Wedding Season 2022

The last couple of years have been tough going for everyone in the hospitality business, but it’s fantastic to see things finally return to where they were before March 2020. We’re heading into the busy season of shooting weddings an average of twice a week over the next few months, so it’s all fun and games. But we have to mention all those couples who, whether they were limited to just a couple of guests, or 25, or 50, or whatever the number was, decided that they were going to go ahead and have their day. Bravo! Wishing you all the very best for all of your days to come.
Check out our wedding photography packages at www.dublinweddingphotography.com

Kirbee Designs Spring/Summer 2021

Myself and Jill always enjoy working with Karen from Kirbee Design. It’s fantastic to see Irish fashion designers do so well in such a competitive market, but her girls dresses and clothes always seem to sell out quickly. It’s no surprise that her business has built up such a loyal following on Instagram, and we hope to see them do even better in 2021.

December Drifting at Mondello

Before Christmas 2020 and the latest COVID lockdown I popped down to Mondello Park to catch these guys out on a Drift Day. Kader & Ash - family neighbours - have taken it up as a fast way to get rid of spare cash in return for some white knuckle fun and bruised knuckle car maintenance. Thanks to the guys at Drift Games for the media pass, and hopefully it won’t be long before there’s more days out hooning about on tarmac.

Walk About The Farm

Think I first came out to Jill’s family farm around the mid 1980s, a year or two after we met up in college studying photography. We’ve photographed the hell out of it over the years so we don’t do it so often any more, it’s like getting blood from a cliché finding something new to capture. With Lockdown2.020 in place there’s only so many things to shot within a 5km radius, and unlike in a city or an industrial area farmlands are not known for diversity, nor providing artificial night lights. Walking around the farm a week or so ago I was surprised by how much space once occupied by apple trees isn’t any more. It makes the whole place feel different. I guess that’s what happens when you get older, you don’t really notice all the small changes that happen over time until something pushes it over the tipping point and it never really feels the same any more even when it’s kind of familiar.

Fia Clothing

Jill’s been working with Fia Clothing for a few years now, one of those lovely clients who know what they want and are brilliant to bounce ideas off so that everything comes together on a shoot. As usual, and because Jill knows I like this kind of photography, I’m allowed to come out and play when she shoots fashion on location; I have no interest or talent for studio work, it’s far too complicated to work with artificial light so I leave that to the professionals. Really enjoyed the day, brilliant people and a great vibe on the shoot with everyone chipping in to make stuff happen. What could be better.

5km Lockdown: Rolestown Route 1 (7km)

Another 7km walk done. Trying to do each walk with a different lens, just to keep my eye in working order for whenever we get back to shooting weddings regularly. Doing one or two here and there is fine, but I miss having 8 or 9 of them stacked up to process.

Camera: Canon 5Dmkiv
Lens: Sigma 35mm f1.4 ART

Today’s Podcast Listening:
https://teamdeakins.libsyn.com/turning-the-tables-shawshank-redemption
Roger Deakins is a master cinematographer. First time I remember noticing his name was on the film 1984, the one with John Hurt and Richard Burton. It wasn’t until the Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink that his work really began to pop for me, especially in terms of composition and seeing things in a different way. His resume is second to none, everything from Fargo to No Country for Old Men, True Grit to Bladerunner 2047 and 1917. This is a lovely cast: the tables are turned on Roger and his wife James when cinematographer Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Lion, Dune, and The Batman) hosts the conversation, primarily about The work Team Deakins did on The Shawshank Redemption, but with digressions and anecdotes branching off wherever the flow takes them.

Route 1 - 7km
Lispopple Crossroads, past Kettles Country House Hotel, avoiding the temptation of their tasty bastard munchies, on along The Rath, then pass by Dymphna's Equestrian Centre - the halfway mark - and then around by Balcultry Equestrian Centre for the homeward stretch.

