Irish Photography Websites
Still browsing through the archive of thousands of images that never made the blog and found this! why oh why had I never put this photo up. Thats right I am teaching her early I tell you, now if only I could get her to look though the viewfinder, hmmm…..
Oh my god its been so long folks! not only that I have not had the camera out for ages, so I had to dig through the archives but I did find this little gem of a photo!
Hopefully in this cold weather it can remind you that spring is not that far away again!
Right so had a day off today and decided to download loads of updates to the canon software I have on my computer, one of which was a newer version of remote capture where I can use the computer to control the camera, and I decided to take some snapshots of myself for an avatar for twitter.
I have 4 images to choose from but all merit something so I would love if you guys through comments or on twitter can let me know which you prefer!
So here they are…
Thursdays Twitter Question Time again and today after reading a report about social networking sites and productivity in the workplace, todays question was
“Do you find since u started using Twitter that you miss it if you have to work, do u feel u may miss something important being away, has it affected ur workflow, ie are u an addict?”
doneganlan No - its good for the business in the sense of doneganland has just done this or that and keeps people informed and using twinkle really helps in that dept.
stretchneil A little, definitely, but the flip side is that I interact a huge amount more with other bloggers. Good for what i’d like to do though!
Mike_Kiely No, it’s a relief to be away from it and the torrent of too many opinions. No Twitter means real work is happening.
uberalex I have found that I have spent more time than I would like sometimes, but it’s been good to see who else is into tech in in real life.
PixieVonDust funny you should ask that. I just did a podcast in work on how to tell when you’re a Twitter addict and need a twittervention! I was saying that I feel disconnected if I’m away from it for too long.
Araldia i dont miss it as i take it with me. everywhere. if theres no signal on my phone i make him drive till there is. I’m not addicted. I just have internet separation issues.
jscan1 very much addicted- also trying to get everyone I know to get on it too, and I find myself wondering ‘are these words coming out of MY mouth?’ - business plan: twitter rehab LOL
shadowcallI leave it up all day in it’s own tab in FF, but I rarely turn on mobile alerts when I am away. I’m “not quite addicted”
moonstruckmania Ttqt, yes addicted, I waste too much time reading tweets and wishing I could tweet when not on the computer.
emilytully yes like a feckin maze! But as I’m addicted to Twitter I found time to let you all know I was lost.
bigstevie1275 I think I can safely say yes I’m a tweeter addict even if I don’t post I’m always reading it, going back along people I’m following just to see what’s been said even if of is only u @mcawilliams saying “having a smoke then lunch” LOL
jkeyes Not an addict, it’s like having a television program on in the background, not 100% concentrated but getting the important bits I do refer to people by their usernames now though, and my wife thinks I’m nuts. Does that mean I am step 1 to becoming an addict?
marramgrass No shame here: total addict. I get the shakes when I go without and scrawl 140 character grafitti everywhere I go…
enormous I already admitted my addiction the first twitter anon session @podcampireland. 12 step prog going REALLY well as u can see 
So there you have it! I am not alone with my addiction thanks be to god, there are other people out there as bad as me in some cases worse in my opinion, but I would say that been an addict in denial, wouldn’t I.
Yay, Tuesday Twitter Question time is back, and with all the election malarky going on at the moment I decided not to ask anything election related, and instead talk about christmas, inspired by @pixievondust’s revelations last week of the really long list she placed on twitter of what she wanted for christmas, I thought I may aswell ask what gadgets everyone else desired.
macsuus from amsterdam was the first to reply very simply with “TomTom, the sat nav to stop her driving backwards down streets!”
mitzs said “A clothes dryer! I don’t even care if it is used….”
stretchneil was the next to reply with what I expected more of “If apple would bring out docking stations i’d be happy. Iphone in the meantime!”
shadowcall was next with “Amazon Kindle, click here to see”
grannymar “A toyboy! ;)”
PixieVonDust was thrilled with this question, suppose only right since she inspired it “Yay! gadgets! I believe I have already listed out a gazillion things I wanted! Im also likeing the Fujifilm Finepix Z20 I tested a while back (and not because its hot pink), http://url.ie/v2x this Philips TV is also loverly. I’ll be quiet now, realistically tho I will probably invest in a good monitor for my xbox 360.”
