I took another little trip into the city tonight as it looked as though Dublin was going to get a decent sunset. The weather has been lovely this week and I hoped to get some nice dusk shots.
I walked along the Liffey towards Georges Dock and the CHQ. I’m so glad I went because what I saw next was amazing.
As part of the ’One City, One Book’ Festival the Dublin Docklands authority and Dublin City Council asked Duthain Dealbh to create sand sculptures to depict scenes from Jonathan Swifts ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.
The sculptures had been there for 9 days and I had arrived just as they were just about to dismantle the last one (hit it with a hammer I presume). They held off and let me and a few other people take some last minute photographs.
This sculpture below was around 4 meters tall and shows Gulliver being told of the terms of his freedom by the Lilliputains.
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As for the rest of the evening shots the sunset never really came. A lot of cloud gathered and the sun never really shone much brighter than in the shots viewable in the slideshow. There’ll be other nights…
Oh… I hope you like the new image viewer. If you want to see a larger version of any particular image just click on the link below the thumbnails.
Well, I said I’d go back and I did. This time with plenty of battery power and a new all singing all dancing tripod – which by the way before I get requests, neither sings or dances.
Tonight was the perfect night for what I wanted to take. Well almost perfect, the odd spit of rain required plenty of lens cleaning but other than that it was a beautiful night in the fair city and long shutter speeds with big depths of field where the order of the night.
I took a picture tonight which is different from anything I think I’ve ever taken. It came about after discovering a little stairwell which leads down to an underground car park beneath the Grand Canal Dock. When you walk in it’s an odd feeling. It’s solely lit by a neon grill placed high in one corner of the stairwell. It has to be said, it’s all a little creepy. Anyway, up the tripod went and good 20 second exposure gave fantastic results.
However, Ian, a good friend of mine came along with me tonight for the fresh air. Ian is a nice guy. He’s not scary. But when I told him I’d retake the shot with him in it this time he did a super job of looking positively terrifying….
There is no way I’m going down those stairs with that dodgey geezer lurking about.
The less scary images of the docklands shoot can be found in the recent gallery.
After driving by the newly developed (when I say newly I should actually say recently – Summer 2007) Grand Canal Quay numerous times and threatening to visit it “one of these days” for photo opportunities, I finally managed to get my act in order and do just that. What a place. Visually it’s stunning with lots of lovely green lighting at ground level to light up the pathways and some big red tubes to basically just look nice. And very nice it is. Pity my camera ran out of batteries after taking around 10 shots. Note to self – check battery levels before leaving the house.
I’ll go back, and this time I’m not leave it so long.
Well after much upness, downness, blankness and messiness this new site is finally getting there.
I’ve been hard at work trying to get my slideshows in order and have just about managed it. I’ve used a similar setup to my old site but I think this one is even more nifty. Try them and see. They are listed on the right sidebar under My Gallery. To get back to this site just press the back button on your browser window.
The pictures will appear as if they are on a tiltable table. You can enlarge each image by simply clicking on it. (simply clicking is actually exactly the same as normal clicking). To reduce the image just click again.
You’ll also notice a little circular symbol at the bottom of each image too. Clicking (simply or normally) will flip the picture around to display some details, like the title or description. I’ve tried to be creative with my titles and descriptions, but honestly for some images it’s hard to expand, for example ’Wet sand’… says it all really.
At present I only have titles and descriptions for Animals, Assorted, and Flora [update 3rd April - and Great Outdoors] . I’ll be working on getting the rest in order over the next day or two.
(now for the science part)
Controls
Mouse
- Click images to zoom-in, click again to zoom-out.
- Click the ‘flip’ button (bottom-right of a zoomed-in image) to see image details.
- Moving your mouse tilts the image around.
Keyboard
- Cursor keys to navigate between images.
- Space-bar to zoom in/out.
- ‘F’ key to flip an image (when zoomed in).
Right-Click Menu
- Go Fullscreen. Opens fullscreen mode. Right-click and select ‘Exit Fullscreen’ to revert to regular mode. Note keyboard navigation does not work in full-screen mode.
So that’s it folks.