5km Lockdown: Rolestown Route 2 (8km)

Route 2 - 7.5km
This route takes us past Plantworld and around by the Fingal Ravens GFC, which is about the halfway point. Lots more people seem to do this route, or maybe it’s just the time of the day. As long as I’m not getting lapped by MM I’m happy. Taking the camera is a great excuse to take a break.

Camera: Canon 5Dmkiv
Lens: Sigma 35mm f1.4 ART

Today’s Listening:
Jill giving me an earful of who lives where, who their ancestors were, what their third pet was, all of which I’ve forgotten.

5km Lockdown: Rolestown Route 1 (7km)

We’re back to the 5km radius thing again and, as I’m sick of the spin bike and rowing machine, it’s time to stretch the legs on some 7k door to door walks; it’s the same bloody door, just going the long way around to check if i closed it proper. There’s pretty much just 3 walks i can do from here, this is the first; I’ll update this post with new photos when and if and maybe but i wouldn’t exactly hold my breath.

Camera: Canon 5Dmkiv
Lens: Canon 24-70 f2.8L

Route 1 - 7km
Lispopple Crossroads, past Kettles Country House Hotel, avoiding the temptation of their tasty bastard munchies, on along The Rath, then pass by Dymphna's Equestrian Centre - the halfway mark - and then around by Balcultry Equestrian Centre for the homeward stretch.

Today’s Podcast Listening:
https://johnaugust.com/2020/the-conflict-episode-rebroadcast

TY Experience With Our Kid

Had a fab day shooting out in Killiney with Jill over the weekend for her client FIA Clothing. I very rarely get involved in Jill’s shoots unless they’re on location using natural light, then I’ll pop along and help out if I can; it’d be rude not to since Jill always does the same for me with wedding shoots. It’s better than sitting at home not doing weddings because of COVID restrictions.

It’s Transition Year for Jack and work placements are hard to come by, because COVID, so Jill took him on for the day. It’s the first time myself, Jill, and Jack, have worked together on a proper job and it was brilliant. Jack’s growing up so fast and is such a great kid, loved having him there with us. Lugged gear up and down endless treks and trails and steps, from Whiterock Beach to the top of Killiney Hill, without complaint, from early hours in the morning until after dark, and then unloaded everything when we got back home. More days like this please.

Can’t wait to process these images.

Wedding @ Thomas Prior Hall

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it.

Man, it’s good to be back photographing weddings again with Jill. The last one we shot was back in March, almost 6 months ago. Was a bit concerned that I might be a bit rusty, but doing the work with the Fingal Ravens over the last while had me right back in it. As always, Jill goes to the bride and I go to the groom in the morning (I get the easy job), and we meet up again at the ceremony, wherever that is. This time we were at Newman University Church on St Stephen’s Green which meant the park was our spot for the wedding portrait session, my favourite art of the day. I think Jill may have won the best wedding shot of the day on this occasion (we still compete, as we have been doing since college) , but we’ll let the couple be the judge of that ;)

Anyway, brilliant couple to work with, proper down to earth people we could enjoy ourselves with and just do our thing. Now to editing and processing.

Fingal Ravens 4-16 Fingallians 0-8

The Fingal Ravens u15s team (The Sligo Team, as they’re affectionately known after their ‘never say die’ all-Ireland heroics last year) put on a commanding display for their Dublin GAA Sunday Game. This team works hard for each other, willing each other on to get forward in a manner that raises everyone’s game to a higher level. They’ve been coached to attack from anywhere on the pitch with speed and numbers, especially on turnovers, utilising their lightening fast wingers and an imposing midfield that will not give up on anything. When Fingallians did break through, they found themselves faced with a resolute defence adept at closing down potential threats early, and a goalkeeper who thrives on clean sheets.

Full set of match photos soon at: www.fingalravens.ie

Roganstown Walkabout

Isolation restrictions have been extended until May 5th, so it’s lovely to have good neighbours like Roganstown Hotel & Golf Course who gave me permission in 2020 to use their grounds to practice taking panoramic photos.

