Chicago: From John Hancock to Sears

Issue 34 of “Digital Photographer” magazine has a great feature on cityscapes. One of the photos in it is very similar to one I took while I was in Chicago a few weeks ago..


Canon 20D, 1/4 sec, f/3.5, 18mm, ISO 1600. Hand held


The shot in Digital Photographer.

Naval Ships in Cork Harbour

Today myself, Ryan and AJ went down to see the various naval vessels docked in Cork Harbour.
Ryan has already posted some great photos and here’s some of mine here. The URL will change but I’ll update this post when it does!
I had a great time, the Germans got a great kick out of seeing a crazy photographer lying down on the quay taking snapshots of a coiled rope, but they did pose for a photo afterwards! It’s a pity my camera crashed minutes later and several of my shots were ruined :(

Sit-in at city shop

I went into town this morning and came across this group of protestors on Princes Street. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were employees of O’Donovans Butchers, a 105 year old company with a premises on the street. They had all been let go the previous day. The Evening Echo has more on their front page.
The workers were protesting because they were laid off almost a week early with very little compensation despite many years of service in some cases.

Evening Echo

Horse

Today I took delivery of a new Canon 75-300 IS USM lens. It’s a nice zoom lens, although seemingly slated by everyone who has used more expensive lenses. That seems to be par for the course – the lenses I can afford aren’t up to much apparently.
On the way home I took a few photos of horses in a nearby field. Here’s one I liked..
Here’s a 100% crop fron the photo below. The shot out of the camera is a little soft but hover over the photo to see what effect a simple unsharp mask does for the sharpness of the image.

Ardmore Village and Round Tower

Following on from Frank’s suggestion a few days ago I took a trip down to Ardmore yesterday!
Alas, I have a sorry tale to tell, my trusty Sony 717 camera may have shot it’s last photo. It now sees nothing but black and I’ll have to inquire about getting it fixed. Missed the beautiful sunset later of a blazing red ball of flame setting over Youghal later too! *sob*