Hot House Flowers
Brendan's post
here made me want to comment on the first gig. I had to be in for 6 so I strolled down and was at the bus stop at 5:15 for the 5:20 bus. Which of course never showed up. I flagged a taxi down and off we went- only to hit unbelievable traffic on College Rd. Not so good. I started walking (staying in a Taxi in traffic is a fool's game) and guess what? About 6 cars up there was the bands van. So I hoped in and direct Frank the driver around that little known long way/short drive to Roisins from the docks i.e. cross street and o'briens bridge. Anyway setup took a while and soundcheck involved mostly playing rather than any kind of line checking. It sound a little cluttered but the tables were out which always changes the room a lot. I had a buzz problem with the bass, which turned out to be one of the basses itself after much pullling and dragging. I really enjoyed the gig but only got about 4 shots because it was too full for me to actually get anywhere during the gig to shoot. I was happy with the mix all night. Longhaired Ollie thought the Fill speaker over the bar was a bit harsh but I don't have EQ control on that so there's very little I could've done. He did agree that the same mix going through the mains was much better.
Musically the gig was very dynamic from tiny strains of vocal with gently picked guitar to full blown rock with belting choruses, sometimes within seconds of each other. Liam's vocal was strong and very commanding, unlike the quiet presence he presents offstage. Fiacna was doing great stuff on the guitar, although he was unhappy with the Fender amp he was using because his AC30 is the shop for repair. Kieran Kennedy (Black Velvet Band) on bass did a great job driving the band along. Dave Clark was superbly dynamic on drums from little tingles of cymbals to his full out thrashing of the kit. One little accidental highlight happened when Kieran played 'Smoke on the Water" during his solo piece. Liam latched on to it and drove it home through the others solo's. Liams classical playing was impressive to say the least but he still managed to twist the demisemiquavers of classical back into Deep Purple. Fianca solo'd over the riff and fair play, I'm sure it's not his normal solo but his WahWah work would put most players to shame. All in all a great night.
RollingStone.com:
Billy Corgan :
Corgan Teams With Smith
: NewsRobert Smith from The Cure singing with Billy Corgan on a Bee Gees cover? This I have to hear!
Galway Scences
I went walking around town shooting on Easter Saturday. I really regretted not being able to go to the Aran Islands by plane on Good Friday due to the party but I figured there's always again. Here's a few shots from the day.
Galway Cathedral, taken from the entrance to the Millennium children's park.
St Joseph's Church, Presentation Road, taken from the Eglington Canal
Clinical Exhaustion?
Not quite be I'm really sleeping so badly that it's definitely affecting me. I've no energy at all. Hopefully I can get tomorrow off and sleep. I need it.
Flickr
I'm going to use Flickr for my blog photos from now on I imagine. I know it's an extra step, but I'll be using the Mac uploader which will ease my FTP use anyway. It'll also put my available server space to be better use for my actual
website. One other thing I tried is to get Flickr up on the phone. Looks good. I viewed a bunch of
Brendans photo's to see how it works out. The more I do stuff like this, the more I wish Vodafone would just do an unlimited access plan for maybe €20 extra a month. I'd really make more use of my phone that way. Incidently my Flickr account is
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87022221@N00/
Pics from the other morning
And my favourite, which is now my desktop picture.
Good Friday-Rough Thursday.
Had Halite last night in the Roisin Dubh. They were supported by Scott Maher's band and Long Lost Brother. Gig went well but it was kinda long with 3 bands. I had my staff drink and then Graham from Halite insisted on buying me another. Bad idea. I ended up in the band apartment until very early hours of the morning. I missed most of the lovely day, which I had originally intended to use to fly to the Aran Islands if the weather was good. Ouch. I really missed the boat on the day (or the plane in this case). Well it's still a plan for the near future. I'm listening to Adam Curry's Daily source code at the moment. I might put a few podcasts on the shuffle to listen too. Now how exactly did I end up with a much too tight Long Lost Brother T-Shirt?
Best laid plans.
I was awake way too early this morning. Not only that but after looking out and seeing a cloudless sky I had to go shooting. Unfortunately I didn't get anything useful. I tried unsuccessfully to get sleep, but couldn't. No sign of the new 17-85mm yet. Tomorrow hopefully. I'm also still editing and processing the images from Clare, but I'll get there eventually.
Vodafone SIM Phonebook
Apparently I'm one of the AHEM 'select few' that received a free SIM Phonebook in the post today. Way to go Vodafone. Being so in touch with your customers. I only have 750 contacts and a bluetooth phone. I couldn't even tell you the last time I saved a number to my SIM. Sigh. Can I send it back and get cheaper bills? I also seem to be due a phone upgrade. Hmm. When will you have the 3230 or the 6670? Oh? Never mind.
