Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
All tagged Dublin
As spring gives way to summer here in Ireland, and the cold dark rainy days give way to bright rainy days, I’ve been slowly getting back into street photography. I have only really dabbled since the pandemic began and for most of 2020 I didn’t really shoot much at all. I’ve been getting back into it bit by bit, and recently, I headed out with my trusty Sony A6000 to get some street shots
Last week I was approached for an interview about one of my photography projects by a fairly prominent online newspaper here in Ireland. The piece they were interested in was a project I did charting the progress of the cross-city tram construction that took place in Dublin over the past few years. The request came out of the blue and took me a little by surprises, but they did a good article following the interview.
I wanted to match the look of an old photo that I already had, with a new image that I had just shot, but it was only a Jpeg. Starting in Apple Photos, and using Luminar as an extension I walk you through the editing process to make this otherwise dull image more dramatic.
Last week in Dublin a major engineering project was finished. The “Luas” cross-city tram project was finally completed. When the tram network was originally built there were two lines, which severed different parts of the city, but they weren’t connected, and there was no way to cross the city on the tram. Recently the city undertook a major civil engineering project to join the two lines. Over the past four years, I've been documenting the construction progress.
For a while now, I’ve been running a series of posts here on this blog called “Street Photo Diary”. I’ve also been practicing and testing various setups to allow me to produce “Vlog” style videos. After much testing and messing up, I have finally come up with a reasonable setup and idea, and that is to make a video version of my “Street Photo Diary” series. And so, a new monthly (for now) video series is born, also called “Street Photo Diary” !
There is a pretty amazing exhibit on in Dublin Zoo at the moment. The “Wild Lights” experience, is an art show of sorts, featuring animal shaped lanterns which are all around the zoo, mimicking a real zoo experience, only in lights. The artwork was created by a group of china artists, and is really something to behold. My wife and I recently paid a visit to see the exhibit and it was amazing.
Sometimes I just like to go for a walk with my camera, without intent or purpose. Just to see what one can see. This was one of those days. I set out with my Sony A6000 and Sigma 30mm lens. I didn’t really have any goals in mind. I just wanted to go for a walk and hopefully find some nice images.
I recently headed out to shoot some street photography on film, for my Street Photo Diary project, and I decided that it might make an interesting video. So, before I got started, I mounted my trusty GoPro on my cameras hot shoe, set it recording, and headed out onto the streets of Dublin to get some shots.
It’s been another month, and so it’s time for another issue of my Street Photo Diary series. Every time I do one of these I always end up having difficulty coming up with an intro for the piece. Having just watch “The Big Bang Theory” and Sheldon’s “Fun With Flags, behind the flag, a retrospective” I’m tempted to do a humorous take on that, but instead, something else occurred to me.
Welcome to the first edition of Street Photo Diary for 2017. Considering I’ve been doing about one of these a month that means I’ve been doing the Street Photo Diary series for about 2 years now. For the new year, I’m going to try and keep to that schedule, so here’s the first instalment, for January!
Christmas is nearly here, and I wanted to finish off the year with one more Street Photo diary post. I’ve enjoyed doing this series, and I hope to do more of it next year, but I thought a Christmas themed edition would be somewhat appropriate.
Last weekend here in Dublin, there was a special Christmas edition of the monthly Dublin flea market, and I went along with my camera (of course) to check it out. It wasn’t exactly a typical Christmas market, more of a special extra large version of the normal market for Christmas.
Autumn is slowly giving way to winter here in Dublin city, and as the seasons change the light changes too. The harsh winter sun brings with it long shadows and cool sunshine. I actually love the light this time of year, and for street photography it makes for an interesting subject all of its own.
In my recent rediscovery of film shooting, I decided to try out a roll of Kodak Ektar 100. I've never shot with this film before, but it gets a lot of good reviews online, and having used and scanned a roll, I can say that they're not unfounded. I headed out on a sunny(ish) autumn day in Dublin and took some shots around the city using my trusty Eos 5 with a 17-40 f4/l lens.
I've said this many times on this blog, but Autumn is my absolute favourite time of the year. I love the golden leaves on the trees and the Autumn light. While the season is only beginning here in Ireland, already the trees are starting to turn. The once dense green foliage has started to thin out and the canopy of leaves has gone from a deep lush green, to a speckled patchwork of green and gold.
After a topsy turvy weather ride this year, we finally had a few nice and sunny days here in Dublin, and I made sure to make the best of them. I managed to spend a good bit of time out shooting some street shots and I finally feel that my mojo is starting to come back a little.
As I mentioned on my main blog recently, I've been scanning in lots of my old negatives and slide film recently. One of the patterns that's emerged from looking at my old shots is that I had an interest in Street Photography even from the early days of my photographic interests. Of course I didn't know it was a genre called "Street Photograhy" at the time. I just like taking pictures around the city. Most of these were taken between 15-20 years ago, on my trusty Canon Eos 5.
One of my absolutely favourite places in Dublin City is on the banks of the Grand Canal between Portabello and Mount Street. It is a beautiful stretch of walkway, with leafy green trees and gorgeous benches. I spent a bit of time there recently in the gorgeous summer sunshine and I captured lots of photos of the place.
