Last weekend I went to Belfast to see my sister Rose. But this wasn’t just the usual catchup. She was going to acting in play called Cagebirds at the Southbank Playhouse. The story of six birds locked in a cage by their mistress for their own good. Then a new bird, The Wild One, is added to the mix. From the outset this new bird is not happy and begs the other birds to join her in a grand escape.
I’ll say no more….
My sister Rose was cast as ‘The Wildone’. Otherwise known as ‘the stroppy one’. She wont mind me saying that either. She was perfect.
I took my camera along and was able to get some shots during their rehearsals.
(L-R) – The Medicated Gloom, The Wild One, The Mistress, The Regular Thump.
Julia Connolly, Rose McClelland, Cheryl O Dwyer, Laura Gray
Congratualtions to everyone involved in the play. It was excellent and I even knew a few people who stayed for the second show to enjoy it all over again!
Thanks to Martin Toland for allowing me to come along with my camera. Looking forward to seeing what you can all come up with next.
A long time ago I made a mini globe of Malihide Castle. Ever since then I’ve wanted to recreate something similar in the middle of O’Connell street with the Spire being the primary focus point.
Well, almost a year has passed and between then and now I’ve had a few failed attempts. To create these images you need to be able to take almost perfect 360 degree panoramas – something that I just haven’t been able to completely nail.
So, a couple of weeks ago with my new gigapan system I went into the middle of O’Connell Street and setup my tripod halfway between the spire and the Jim Larkin statue. I took a total of 36 images to get a full panorama.
The trouble was that I could not get these images to stitch together, until last night.
So, after some additional photoshop work to iron out a the minor glitches the O’Connell Street mini globe is finally ready.
Firstly, the field of view is over 180 degrees, 194 to be exact, which means you get a real ‘being there’ impression of just what went on and how many people attended the ceremony.
Secondly and most importantly, this panorama was not the result of some incredible camera worth thousands of pounds or with an amazing fisheye lens. The photographer captured it using just a compact camera, taking 220 individual images at full zoom across the entire 194 degree field of view. He then stitched these images together to create a monster sized image. Because it’s made up of so many zoomed in images the detail is out of this world. (If you haven’t already checked out the link above and zoomed into the image please do so… you’ll be missing the point if you don’t) Part of the reason he was able to do this so easily and stitch the images together so well is because he also used a Gigapan system.
Now for the science bit. The gigapan is platform that you attach your camera to, you tell the system where you want the top let of your panorama to be and then the bottom right. The system then knows exactly how far to space out the individual images that will make up the panorama (based on some simple setup steps) and then starts to take the images for you. It’s a joy to watch. Went you get home, the gigapan software stitches the images together too.
So anyway… I’m ramblining here. The point is, after reading about it and picking my jaw up off the floor I deceided that I’d get one.
I’ve had some dire attempts, the Spire sticking out of the GPO and some sort of half bus, half car monstrosity stands out as being the most comical, but yesterday that all changed.
I went down to Sandymount beach and took 180 degree panorama. It consisted of 72 individual shots. The finished stitched image is 100 megapixels and the detail is incredible.
