Eireknits and Irishknittingkits launched.

Eireknits and Irish Knitting Kits are part of the Crana Knits group, owned by the redoubtable Rosaleen Hegarty from Buncrana. Rosaleen’s brief was to create a knitting tutorial site with instruction through video supplemented by text and detail images, along with a sister site to supply the necessary yarns and patterns.
I carried out the design, photography, html and css coding and the videos and server-side processing were undertaken by my colleagues Pat Campbell and John Conaghton respectively, both from LYIT.

Update on Autumn Glory

As I made the last post (noticing the autumn glory post) I realised that I hadn’t posted any of the images I took last winter and there are many. Here’s a couple taken from more or less the same vantage as the autumn shots.

Been a long time…

With the birth of my son (good) and ill-health (bad) I’ve not had much chance to keep this blog updated. It’s been a busy year, between work, nappy changes and hospital visits. Luke is now a bouncing 10 month old, busy exploring and demolishing as he goes. We took him to Croatia for a family wedding in July where he scored a number of firsts  – 1st holiday, 1st plane trip, 1st swim and he also started crawling while we were there.

On the design front, I completed Irishknittingkits and eireknits. I’ve decided with things as they are that I’m not taking on more design work for the time being. That may change as Luke gets older. Most of the photographs I’ve taken lately have been of the wee man, but I also managed to take a few in Croatia. Check the main site for examples.

Cavtat, Croatia, with Dubrovnik in the distance.
The large yacht at the right is Roman Abramovich's yacht Luna.

Autumn Glory

I haven’t had a chance to post much lately as my wife and I have a new arrival in the house. Luke was born on the 22 of October and is occupying most of our time. It’s time well spent of course!

I did manage to get a few shots of the stunning autumn foliage, and the Ramelton series is still ongoing. I won’t publish any more of the Ramelton shots here for a while, as they will formally go on exhibition early next year. I’ll add an update with venue and dates once they are finalised.

In the meantime, here’s a few autumnal scenes; yes they are in Ramelton, but they don’t fall into the series I’m making for the exhibition. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t get a chance to capture these, due partially to time I’m spending with Luke but also due to the poor weather conditions of late. I half expected that the leaves would be blown from the trees before they got a chance to colour properly, but thankfully after the storms of the past week, today dawned with a clear blue sky.

26/10/2010

8/11/2010

The first two shots were taken only two weeks apart – you can see how rapidly the colour changed.

Tilt Shift Sherlock

Tilt shift photography seems to be de-rigueur these days, just do a quick search on reddit to see what I mean. The new (already old, last episode aired tonight on BBC) Sherlock Holmes series uses it extensively, particularly in the opening titles.

from the BBC

Tilt shift lenses allow the lens to be tilted at an angle tho the focal plane – normal lenses are parallel to the focal plane. This creates the unusual effect of an apparent shallow depth of field where there wouldn’t normally be one. In practical terms – tilt shift images look like miniatures or models. This happens because we are conditioned by our familiarity with miniature macro photography and its inherent shallow depth of field.

from thegraphicmac.com

Tilt shift lenses have been around for a while, their popularity being mainly for their shift capabilities, especially for interior and architectual shots. The tilt effects seem to be very fashionable lately – there are photoshop tutorials springing up all over the place showing how to create faux tilt-shift.

They’re rarely as effective as the real thing though.

Image stabilisation and tripods

Lovely, isn’t it. Thats what I thought too as I checked the histogram and preview and packed up my tripod.

Grrr!

That oh-so-handy IS switch can also be a liability as I discovered today when I forgot to switch it off when using my tripod. The IS system looks for vibrations when shooting. Unfortunately, on a tripod mounted camera, there are (or shouldn’t be) any vibrations. In cases like this, IS actually causes vibrations in the lens. See the detail below from the same shot.

Note to self: Switch off IS when using a tripod!

41st Lennon Festival ends with a bang

The annual Lennon Festival in Ramelton attracted large crowds this year, despite the drizzly weather. I photographed a few of the events such as the raft race, but forgot my camera for the crab fishing contest. Doh! I doubt there was a crab left by the docks after the event. The festivities closed on Monday last with a fireworks display.

I didn’t forget the camera this time.

Ghana cruelly robbed

Probably the most exciting match so far in the tournament, Ghana (who imho deserved to win) were denied a first entry to the semi finals for an African team, by a hand ball from Luis Suarez which stopped a definite goal in the dying minutes of the match. Play went to extra time, then penalties.

What a crappy way to decide a victor.

You may have been knocked out Ghana, but you can hold your heads high.

PS: I had no money on Ghana, just an emotional investment.

O2 Internet censorship

Just a quick post to express my dismay at O2′s blanket blocking of Imgur. For those who don’t know, Imgur is probably the most popular free image host on the web. Most aggregators – Reddit, Digg, Del-ici-ous etc use Imgur extensively. Whats next? Photobucket? Imageshack?

Google?

[edit] Apparently Graham Linehan agrees.

O2 fail

[edit] Apparently Imageshack is blocked also.

Final word: The Internet is supposed to be the Information Superhighway, indeed, Finland have just passed a law guaranteeing access to broadband as a human right.

We Irish seem to be regressing in this respect.

Raptors at Glenveagh

Continuing on my current naturalist obsession, I visited the aviary at Glenveagh National Park today, with my two young nieces in tow. The park is always stunning this time of year, with its famous walled gardens in full bloom. The gardens played second fiddle to the main attraction though – a public display of a range of birds-of-prey.

In 2001 Glenveagh along with The Irish Raptor Study Group and the Curlew Trust instituted a breeding program for Golden Eagles. 42 birds have been released into the wild, and have been sighted in Connemara and as far south as the Gap of Dunloe in Kerry. Read More >>>

The girls were fascinated with the barn owls in particular, as the birds would perch on their (leather clad) little hands. The staff supervised of course, and were friendly and very knowledgeable. Alongside the Barn Owls were Horned Owls and Peregrine falcons (Peregrines are the fastest animal in the world, reaching speeds of 200 mph in a dive).

Star of the show was undoubtedly “Bob”, an as yet immature male Golden Eagle. Even so, he weighs over five kilos and has a wingspan of 2.5 meters.

He also seemed a little frisky to my eyes.

The birds are on display to the public each Sunday during the summer months with a flying display at 2:30pm.

What’choo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? (RIP Gary Coleman)

The fastest thing on two legs. Really.

Bob. He’s just a kid, you know.