You might not be able to see it but the one thing which struck me about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner which I was lucky enough to get to see today was how like the Shuttle’s its nose was. Really knocked me about a bit. Something in the expression of the windows.

It’s [...]]]> I fell in love today.

You might not be able to see it but the one thing which struck me about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner which I was lucky enough to get to see today was how like the Shuttle’s its nose was. Really knocked me about a bit. Something in the expression of the windows.

It’s a beautiful aircraft and for the first time in a while, I actually had fun with photographs.

Here’s a more traditional looking aircraft photograph:

But I loved its nose.

Camera is full of this angle. Sorry I didn’t superwide baby with me but thems the breaks.

One of these is heading for canvasland

I just don’t know which yet. Last one is most likely tbh.

Oh and there are a few more here.

This is the beach in Duncannon, County Wexford, a small village with a fort, a lighthouse and a lot of places to stay. Last weekend it was over-run with kitesurfers. Seriously over-run. They outnumbered the abseilers and archers by about 35 to 1.

The weather on Saturday, unique in the country I believe, was utterly atrocious [...]]]>

This is the beach in Duncannon, County Wexford, a small village with a fort, a lighthouse and a lot of places to stay. Last weekend it was over-run with kitesurfers. Seriously over-run. They outnumbered the abseilers and archers by about 35 to 1.

The weather on Saturday, unique in the country I believe, was utterly atrocious and had I not been away from home, I would have personally stayed put in bed rather than brave the conditions. Which were, as I say, unique to Duncannon. Everywhere else was basking in tropical sunshine. People I know got sunburned in Cork, never mind Dublin.

People keep telling me, you get wet anyway. I do if I’m kitesurfing. If I’m taking kitesurfing photographs, I tend to get wet from the ground up, rather than the sky down. I don’t like rain. I’ll rephrase that. I love rain. Very heavy rain, coming from the southwest, battering my window hard enough to provide the sort of percussive soundtrack that outdoes the Foo Fighters or Beethoven’s 9th provided I am on the side of my window that is equipped with a duvet, a roof, a cup of hot chocolate and a central heating system. Standing on the beach taking photographs of kitesurfers in the pouring rain lacks somewhat in its attractions. So much the better if the stereo is playing Damien Rice’s 9 Crimes as well. Anyway, a key part of this is that my hair isn’t getting wet, and additionally, the front element of my camera isn’t getting wet either. It’s in a camera bag safe and sound, somewhere.

Saturday however, it didn’t quite go according to plan, so I just want to highlight that taking kitesurfing photographs isn’t all sunshine, white beaches for miles, girls in bikinis, superlooking dudes in boardshorts with adorable foreign accents and straws stuck in fresh coconuts. Sometimes it’s just misery inducing. When the weather is like this, the amount of water that hits the front of your lens means that autofocus goes on holiday, shutter speeds start collapsing, you press buttons, nothing happens and then you wish you had an Olympus.

Little lakes of water somehow endeavour to slosh around the bottom rim of your glasses (look that’s really unnerving) and you start to wish that kitesurfing photography was, in fact, all sunshine, white beaches for miles, girls in bikinis, an army of dudes bearing coconuts with straws stuck in them demanding to see your photographs of their front to back mobes and moaning that they didn’t get the kitelines low enough.  Cameron Dietrich told me it rains in Maui as well. I bet it’s still warmer than I was after 4 hours of this on Saturday. I took 67 photographs. All of them were murky. I think about 14 of them made it through rain-damaged quality control.

Okay. Moaning done. The photograph above is notable because of a) the colour and b) the evidence of the weather. As such, it’s a counterpoint to most of the mainstream kitesurfing photographs; it provides evidence that the sport does not exist in a fantasy world exemplified by the average wetsuit ad (it’s never raining in wetsuit ads – have you noticed this – hey – NPX I will do a rainy wetsuit shoot for you for nothing in Achill in Ireland provided you give me Andre Phillip as a model. In the grand scheme of things I can’t see myself framing it and hanging it over the mantelpiece. I liked Duncannon, I would love to go down there some weekend that the sun pokes its rays through the murk and the mist; and it’s near another one of my projects, the Hook Lighthouse which I didn’t get to see because to be frank, I was too miserably wet to divert. Next time. For future reference, the drive is around 2 and a half hours from Dublin and features motorway most of the time. In reality, I could do a dawn shoot down there if I just don’t go to bed.

