining week here!I am planning to get as much of it covered as possible.

Finally I added 4 new images to my type 55 gallery shot in Bretagne over the last 2 weeks click here to view it
Also my holiday postcard page is getting bigger right here
I hope you enjoy it,please comment if you have anything to say about it or any other part of this post
its always a great help to me to recieve feedback

ARRIVED, SAFE & SOUND!

Made it to France early yesterday morning on a glorius day after a beautiful crossing from cork on the Pont Aven.
All was fine when we made it to our destination, a tiny cottage in the middle of farmland just outside the village of Ploeuc sur Lie.
As stated in my last post I am hoping to Shoot some type 55 film whilst I am here.
I travelled light and just brought the linhof technika and standard 150mm lens,polaroid back,and a bucket for holding wet negs.
As an aid to composition,and as a tool in its own right,
I brought my H3d50 hasselblad,with waist level finder and sekonic meter.( I thought it might be interesting to compose and shoot the old fashioned way to see what i got.)
So yesterday Afternoon after a morning nap(disembarked boat at 5A.M.)I took the camera for a stroll and came back with the picture you see above.It says a lot about how I feel right now,full of hope and expectation for the weeks ahead!!
for some pics of the crossing click here i will add to this gallery as the weeks tick by.
as always click on the image above for a full size view

MORE FILM TALK!!

As discussed on an earlier postingI would like to, put together a group show of type 55 work.
So far i have put together 5 exposures all taken around the village of Ploeuc sur Lie in bretagne france.I hope to expand this to a series of 10 images as I will spend 5 weeks there between this and the end of august.
With this in mind I am now throwing my gaze outward to the world to see who would like to join me in putting an exhibition of type 55's together!!
The Idea would be to send some rough scans for consideration/evaluation,then if chosen the neg could be forwarded to me here in dublin for high res scanning and printing.
I would hope then to put together a small brochure (blurb softback)and try to secure a venue here in dublin for november or early december.
International participants could also try to get a venue to travel the resultant show in their own country
What do you think!!
There is no set brief for this expo project save that of the beauty of the object photographed,and of the photograph.
Above is shot of Ian which i photographed for a a cd case see his work here
for another view of my set so far click here
To join in this project just use the comments page,
please use the comments page to express interest in general in posting here at the lilliputian

HERE WE ARE NOW.ENTERTAIN US!

If You are looking for some engaging photo-entertainment Dublin is definitely this place to be this summer.
we have already had a visual treat with the Griffith college summer show,The Iadt dun laoighre show contained many a poignant piece,theD.I.T. show opening on tuesday next,And photoIreland festival is about to happen in july with exciting events and exhibitions happening all over the town.
One of these exhibitions is for me very important as it showcases the work of a very talented group of people who I worked with
during december and january last.
It happened at the national college of art and design,and it was their certificate in photography and digital imaging.For my part I presented and set a project on environmental portraiture.Enthusiasm was high,emails flew,the work was great.Some of the resulting work i had access to is included in the slideshow at the end of the page ,just hit the play triangle in the blogger box at the end of the post.I wish all the group success with this show, their site is online now hereyou can download a screen version of their poster here
As always comments are important so please do express your opinion on this posting,it really helps,and i promise to reply!!