davymac “For Christmas… an iPhone with a battery that lasts a week under extremely heavy use! Oh alright 2 days then… so my ideal Christmas present would be a Morphie iPhone case/battery”
daraghlally “Prob the Macbook Air, or a HD projection TV”
sineadkeogh “A backscratcher… hmm, in actuality, probably an e-reader”
elfinamsterdam “Hmmm, i *think* i’d like an iPhone (have no use for one tho) but I’d most like a 1tb TimeCapsule and/or Airport Extreme, wish i had known about the airport extreme when i was buying my wifi router, as then I could have had wifi network @home!”
lecraic “No more gadgets for me this year, I have too many as it is, although a jetpack would be nice”
petsaretalking “Roll-around ice cream ball: click here to see more”
moonstruckmania “A working sound card, so I can watch tv online”
damienmulley “I’m thinking hard here and I don’t know. I would like all my music on one iPod so maybe the iPod classic. Now thats my baby …”
chrismehigan “The apple keyboard. I need a new keyboard =)”
marramgrass “New Mac Book Pro :-)”
bigstevie1275 “I would love a macbook as my next gadget only because I have most things and as well as that I have seen the light and mac is the way to go, I do have a laptop already so I’ll just wait till I need an upgrade. Oh sorry for answering early LOL”
jkeyes “a gadget that’s a real possibility, or any gadget on the planet? I’ll aim low and say an Eye-Fi card.”
WillKnott “Most desired! I Still want the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime. I’ll make do with an enjoyable job”
Debz “I want to get Clocky “For himself, but I fear it would be chasing the damn thing around every morning! :P”
simonmcc “50mm lens for my 400D”
darraghdoyle “I’d love one of the write to text pens. Filofax do them. Just write normally then upload to software that converts to type.”
pokey_jo “I want one of those robots that vacuums your floor for you.”
So there you have it, a small idea of what the folk of twitter want for christmas, and thanks to all of them for taking part! As for me I would love a laptop, a canon 40d, and possibly an A3 printer! not greedy at all am I!
Well I decided to put up another image from the last photowalk I was on, this was the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk that took place a while ago. Why go back through my archives?
Well since doing this photowalk brought to my attention by Darren Greene, I have met a load of great photographers both here in Ireland but more so through Twitter. I put up a few of my images on a flickr group page and it opened up new doors to me. Firstly I got followed by @Napp_News which is the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and then by a load of Napp Members, all except Scott Kelby himself!
These people have been a great source of knowledge to me in relation to my photography, but have also become very good friends since August! so tonight I decided to repay the favour and join up to Napp myself, and what a great deal they have for 99 Dollars you get a years membership with monthly magazines but the main thing for me is the website and the amount of valuable information available to members like tutorials, discounts etc, I can see myself being there for quite a long time trawling through everything.
If you want to join up click here and that will bring you through to the registration page, or if you want any information about the site just ask me on twitter.
Well its been ages since I posted, and I was so looking forward to getting a good picture of Rebecca in her halloween outfit, but do you think she would stand still, god no excitement was just to much, so sorry for the blur, although I think it actually helps with the ethereal feel of the picture.
Well last years pretty pink witch outfit did not fit, so we had to get a new costume and Paulas sister came to the rescue with a tutu and we had some winds my mother had given us ages ago, so blend the 2 together and you get in Rebeccas word a fairy princess or sometimes when she was asked what she was dressing up as she would reply “a lady”, god I love the way 2 year olds think at times.
Not at all inspired at Peter Donegans attempt to make everyone happy with a stupid meme blog post thing and ideas of making this country a better place, I decided to get real about Ireland and post up what we are all at, at the moment, moaning!
So without further ado here are my 10 thing that make me moany!