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In other news, you should read this by Ronan Palliser because he says very nice things about me. Last night I was a guest of Dublin Camera Club where I endeavoured to speak for one hour about kitesurfing photographs, why I do it, how I do it, and what the risks are. I said far less than I could have, mindful of the fact that I wanted not to bore the living daylights out of people and also because my brain is a sponge and some of the info got squeezed out by “all those people they’re looking at me Aiiiiiiiiiiii”. I did, however, refer to photographs of injured water surf photographers and here is one for a frame of reference. When I say there are risks, I’m not trying to scare you off – I just want you to be realistic. That’s real blood. In South Africa. I think they have sharks there too.

I want to thank Paul Stanley and Chris Ducker of Dublin Camera Club who invited me to come and blather on about sports photography. I especially want to thank the hordes of people who filled Dublin Camera Club’s meeting room last night – You were a great audience and responded to my cri de coeur for questions – nothing worse than saying “Look, why are you all here” to be greeted by silence. I didn’t get that and I appreciated the interaction and communication from the floor. I stand over the 5000 missed shots comment by the way. We don’t have time to set them up.

Ronan Palliser talked me into joining your disposable camera challenge which means I have to take photographs without all those lovely tools which I explained were essential like shutter speed control and zooms. And preview. Oh god, no live view. How will I survive.

Anyway, still, thanks and all to you all – I hope you enjoyed it and I will put a list of resources together this evening for you. It will be linked from the top menu bar.

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In other news, two brand new books arrived from the very nice people at Amazon very early this morning, as in, before I woke up, one called Action and Sports Photography which I have coveted for some time, and now I have, and the other called Kitesurf Planet by Roberto Foresti which I glanced through this morning before breakfast because An Post were kind enough to wake me at 7.10 to deliver it. Since I paid for Amazon’s Supersaver Delivery (you know, the free one that takes a couple of extra days to arrive), I’m quite impressed that the books which were despatched from Amazon Central Holding Facility Somewhere Or Other In The UK I Think on Monday arrived before 8am on Wednesday. I’ve had UPS deliveries take longer and they cost more than Free.

Roberto Foresti is the official, or at least was, the official photographer for the Professional Kiteriders Association. I’ve seen him once when I was shooting a PKRA event in Portugal a few years ago. Leafing through the book was unnerving for one odd reason. He has a lot of photographs from that event in there too. It’s strange to look at someone else’s view of the same world sometimes. Anyway, that book arrived this morning as I say and I’m looking forward to examining it in more detail. A review of both books will follow.

In other news, apparently there’s a new Surfer’s Path waiting for me when I get an iPad back in contact with a wireless connection. All told, it’s a good day today.

I think this was taken back at the end of May which is, rather worryingly, the last time I was out shooting kitesurfers (with a camera). I like this a lot because it shows how much the kitesurfing community shares the beach sometimes. You can see photographers, kitesurfers and above all, people who are just [...]]]>

I think this was taken back at the end of May which is, rather worryingly, the last time I was out shooting kitesurfers (with a camera). I like this a lot because it shows how much the kitesurfing community shares the beach sometimes. You can see photographers, kitesurfers and above all, people who are just watching. I like days like that day. People talk more, people are happier.

We all enjoy the beach.

Okay, couple of things to mention. Kitesurfing in Wexford is next weekend. The plan is to go down there but I will probably drive up and down the two nights rather than staying down there.

Action Sports Photography at Dublin Camera Club is on 23rd August (I initially thought it was 16 but it appears I was wrong). I am looking forward to that with some trepidation – in the past my public speaking has been limited to 7 minutes.

There is a very scrumptious photograph on the cover of October’s Transworld Surf. I do not understand why I already have October’s Transworld Surf, but there you have it. They appear to have a different calendar to the rest of us.

Exhibit C on page 74 of the September Surfer Magazine is also nice. It’s credited to Collins – I need to check who that actually is.

