dawn on Dollymount….

I can’t remember why, but this lot of photographs was taken a morning before I had some problems with the camera, can’t remember what exactly, because they preceded a break from taking photography. I’m not sure why.

I always liked them for some reason.

They seemed to have so much warmth to them.

as well as toys

I was out last night in town. I’ve mixed feelings. Kyle Tunney and I talked about a Christmas lights trip in January but we never got around to it and I suspect the snow and ice didn’t help. One of the things that I wouldn’t mind doing at some stage – would run it past Kyle but he’s mega busy lately – is hit the town midweek at around 4 in the morning when it’s still dark but there are very few people there and you can really play with long exposures. I found the Four Courts particularly attractive this morning, I must confess.

I don’t exactly know why but I went to the archives today to have a look at old photographs, see if anything struck me in a way that hadn’t first time round. The whole exercise was interesting from a purely self-indulgent point of view. I had a brief conversation about this on twitter with Rory Wallace and Mike Patterson this evening. What it boiled down to was this. I think I was a better photographer 2 years ago than I am now. And I’m not sure why.

Technically I know a lot more now than I did then. I know a lot more about how cameras work, how image processing software works. And in that time I’ve taken a bunch of very, very striking photographs such as the melting ice in the lamplight, a few motor-racing shots,  sunrise in Skerries and a few other bits and pieces. But they are stand out photographs in a falling average in some respects. I know, for example, I got to be particularly choosy about the photographs that got out in the wild – see the early flickr stuff versus the later flickr stuff for example (there are 8000 photographs plus on my flickr account by the way).

I think the problems relate to the kitesurfing above all else. In the last 2 years there are maybe a handful of striking photographs from the kitesurfing, the well known one being the sunset kiteloop, and the other key one being Francois Colussi/Jeanie Johnson. Possibly I need to go back to scratch and start over with them. Or possibly it’s just the weather. Difficult to say.

I have been thinking about photography in general lately. Mainly because I’ve been looking for something to shoot, something special and different. I really don’t have any excuse, not the sort of excuses I had 3 or 4 years ago. I want to shoot macro? There is a 2.8 100mm macro lens in the bag. Play with flash? 580 Speedlite II although the last time I tried to use it wasn’t working properly. Must check that out. I have zoom coverage from 10mm up to 500mm even allowing for the fact that Trish has my medium zoom. I know that one of the most important things I should be able to do is dig something special out of the common and ordinary around me and to that end I’ve played with the ornaments on my mantlepiece, the cheap bottles of nailpolish I’ve accumulated and broken wine glasses that I dropped on the floor.

I think really what I need at this stage is a photobuddy to drag me out to do things I harp on about but never do. If the weather cooperates tomorrow I will look at going either north or south…we’ll see.