Theres not much time to work on these if you’re looking to catch dawn light, you pretty much have to know where you want to be and be set up as there’s really only half an hour of this kind of magic light to work with. I use The Photographer’s Ephemeris to see when and where the sun will rise and try to get there 30 minutes before I need to be. It takes a bit of time to set up the tripod and Nodal Ninja, which allows me to take multiple images on the Canon 5dMkiv so that I can stitch them together later in Lightroom to make high resolution image files big enough to fill a wall.

The Isolation Farm

With the March 2020 Covid-19 restrictions (stay home, don’t travel unless it’s necessary, stay within 2k to exercise once a day, don’t feed the virus) I’m pretty much bound to the fields on the farm where we live in Fingal and Roganstown Hotel & Golf Course. I’ve photographed the farm where we live so often over the years that it always feels like a result if I get anything new from traipsing around here. Because these photos will invariably fall into the category of ‘project started but never go anywhere’ they will probably end up in Unfinished Bits if you want to see more.

Wicklow Panoramas 2020

In an effort to stave off cabin fever I took a drive up around Wicklow to a few of my favourite spots yesterday. I like driving and taking snaps, so there’s no excuse not to while things are the way they are. Took my Nodal Ninja 4 off the shelf and dusted it down, took me a while to remember how to use it, but it’s pretty straight-forward and it wasn’t long before it all came flooding back.

This first shot was taken at Sally Gap, Wicklow, heading into the sunset on one of my favourite roads to drive. Back when I was in college this was where I took one of the first photographs I really liked, and my lecturer at the time, Tom Kelly, seemed to like it too. That was taken on a Canon AE1, probably using Ilford FP4, and processed in my usua slap-dash guesstimate manner which always lead to exaggerated grain. This was taken on a Canon 5Dmkiv using a Ninja Nodal 4 - 7 shots wide, 3 deep, giving a file size around 350mb.

This one was taken near Clogleagh Bridge in Wicklow after the sun went down behind the hills in the distance, in colour it’s quite flat looking so for the moment I’m going with B&W until I get my grading sorted. The worst part about this photo was retouching the wires that were hanging down between poles, they cut right through the image from left to right and, as there were three of them, an absolute pain to remove. Similar set up to the previus shot, another 7wide by 3 high panorama. Used to cycle up to this place when I was younger and fitter, we’d sit on that boulder that’s in the river foreground, with our bare feet in the cold river and just chill out watching the sky through the trees above.

Kirbee Designs Spring/Summer 2020

Myself and Jill have been shooting collections for Kirbee for the last few years. Karen Kirby is a fashion designer, and has worked for a number of fashion houses as head designer. She set up her own label, Kirbee, in 2017. Kirbee Designs are all about luxury occasion clothes for young girls, mixing a modern fresh style with a nod to a whimsical past. Always enjoy these days out with Jill, because we’ve no idea what’s going to happen - you never do with kids, so it’s best to let them be themselves and just roll with whatever they have going on in their heads.

Orla de Brí: Bound Exhibition @ The Solomon Gallery

Jill was asked to photograph Orla a couple of weeks ago and they were both gracious enough to let me tag along. Thoroughly enjoyed myself of an afterevening with both of them - they’re both nuts, and determinedly so, which is always inspiring.

Orla has a new solo exhibition, ‘Bound’, at The Solomon Gallery in Dublin from March 6-28, 2020. ‘Quiet Crusader’ and ‘Head Space, Time’ are two of my favourite pieces - always had a soft spot for anything surreal.

Whelans: A Celebration for Jens and Cristel

Glen Hansard, Camille O'Sullivan, Cathy Davey and others performing at Whelan's on May 29th to raise funds to start a bursary in Jens & Cristel's name, who, for many years, have connected Ireland and its musicians to eastern Europe through friendship, festivals and tours.

Whelans Live : Fangclub