Over in Kiteboarding world, there’s a super shot by Stephen Whitesell of Andre Phillip. Stephen’s site is worth a look. And there’s a fairly hot shot by Tim McKenna of Jeremie Eloy somewhere in the same issue. Mostly I see Tim doing surf shots.

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So much for a run around what I’m looking at at the moment. I also capitulated and bought Clark Little’s collection of Shorebreak Art. I hummed and hawed about that for a long time on the grounds that I *might* buy a print instead but that’s just not going to happen at this stage. So, book, arrived. It’s very nice.

I knew this already because several people who had discovered him from me posting some of his stuff on twitter had gone ahead and bought the book already and said yes, it’s lovely. I just love the immediacy of all those shots into the wave. I will not take them of course; we don’t get shorebreaks like them here and anyway I do other things with waves (soon and for the rest of your life). This is the sort of book I’d just like to have on my desk to entertain me at those moments when things are going wrong. It promises a whole other world to a compiler and some code which will not work as designed.

Time to go.

They built a golf course on the Old Head of Kinsale so access is a bit more limited than it was in days of old.

This was taken some time in March during my last traipse around West Cork. I actually got a few photographs I really liked while I was [...]]]> Another occasional lighthouse, again, from Cork.

They built a golf course on the Old Head of Kinsale so access is a bit more limited than it was in days of old.

This was taken some time in March during my last traipse around West Cork. I actually got a few photographs I really liked while I was down there and feel like doing it all again.  Maybe in August. I’d also like to go back down to South Kerry where I haven’t been for years so…must do some planning. Or Planning.

I’ve been googleplusified, by the way, and you can find me on googleplus here. It transpires that so far, most of the people I know on it are photographer types with a few yarnies thrown in for good measure.

I’m *still* going through the photographs from Cornwall. There may be another tonight [...]]]> It may be because I don’t have children [yet] but I don’t often notice the vast array of toys available for children at beaches for the most part. It may also be because most Irish beaches are a long way distant from shops.

I’m *still* going through the photographs from Cornwall. There may be another tonight depending on how well Photoshop and I get on with some black and white but I wanted to add a little colour and also, there are things to be said.

D-Lite Studios in Great North Clarendon Street have their annual (at the moment anyway) Homeless Exhibition and I was in there briefly today. The studio looks to me like it used to be a mechanic’s workshop so for various reasons I felt some sentiment walking through it. There is an interesting collection of photographs – lots of interesting portraits for example, and, compared to People’s Photography, a signal lack of postcard perfect landscapes – they are the exception rather than the norm. Three of my friends have pictures up there, Richard Eibrand, Sinead McDonald and Vlastimil Buczek. All their photographs are well worth your time. I believe the exhibition runs until Tuesday or Wednesday so you don’t have a whole lot of time to play with; however, if you have a chance, do drop in.

I will however say that if you are coming from Dublin 9 and ask GoogleMaps for direction they will try to send you down a No Left Turn on NCR. And there is no street sign for Dunne Street. Shall we say I had some fun finding the place.

Today has been a good day – in fact the whole weekend has. No one has been tearing pieces off my limited free time. I spent most of yesterday and quite a lot of today doing knitting and crochet. Without going into it in too much detail, crochet is more fun, easier and has a faster return/reward than knitting is/has.

I was on the beach for 2 or 3 hours today because it really was a most glorious day. I rather like summer in Ireland. I’d like it if it lasted a bit longer, pleased.

The tides in Newquay are quite high and this little inlet is pretty much completely unimportant if the tide is out. If it’s in, however, it seems to grow in [...]]]> The weather in Newquay today was not edifying so it’s just as well I tok a couple of nice photographs yesterday. This is one of them.

The tides in Newquay are quite high and this little inlet is pretty much completely unimportant if the tide is out. If it’s in, however, it seems to grow in scale. I liked it. I especially liked the puffy white clouds which nature saw fit to bequeath yesterday.

I got an Ansel Adams vibe with those clouds, so this happened.

Quite. I have a puffy cloud addiction going on here sometimes I think.