1. Ignorant people, I have come across so many of late!
2. Charity Muggers, fuck off I do not have any time, leave me alone, I have already joined up, go back to Australia.
3. Falseness, people who pretend to be something around you then change behind your back.
4. Working, not that I dont love my job, I do, But want more time with my daughter.
5. The Government, Stupid feckers all of them, except Joe Behan who will get my vote in future.
6. Not understanding how to get good pictures, but is something I am working on.
7. Technology and how quick it advances even in recessions, bastards always want my money!
8. Lazy people really get on my nerves in a big way.
9. Not getting my own way really makes me moany ask my wife!
10. this fucking eye shit that I have going on at the moment has really pissed me off.
So there you go happy go lucky Donegan hope I fucked up your day!
I live in Bray, I do not drive, I work in Dublin city center, I get the bus every day.
Now that I have established all of that, I would love to show you what I have to contend with each morning and evening getting to work and back home. I travel on the 84X, an express bus that I get on the N11, near the turn for the Enniskerry Road (or 29 bends) and on the way home I get off at the Honda garage across the road. In 2005 plans were put in place to create a Pedestrian Bridge to join the southern end of Bray to Enniskerry (across the N11) and last year at a cost of approx 4 million euro the bridge was opened. This made using the 84X, which runs along the N11 possible for me, I was thrilled.
It was my first time to walk down the Herbert road and experience what I am writing this blog about.
The bridge is fantastic and worth the money spent on it, it does not look out of place and gets people across the busy N11 safely, that is, if they can make it down to the bridge. You see, if you are coming from Ashton Wood, Richmond Park, Clover Hill, Herbert Park, Killarney Heights etc, you have to endure a walk taking your life into your own hands in order to get to the bridge, which was built to prevent fatalities. As you pass Ashton Wood the footpath ends, but thankfully, pedestrians do not have to walk along the bends of the Herbert Road towards the hairpin, but can walk down a mud track through overgrown forest, when you eventually make your way down, this “path”, you are greeted with the Herbert Road again, but there is still no path except for one a good bit down the road, and this is the part I love, on a corner.
I was taught never to cross the road on a bend or corner as young as 5 years of age, by my parents, in school, and even by the green cross code man on TV, yet Wicklow County Council seem oblivious to the fact that this is in fact a death trap. As mentioned the Herbert Road is full of bends with very short straights in between them, so by the time you have looked right to see if the road is clear then checked left to do the same, generally while checking right again to be sure you will find a car on top of you thats how quick they appear. The other thing we were taught at a young age was to listen for traffic, for starters thats damn hard with the N11 directly beside you and also because of the trees surrounding the road, dampening the sound further.
So why build a bridge that no one can safely access from Bray for that cost is beyond me! Only recently footpaths got relaid outside Clover Hill and the road got a resurfacing too, I believed this was the start of the work to make this walk safer, I was wrong, the work actually stopped exactly where the mud trail starts how typical.
During the winter months this is even worse with no street lighting to speak of and when wet, the path is treacherous and many’s the time I have seen people slip and fall backwards ruining there clothes going to work and causing themselves bruising at the same time. This is just not good enough and something needs to be done about it.
The other thing about all of this is that it is impossible for people with disabilities, the elderly or parents with prams/buggies, even young toddlers, to get near. The amazing thing is that the bridge has been built with accessibility in mind with a ramp going up to it on the Enniskerry side whereas to get up from the N11 to the Herbert Road on the Bray side you need to go all the way up to the church at the turn off for the Herbert Road and go along the footpath to the top of the bridge, yes its longer but it can be done safely, also this path was built the same time as the bridge, its just a shame it stops so short.
On the way home its pretty much the same in reverse, how nobody has been killed is beyond me! the road has a speed limit of 50km yet the cars are moving much quicker then that generally.
So I decided to Qik my walk up from the bus stop, this shows exactly what I am talking about. For those that don’t know Qik is a way of streaming live video to the web from your mobile phone, I will also say that I held the camera up to the side of me never holding it up to my face, obviously since the road is so dangerous I would not do something stupid like that, and it also explains why the picture is so jerky at times. I plan on getting in touch with as many people in the council that I can and would appeal to anybody living in the area to do the same. The Qik movie I took is only 8 minutes long I do hope you watch it and please, leave me a comment below with your thoughts!
