People’s Photography, 2010…and my take on *that* bridge…

This photograph is from one of the World Photowalks; I think it was last year’s one actually. Or possibly the year before. I should probably check.

Anyway, People’s Photography is on this weekend so I took a wander around St Stephen’s Green where a lot of my friends had hung photographs. I didn’t do it myself this year because to be frank I have a lot of other things on and the giant task of selecting photographs was something I couldn’t face into. Last year, we reckoned that Howth Lighthouse, the lighthouse at Hook Head and Puffins were very much in vogue. This year it was the Samuel Beckett Bridge which opened. There were some striking photographs of it, but more than anything there were lots of photographs. Additionally, a significant number of the portraits were model shots of girls. So trends change I guess, from seabirds and lighthouses to bridges and girls. I’d a look around to see what inspired me and interestingly enough, nothing did despite the presence of some excellent photographs.

That being said, I have to say hello to a bunch of people who were organised enough to get their act together. So Neil, Julie, Denis, Shane, Ronan, Kyle, Sarah, Tommie, Darren, the crew at Dublin Camera Club, the crew at Swords Photographic Group including Martin and Michael, and the crew at Offshoot including Darragh and Richard plus a bunch of other people I don’t yet know. I saw some striking photographs from Howth Camera Club and Belfast Camera Club (I think) also but didn’t get chatting to any of those people. Tommie and Mary brought really, really nice food; fresh scones and lovely salads. I felt so totally inadequate .

Anyway, unrelated to that, I finished reading my latest photography reading today; the very specialised “Surfer Magazine 50 Years” which is actually about surfing but has a lot of photography in it for the discerning watersports photographer. I’m now on the hunt for something new and I don’t know if it will be a John Hedgecoe text book, a Joe McNally text book or anything similar. There’s a book of sea photography floating around that I like the look of and may order for myself from amazon or will I just go for more surf and extreme sports. I don’t know yet.

Linked to that I am wondering how the nice boys who work for Ripcurl managed this. I’ve looked at it several times and I’m really not working out how many cameras were involved. Definitely a few though. Oh wait, the Steph Gilmore one is almost better again.