AND SO, WE GO

my leaving dublin project has started and I am delighted that I was joined Again by
brian,Artur,and Don,Iate one night last week to kick this one off.
I was even more delighted to be joined by Anastasia Herbert who had this to say.

"I came to Dublin in August 2003, in the boom years for the arts; I'm leaving now for London. Here, in Ireland I've had the great opportunity of working freelance with premier national and city cultural institutions on arts festivals and exhibitions, and on regional arts education and community dialogue projects, too. I will look back on these 6 and half years in Dublin as formative to my career and will miss the wonderful, talented people I've come to know in this busy capital city."

Anastasia was photographed by the backdrop of her choice,the Beckett bridge,from Sir John Rogersons Quay.
The project continues to gather pace with shots planned for tomorrow evening(march 23rd)
and april 17.For those of you out there who are new to my blog this is an art project with no intention other than to imortalise what is being lost to our country,and I am looking for people who would like to participate in making a statement about their imminent departure.
We lit this shot using a bowens esperit head powered by a bowens travelpack
and we carried the light all the way to the stackhouse behind Anastasia's head using the amazing pocket wizard radio tranciever
If you are leaving dublin and would like to join me on this project please mail me at dmon@mac.com.
for the full image please click on the picture above
Please comment on this piece as it will help to shape future posts

Revelation ii

In a previous posting I discussed the Idea of getting inside a photographers head and listening to what they had to say about their work.
what they say is not always what you expect. Because, what you bring to their work when viewing is always going to be different to what they brought to the place in time when they made the work.
A better understanding of any art is to be gleaned directly from the artists own statements!!
so here is a couple of video clips relating to Nadev Cander a fine photographer whose work has universal appeal and a wide variety of styles.
one is in the form of a music video,it covers the diversity of the artists work.
and the other concentrates on one piece of work and takes the form of an interview. Here is where we learn what makes the artist tick!!







Please comment on the relevance of this post as it will help to shape future postings

Attention to detail

It is interesting how small details can add so much or take away from the success of a shot.
Here is an example of such.
Click on the image at the head of this article for a closer look.
Here you can see how i forgot to move the fridge full of film from under the desk before taking this beautifully composed and Animated shot of the tenacious Gráinne.
Here is an interesting quoteI came across in the book ANNIE LEIBOVITZ AT WORK and its this"Arnold Newman said that photography was one percent talent and ninety nine percent moving furniture"
Now I see the wisdom of this quote.
The image was shot on a h3d mk11 50
and processed using nik softwares bleach bypass filter set to about 30% opacity on a photoshop layer.
Alienskin bokeh filter was used to give the shallow focus.
For a gallery of effective small details please click here

as always comments will be appreciated as they help to shape this weblog!!

A CRY FOR HELP!!

You may recall a recent post called in the city.In that post I photographed a young Irish woman who had made her home in Australia.

Later I learned that her sister who was living in ireland was to return to australia to take up residency and her Irish boyfriend was to travel with her.

the reason for their depature is the age old search for a better life.

after the big building crash of 2009 Paul and Aisling both found themselves out of work here in Ireland and so they are taking action,the one that always has played a big part in our irish cultural heritage.Emigration!!!

Paul and Aisling were not available before travelling so Niamh and Chris kindly stood in for

this shot(directly inspired by Paul and Aislings departure.) Its of a young man cut in half and young girl sitting on a suitcase in smithfield outside the last remaining building from its pre_development landscape,the market cafe(now closed because the markets were sold off to property speculators)

It is a shot to mark their passing from one life to another,some thing to mark a decision that will have far reaching effect into their future!!

It is my wish to photograph people( of all nationalities), who have made the decision to move from Ireland for economic reasons,In and around the city,juxtaposed with landscapes that are significant to their pasts.

If that sound like you,or, you know of somebody who is about to move,please bring my proposal to their attention.

I want to make these works monumental,To show those depicted in a true heroic spirit.