Sony MDR-EX71SL White Earphones
Just a quick mention of these. I bought a pair through
iPodX who imported them from Japan. I had read great reviews of the previous model (the EX70) and searched for a possible location. I got them in about 2 days! Yeah! They have an amazing bass response and the earbuds really isolate the sound. I was walking past the waterfall over the lock gate near Roisin Dubh when I took on of the buds out to reseat it as the cable snagged in my jacket (breeze). I was taken aback by how loud the waterfall was because I couldn't hear with the buds in! Recommended, as are iPodX.
It's not a long way from Clare to here.
Well Kelvin & I took another trip on Saturday, again because the weather was nice. This time we went south and then west. We travelled to Kinvara first and shot loads of Dungaire Castle. Kelvin was still laughing this evening at the fact that after hunting around for age and getting a good viewpoint, some ladies decided to sit in the sun in front of the Castle. I let a roar over the water "D'ya have to sit there?". They fled. Not my intention but hey-it worked. We went from there to Ballyvaughen and Doolin and down to The Cliffs of Moher. On the way back I did a bunch of night shots of Kinvara Pier. A good day was had by all, except for the little hiccup with missing bits. Despite getting them out and ready, I managed to forget my Cokin ND grads and Polarizer (along with the rings and holder). I was annoyed at myself for forgetting them. Kelvin said I could use his. That is until he realised his was gone too. Then he discovered he had no CF card in his camera. Snigger. Cue two fools standing in seaweed slapping their foreheads. Still we got some great shots. Kelvin shot B&W on his EOS 5 instead. I also took the chance to try out velvia in the TLR. I couldn't get it to fire in Kinvara so I rang Julien in the market and he said to cock the shutter at the side. After a little inspection I found the shutter cock on the front (er... no puns please) and was good to go.
Other snippets from the day- We met Aiden from the door in Cuba on his motorbike in Ballyvaughen along with Padraic Ryan. Also Laura , a friend of ours, works in a shop there too. Small world sometimes. In Doolin the waves were amazing, not to mention the rock formations. At the Cliffs I managed to crack my head into the shale as I stepped over that nasty gap at the edge of the cliff while trying not to die. I found the scab this morning combing my hair... Ouch.
I think the next trip will be to Lough Inagh and then to the beach beyond Tully Cross. Soon hopefully! Again I'll post a few more shots over the coming days.
I'm getting a veiled dissing in the Preston Reed messageboard. Ha. Ironically there was one DI box from his amp that night and the sound was basically just a match from his amp. I backed off some top and high mid to dull down the sound but it was still a bit bright for my liking-a little too "American" if you know what I mean. I love the way this Shane S guy doesn't even bother signing himself off fully. Ah well he was probably one of those drunk GTI students that got narked 'cos I had to keep telling them to shut up.
And my excuse this week is..
None really. I'm at a few things and ducking and diving at the same time. My 7dayshop orders started to arrive and I've a still life studio table to set up. I replaced the battery in the Macally IceCad and I'm finding myself using it instead of a mouse. Only issue I'm having is the double click is awkward. I've a load of photos to got through between the Damien Dempsey gig, Preston Reed and of course todays' St. Patricks Day Parade. I'll post at least one from each in a little while. John from the Weightless Astronauts will be over in 5 hours so I'm off to bed before being too tired to create a website- I'll done the basic layout already anyway.
Even further update on Photo website
Need I say more? I've hacked together my hidden galleries into the new site. I found out that for any HTML or CSS to work after the flash photo browser I have to put it inside a table. So I still need table formatting with CSS. Sigh. Link is below or in the side column.
Amp Woes with Carnival Saloon
Had 2 of the channels of the 4 channel driving the midhighs go down during soundcheck. A lot of repatching was done t eventually get things up and running. I discovered after that the outputs are not wired identically which would explain the weird response of the leads as I was patching them! Anyway the gig went well after. I got a few great shots of Paul the singer. I also did a DV of it but I've not peered at it yet.
Website Update
I've just totally updated
my Photo website so feel free to check it out.
Galway Camera Club
I get loads of people coming here looking for the camera club so to deal with it:
Galway Camera Club meet in the White Room in Chluain Mhuire (GMIT) in Wellpark, Galway every Wed night at 8.15pm. The program for the rest of the year is:
Wed 9th March: Burmese Days by Brendan Lawlor
Wed 16th March: Wildlife Photographic Technique (Philip Smith)/Brian Callaghy
Wed 30th March: Ciaran O'Loughlin
Wed 6th April: India-Raymonde Standun/Competition-Places
Wed 13th April: Results/Noel Barbour
Wed 20th April: "Your Best Picture"
Wed 27th April: Theme Presentations
Wed 4th May: AGM
Wed 11th May: Discussion/Nortel Trophey
IPPA etc.
I went to a Photoshop lecture day today, held by the IPPA in the Menlo Park Hotel. Presented by Dave Montizambert, I really learned a bit. Mostly keyshort cuts I should really have know, but also a bunch of stuff on using Layer Masks. I've used Layer Masks before but was really just copying instructions so I didn't really understand what was happening, but I do now. Among the things we covered were Cross Processing, Metering, Roger Carr Sepia toning, 5 minute retouch and Actions/Batch process. I've already put the Cross Process stuff into and Action and the Roger Carr toning is similar to the Greg Gorman method, but I will make an action of it too. I should've bought his Post Production CD but didn't really think of it til after. Maybe the K-man can help but we'll see.