There will be one or two more to come over the next few days when I get back to Dublin. In the meantime…some thoughts.

Teddy Thompson is playing in the background, I’ve a scary looking mind map here of all the surf/watersports magazines I think I might ever be interested in. One of the key things I have been doing this weekend is learning a bit about myself and what I want to do. I was on a surf photography workshop given by Lucia Griggi whose name you will recognise if you have Shooting the Curl or a bunch of other surf magazines like Surfgirl.

What I’ve learned is I don’t really fit in with the photojournalism side of things. I suppose I knew that given my complete lack of desire to go off and photograph warzones – one of my friends and I had that conversation whereby he said he didn’t think he could do it, and I knew I couldn’t. One of the very clear statements I can make about myself today is that I utterly prefer taking photographs on my terms and not necessarily on any one else’s terms. To be honest, this is not something I learned today or yesterday, but I haven’t always been willing to admit it to myself. I guess that self recognition is a good thing. For me, it’s all about the photograph, that one great photograph that makes you smile inside.

Actually, I think I said something along those lines in the television interview a while back. Maybe I just need to be more aware of how self aware I can be.

Travelling laptop has already crashed once on me this evening and I am nowhere near done with the homework yet tonight. So fingers crossed no further trouble.

What we have here is a Royal Navy patrol boat in Fistral Bay outside Newquay. I missed the drama plus I didn’t have long lenses with me, but he [...]]]>

Travelling laptop has already crashed once on me this evening and I am nowhere near done with the homework yet tonight. So fingers crossed no further trouble.

What we have here is a Royal Navy patrol boat in Fistral Bay outside Newquay. I missed the drama plus I didn’t have long lenses with me, but he dropped in to say hello to a trawler to check they were complying with regulations. At least that’s what two men I met later told me. I’d well believe it; our own navy are well known to do something similar too.

I’m in Newquay, which is, in fact, tack capital of the UK. If you can imagine something like Salthill multiplied by Tramore multiplied by Bundoran with added foam parties, you’re in the ballpark. There’s a spectacular number of clubs and amusement arcades. A couple I met at the bus station yesterday – a couple who probably left their foam party days behind them 40 years ago if I’m honest – averred that that they were somewhat underwhelmed by Newquay as a shopping town. Your choice of shopping is 1) surf shops 2) hoodie shops 3) amusement arcades and 4) pasty stores. Beyond that, there’s a few tattoo parlours and a branch of Boots and Superdrug. I don’t know what to make of the place at all. It’s got the best most beautiful location in the world, for now at least, and they filled it up with tack.

I can’t figure out what the main tourist attraction is either, whether it’s the utter tack (viz, lots of hen and stag parties), the beaches (lots of surfers), the golf course or what. The population seems to consist of people under the age of 25 or over the age of 60. Accommodation is targetted accordingly with a bunch of surf hotels and a bunch of slightly higher class establishments that you feel never quite left Miss Marple’s era behind.

Anyway, I was out on Wednesday night armed with a camera. I spent a lot of time taking pictures of interesting cloud formations and the attempt at sunset. The sun never quite made it but I got lots of ominous looking clouds, which helpfully opened during the night – rain? I’ve never heard anything like it.

In the meantime, the surf has been pretty dire. The British Junior surf championships which were supposed to happen this weekend were cancelled and I spent a lot of today taking pictures of surfers engaging in the Extreme Waiting Around Hopelessly Championships. If I want waves, I’ll have to try again another time.

There were some special celebrations at Dublin Airport yesterday for Aer Lingus’s 75th anniversary – yes, I was there and yes I took some photographs.

So there will be a bunch of aeronauticals turning up in the next few days along with some kites.I feel like talking more too but I am in the process of [...]]]>

There were some special celebrations at Dublin Airport yesterday for Aer Lingus’s 75th anniversary – yes, I was there and yes I took some photographs.

So there will be a bunch of aeronauticals turning up in the next few days along with some kites.I feel like talking more too but I am in the process of dealing with today’s kite shots so that will have to wait for the next couple of entries while I’m not post processing.

Anyway; I like this one.