For after all they are making a huge jump into the void of uncertainty and this needs to be commemorated perhaps like never before!!

please contact me if you wish to work with me on this project

you can mail me at dmon@mac.com and we will take it from there

Big thanks again to Artur Sikora, Brian Daly,and Donal Sheehan.for all their help on the night.

And bad luck to the guy who tried to EGG us from the 5th floor!!

SHOOTING IN SERIES

shooting in series has for a long time been a useful device for drawing people into your work.

It transforms the everyday and the unnoticed into a space where they are central and as much revered by the viewer as by the photographer who drew attention to them in the first place.

notables among series shooters are the greats like Bernd and Hilla Becher,karl blossfeldt,August Sanders ,and indeed of late my good friend Michael Durand.

the key features of all of these artists work is that they will photograph the same type of things over and over again in roughly the same perspective, in the same light,on the same medium,

and with the same format.click on the names above to see their work The bechers shot industrial facades,mineheads and blast furnaces in huge numbers.Sanders shot types of people,usually by profession or by community standing. Blossfeldt shot plants to educate students of sculpture about natural design elements.And Durand made a glorious series of several dublin parking meters,months before they where all decommissioned.

So,To follow this illustrious band of dedicated photographers I too have made my first serious effort of shooting an interesting series.I ts called TREES.It contains 11 images of the trunks of trees shot in beautiful winter light.As with all photographic series its beauty is seen when viewed together and the viewer can delight in comparing shape,form,texture,composition,light and tone.It is my intention to publish these as a series in a limited addition portfolio,perhaps in an addition of ten.I wish to make fine archival prints on fibre based paper,with a pigment inkset.

The first step to achieving this goal is to remove one of these images from the set.

So i would be obliged if you were to counsel me on which image to remove from the 11 to make the perfect group of ten.

This morning I ordered the paper and was torn between Hahnemuhle fineart baryta, or Harman Fibre baryta.the decission has yet to be made at the moment I am leaning towards the harman paper but lets see what happens!!

the work was shot on a hasselblad hd50 dslr and processed in light room with silver efex pro used to do the conversion to monochrome.

I f any of you feel you might be interested in acquiring one of these fine folios please let me know by mail at dmon@mac.com.

as always comments are greatly appreciated!!

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR THE FULL GALLERY!!

PROJECT NUMBER ONE

In an earlier posting I promised to share with you my work in progress,my projects,so to speak

and so far I have shown the polaroid work that i have going on.

But that project is set to run for a long time Here is one project that i hope to conclude by early summer.Althoug barely started 3 years ago I now have the focus and drive to push this one forward to conclusion.Its a little project about the place I live, my block of a street called fontenoy street in dublin 7.

I feel it is a good representational cross section of irish society and

my wish is to root myself in its history ,at this time.

Then,present this place to the world on 10x8 transparency,and leave it behind me as hard evidence of what it was like to live within this frames gaze at this particular time.

there are 14 houses on the block so that leaves 11 left to go to.

Once i have completed the portraits i will then make a digital panoramic print of the block

hopefully without too many cars present.

print the print on beautiful archival fibre paper and there you go!!

wish me luck!!

Again comments are appreciated as they help to shape future posts.

If anybody has any questions relating to photographic practise

just hit the email the author tab on the feed page @ feed://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/qDTf

FROM CHILDREN WE CAN LEARN SO MUCH!!

Most important of which is don't be afraid of the unknown!!

computers can go wrong!

Take care!!

Tread softly!!

back it up!!

twice!!

A recent computer fault sent me off down a road and it took me a week to get back!

Thankfully I had the time to give to it.

Coming out the far end I have to say that it is really important to have good technical support.

Michael Maher of I.S.S. a Dublin based tech company was on hand to advise and hand hold through this curious time.

This is what I get for talking about film!!

to Ilustrate this point i have included a picture shot some years ago on a MAMIYA RZ67

and fuji neopan 400 film!!

Again comments will be helpful(share the pain of your computer nightmares), and I hope the image brings back good memories for my good friend Eileen!!