I got the laminator out and went over some of my recent prints too. I should done that for the Camera Club last week too. Next time perhaps. Aimie was a little upset by my post below about an accident. Sorry Aimie. It wasn't intended to offend or upset.
Update: After much research my Greg Gorman method is a Rob Carr method. Dave Montizambert used a different technique to get the greyscale image though. My version used the luminosity channel whereas his uses the Channel Mixer.
Photo things
I kept quiet about it over the past few days but my presentation to the Camera Club was tonight. I made an attempt to calibrate the colour on the projector before I started but alas it only attempted to change my own LCD on the powerbook! I let everyone know that there would be a slightly blue tinge to the shots due to the projector and that this would be true for everyone who used the projector, which in fact was all of us newcomers tonight. I kicked off the night and got a very good reaction from the members, some in fact that I've never spoken to were highly complimentary. Others said nothing-I've always noted that about anything in there! It made me aware that I need to let people that I've enjoyed what they shown too. I got a very nice email from Sean Tomkins:
Just a few words -well done, your presentation was really wonderful, one of
the highlights of the year.
Regards,
Sean Tomkins
I'm flattered. Thanks Sean!.
One other thing about tonight was that Brendan (Lawlor- The Chairperson) displayed the digital entries from the "Events" competition. Before I go into more detail let me explain that there are 3 categories in all the competitions, Colour Print, Monochrome Print and Projected Image. Now Projected Image is actually the largest category because it includes both Slide Film and Digital images. Ken Seery took 1st place for a great image he created by using a shot of someone looking through binoculars with an airplane (apparently) reflected in the glass. It looked great and he deserved to win. I got 2nd place! I was happy with that! Here's the shot:
Finally on a photo note I finished the roll of 120 HP5 I shot in the Meopta Flexoret I was trying out. I developed and it came out alright except for one or two things: I under developed it according to the label: I accidently looked at the FP4 time, but as I left it longer anyway it looks fine. My thinking was to bring out the highlights more and compensate in the print. The other thing was the whole side of the roll was transparent. Could be the camera (although it would be black if the light was leaking in) or that the film has been in my drawer for ages. Finally I only got 11 exposures on the roll but that might be my fault for not rolling the 1 on the counter over ( don't ask me-It sounds right based on a web page I saw on the Flexaret.)
I'm going to be in a book
Ian McDonald from the Camera Club is doing a book for the hospice called 100 to one. I'm in it on page ?? which is my age so if you know you'll know which page!. Here's the photo he shot and is using for it:
Computer Genius
Cousins
A family collection. (l-r )(front)Erin, Abby, Adam (back)Luke, Ma (or Granny as they all call her!), Matthew.
Snow in the Mountains
Around Kilbride on the way from Saggart heading to Sally Gap (which was unpassable at the time).
Matthew and his Great Grandad
The right honorable Paddy Lyons holds his Great Grandson on the occasion of his 90th Birthday.
The assault begins.
I'll be making up for the few days off from blogging with a vertiable assault of posts. Ah an evening off. Well it was great to see Grandad. He's looking well and had a great day. You'll get to see some shots of him and Matthew next up. We spent the evening with my sister Fiona and her family and had visits from both Hazel (my brother Barry's better half) and my brother Joe. They of course brought Abby and Erin to bring up the compliment of family over the weekend. Also on Saturday I dragged my mother up the Dublin Mountains to get shots in the snow. More of them for display later. Finally after the train home I got some nice shots of the sun along long walk from the Cladagh and converted them to Panoramics. Sunday was the usual with time killed between the Sean Tyrrell gig and the Quays in Kelvins. Albert Niland rocked last night I must say. He had a drummer (Danny Burke) and a bass player (Joe wassaname) with him and it made for a great show. Today was bitty. Banking, meet Leyla to show her my old shots of her and then out to Salthill to just miss the sunset. Then I met Trent and then came here to work on the computer. And so onto the pics...
Ah iTMS
I'm on a rare night off so in addition to updating my photo library and preping for tomorrows camera club presentation, I'm playing my acoustic. I haven't played in ages so I find myself going over a few rough tunes. One track I enjoy playing is by a band I listened to back in
the dark ages college is 'The Way It Is' by Tesla. I was introduced to this band by the same guy who converted me from Def Leppard to Metallica (with 'Ride the Lightning'). Never very mainstream I still liked their stuff. I've since lost all copies of their music so I was happy to be able to purchase this track on the iTunes Music Store. I've a feeling I'll be building up burned compilations of hard to get tracks I've liked. Why pay? you might ask. Easy: Firewalled broadband. Besides I'd rather have the tracks. And the DRM is easy to overcome by reripping the burned tracks.
