43.

Synge Street Annual Block Party.

Popped down for a sconce after work thinking this would be over but I think I arrived in the height of this delightful lil soiree. Living in the city and missing the country a lot lately, this really helped. There was such a sense of community for such a small gathering. People were nipping into their houses or to the shops to top up what was on the table, sharing drinks or dancing in between game playing (or watching if you were into the world cup.)The Mr Whippy had music for everyone at one end and there was delicious ice-cream served at the other with a table full of goodies and noms in the center. It was refreshing to see people who knew or didn’t know each other mingling outside of a pub or festival, children playing with dogs and wooden blocks, sunshine and people drinking without a ruckus. There needs to be more of this in Dublin, there needs to be more community growth. Anyways, heres a few snaps of the day with some help from my good friend Megan Conlon O’Reilly.

42.

Part two of the series.

42.

Part of a new series. 

41.

Old image from Kings Yard, Kilbehnny
The Home Land.

40.

i got a present of two boxes of glass type negatives.
i bought some inkodye (red, blue and orange) after and used the cyanotype process to create this image. theres a few more i have done that i wish to upload once i get ahold of a scanner in dublin. these were done on fabriano paper but i’ve done some on water colour and next on cotton fabric or wood.  this was blue mixed with orange hence the distorted effect. theres something i really like about found negatives of people i don’t know. its another play with this memento-mori theme i have been playing with.
there are plants on either side of the two girls also, only little shadows of them can be seen. the distorted effect was done by laying plastic on top of the image while it developed giving it a water-like warped look.

39.

“The scariest moment is just before you start.” – Stephen King.

or so wordpress has just told me before i made this entry. ha!

i’ve started doing some photograms with blue cyanotype this week. i have three on fabriano at the minute and waiting for more solution to arrive. i’m hoping to try on wood by the end of the week. its all of these old glass negatives i found in a antique shop.
i’ve also managed to obtain a loan of a mamiya c330 by the end of the week. one roll already finished from the mamiya, all these are on loan so i’m going to mark out what i want taken to play with after. mostly with textures hopefully something i can play with more with the photograms.

i’m so excited and i havent been in a long while.

38.

“That’s why I like listening to Schubert while I’m driving. Like I said, it’s because all his performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of – that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally I find that encouraging.”

Haruki Murakami

37.

My work seems to be usually portrait based, people being comfortable with me taking their photos, relaxed, enjoying being in front of a camera that is not studio based and drawing elements of them noticed or unnoticed and being captured in a image.
or, completely devoid of people themselves and just elements of our presence in the world. These images are from my degree show work, the presence of cars and that space we have inside them compared to the vast world outside of such a combined space. these are all taken from inside the car and elements of that can be seen with condensation on the windows, fogging from cigarette smoke, reflections etc The imperfections like this remind us, despite the lack of people themselves being present, of human presence and flaws. its the imperfections that make us human and the imperfections that separate us from becoming mechanical and reminding us of our natural origins in such a technology reliant age.

 

36.

Lighting counts most to me.
nothing is more appealing to me than lighting with a portrait. even more so when its unnatural and hasn’t been post processed too much after. all these were based on the lighting i had in each room or from reflections.

35.

I finished my BA in Fine Art Media.
Hello world, i suppose.
I bought new notebooks and have spent the last few days researching on medium format.
enlargers, cameras, techniques. I think i’ve done more work the last few days than i have the last four years. this is sad to say, it is. but i think its the lack of leering eyes on contemporary explanations needed now that is giving me drive towards what i like. i loved the last four years, i have learned loads in college and otherwise. but i feel a wind changing my ways of viewing things already and its refreshing. although, the anti-climax is still slightly depressing.
books make great friends on rainy days, missed you guuuuuuys.