I don’t have a huge amount of time free right now – I should be at the beach but for reasons outside my control, I am running about 3 hours late. But I wanted to post this one photograph that I have out of yesterday’s run of photographs.

The Iolar is a De Havilland aircraft, a [...]]]>

I don’t have a huge amount of time free right now – I should be at the beach but for reasons outside my control, I am running about 3 hours late. But I wanted to post this one photograph that I have out of yesterday’s run of photographs.

The Iolar is a De Havilland aircraft, a DH84, identical to the first plane which Aer Lingus flew from Dublin to Bristol when the company was founded in 1936.

Friday last was the company’s 75th birthday and not many airlines have managed to make it to that age – Christoph Mueller, the airline’s CEO, mentioned in a speech that only 13 (I think) other airlines got to the age of 75.

The Iolar has been out and around flying, in particular yesterday (I have a lot of photographs of her). She’s an extraordinary looking aircraft – small (she makes a Shortts 360 look positively luxurious which is not something I’d have ever said given what I personally think of flying in a Shortts 360 (it’s marginally better than 90 minutes of drum’n'bass but not much). The photograph above was taken on a flyby of Dublin Airport yesterday.

Okay. I have a bunch more photographs to look at but needs must and I have to give a trip to the beach.

Lahinch has the best lifeguard station I have seen in this country. It’s not, for example, a temporary dwelling, sort of container box thing. It looks like it belongs in California, to be honest and it watches out over one of the most popular beaches in the country. Unlike Tramore, Lahinch is not full of [...]]]> Lahinch.

Lahinch has the best lifeguard station I have seen in this country. It’s not, for example, a temporary dwelling, sort of container box thing. It looks like it belongs in California, to be honest and it watches out over one of the most popular beaches in the country. Unlike Tramore, Lahinch is not full of game centres; it’s full of surf culture shops and golf shops; an unusual pairing as far as I can see. Next to one of the best known surf beaches in the country is one of the best known links golf courses. When I was kid, Lahinch was best known for golf. Now, I think, the surfing beats it.

For all its popularity however, I’ve never quite understood why Lahinch is that bit more popular than others; and thus has that bit more infrastructure. Maybe it’s the proximity to Ennistymon, or possibly there was a time when the following wasn’t true. The southern end of the beach is not without quicksand and most of it disappears for 3 or 4 hours around high tide anyway. So when I got there, the tide was in, and there wasn’t much sand to be seen. I think 4 of the surf schools were running lessons – I’ve done quite a few lessons there myself in the past; it’s not my favourite beach in the world (because Inchydoney in Cork is) but ultimately, just about when you get down to seeing some merit in one of the beaches in Dublin, you go west and realise that the ones in Dublin, while it’s great to have them and let’s face it few capital cities do, are nothing on the ones on the west coast. Even when there aren’t many waves. Or, indeed, on this occasion, much sand.

Because it’s one of the better organised beaches in terms of parking, lifeguard stations and quick walk to any number of bars, however, it has paths down to the beach which just go down to the sea when the beach isn’t there. Kids play on these, trying to outrun the waves. In Lahinch, I guess they were around 2 feet max (a lot less than what they were further north in Doolin when I rocked up down there). These kids had great, great craic playing with them.

It was 23 deg in Lahinch yesterday, with a light wind, maybe max 10 knots. Straight offshore. There were an army of surfers around. Parking in Lahinch is 2E for 3 hours (my god that’s such a bargain). A few of them were not wearing wetsuits – given that this is unusual in Dublin in the kitesurfing community, I was amazed. I got kiboshed by some charity collector as well; like everyone else, she couldn’t believe someone might drive down to Clare for the day and go back to Dublin.

I took 550 photographs yesterday. I’ve uploaded around 70 of them to one of my image hosting accounts. I had horrendous trouble just choosing a few that I liked. It’s one of the biggest hit rates on “ooh I like that” that I’ve had in years; plus it’s the first time since I got a 40D that I ran out of storage. That usually only happens at kite competitions.

I’ll probably go back and look at them again, and again. There’s so much promise in them. Yesterday is the sort of day that made me glad to be a photographer; it’s the sort of day I got photographs I really and truly like.