New Photo editor. Adobe and the 2nd Affinity

God rays on Christmas Day 2016, on Slievenamon

The difference between a phone cam and a SLR 'Real' beast.

Christmas morning on Slievenamon, other lunatics were there too. 15 degrees C !

Happy Christmas

The Wexford Carol.

Ó, tagaig' uile is adhraigí

An leanbh cneasta sa chró 'na luí

Is cuimhnígí ar ghrá an Rí

A thug dár saoradh anocht an Naí.

 

Good people all, this Christmas time,

Consider well and bear in mind

What our good God for us has done

In sending his beloved son

With Mary holy we should pray,

To God with love this Christmas Day

In Bethlehem upon that morn,

There was a blessed Messiah born.

 

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep

Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep

To whom God's angel did appear

Which put the shepherds in great fear

Arise and go, the angels said

To Bethlehem, be not afraid

For there you'll find, this happy morn

A princely babe, sweet Jesus, born.

 

With thankful heart and joyful mind

The shepherds went the babe to find

And as God's angel had foretold

They did our Saviour Christ behold

Within a manger he was laid

And by his side a virgin maid

Attending on the Lord of Life

Who came on earth to end all strife.

 

 

 

Knockroe Megalithic Tomb on the 21th of Dec 2016

There was about 50 people standing awaiting a visible sunrise that never arrived.
I could've gone the day before, I could even have gone this morning, and found a clear as crystal sky's. In truth, the mid winter or mid summer isn't, nor wasn't a spot on precise day, but a bracketing of 3/4 days either side of the active solstice.
Anywoos, here's a shot of a modern day druid. And the bottom two are of the evening passage tomb.
                                                             Click to embiggen.

To those who want a bit more meat this is the Jstor connection to the The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
  https://www.jstor.org/stable/25509043?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

 

2016

I'm awaiting the 21st so I can go up to the megalithic tomb and welcome in the next year. Yeah-yeah, I know the Celtic new year began at Halloween. But no matter how dedicated I tell myself I am I can't get that one hooked and sunk in my head.
Anyhoos, 2016 was shit !. I could pussyfoot about with euphemisms, but that is simply beyond what I'm capable of caring about quite frankly. It was as bad as 2011, but different.
It was the kind of year if you were walking down an otherwise dry road and at one spot, rain gathered, and formed a pool. It is exactly at that instant in time a car would come and soak you.


P.S. OK, Christmas lights are up and all those bits I bought after Christmas last year. And I totally forgot I had one of those flashing optic fiber trees. Not a big one only about 3 ft, and maybe a bit, say 40 inches. 
 

Browser issues.

For years I was a Firefox man. But something occurred a few years ago and it became very clunky, and frankly just a tad weird.
Now I've found this to occur with all other browsers after a while. Opera was good for a while there, but it went off the wall. Then awhile back I moved to Googles Chrome and that seemed to do the job adequately.
Then a few weeks back I noticed that my Facebook Ad feed was showing me content that wasn't dealt with on Facebook leading me to wonder if Chrome was aiding Facebook to target my general searches.
Now I'm well aware that facebook uses their algorithms to target Ad's to those using it, and I'm generally fine with that. Where I'm not fine is with them blundering through my system with the goal of selling me to some local business. 

Rose window of IMMA

The figures in the middle of the window are larger than life sized. Just to give an idea of the scale of the thing.

A classic colonnade at IMMA

 I prefer the B&W.

A Symposium, and a visit to a lovely exhibition

I think the best portraitist in the last 80 years was Lucian Freud. And I think he is so important to the Art world that he outshines his grandfather, Sigmund.
He had a very interesting live. Born in '23 in Berlin and moved to UK in '32 just as the hell inflicted on his co-religionists by the Nazis  was about to start.
The first major art exhibition was just before the end of the WW2 and he never really looked back.

I encountered his work quite some time ago, and it was at the time he was being vilified for presenting what was called fat ugly women. But I felt that his work showed the real, in those people, not just the plastic visage they awarded to the public. There is a bluntness to these works, but without coarseness. To give an idea. Today I saw an eye formed with three strokes of a brush, and another with four. Three strokes and three different colours, side by side, and one eye formed. None of your shading, and forming. None of the straight clean line. Nope, just the brush and the paint.

With the symposium I was hoping for something else. It was titled The Artist and the State. But I took it more to mean the Irish State but it really meant the relationship with how Palestinian, and Aboriginal in Australia, reacted to the Israeli and Federal Oz state and how it reacted to them. Some of it quite quite scary truth be told.

All in all there was about 120 people at the event. More or less filling the great chamber of the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham (IMMA).

This was in front of the reception area. I don't know what or who it is, but I really find it amusing. You see it could be a play on Irish mythology's connection to the Hare, or it could had a Beatrix Potter Brer Rabbit (Brother), or even a Star Wars connection with a I cannot remember who it is but there's a clan of them in there someplace.

Slievenamon today.

 This is a crop of the top one using the golden ratio.

Very unusual New England autumnal colour in Ireland.

Kinda funny

Well, thank God.

It was 17 degrees centigrade here in Tipperary today, and we are mid way through November. 63F. Now 17C isn't that much to write home about in most places in the world, but here it's a pretty good summer's day, if it stayed dry.
But the really good thing is we have a bunch of climate deniers who spend most of their lives in AC leading the US of old A.
These last eight years have been hard. You couldn't really say anything and you ended up using your middle finger crosswise on the furrows on your brow.
Let's face it. Things are getting warmer, and in Ireland frankly we're good viz the sea levels rising. And if we had a bit of heat in the summer we'd be delighted. We would really like to get used to sunburn. But the downside would be all the little gobshites that are off pestering the Spanish would return.
Joking aside. If the governments were really bothered about climate change they would have sponsored the installation of solar panels and local power generation via wind. And what did they do. They put a Tax on us to give to financiers, so they could add an extra 20% on our fuel bills.

But these coming years will be fun I think. And really however you cut it that Gold Joker will bother people outside of the US way more than those inside. Still, my sympathy to those that were bereft by the loss by Clinton.

Oh, a P.S, You have to wonder if the head of the federal police nationale in France came out and played politics in the days before an Poll would now not be sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial, nevermind still sitting behind his desk.     

Tilt-shift

Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ (21 September 1934 – 7 November 2016)

Leonard Norman Cohen. 
Metaphysician,
Poet, 
Writer, 
Singer and Human, 
died on the 7th 

WowZA.

I got up about 4 am just before California tendered its vote having watched until about 1:30. To say I was shocked would be wrong. But I was somewhat surprised at the States that went Red.
I guessed Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan would go Red. But I thought Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin would go Blue.

I will say this. It will take a miracle for both parties to get what has occurred here. They blame thick white and poor men on one side. While the other sees the winning by default of an outsider that was pilloried by the grandees of the Republicans as a good win.  

And they're off.

I usually have a good deal of fun with the US presidential election. But this time, no. To my way of thinking Sanders was the only one that wasn't buried in a version of the past, or a conservatism that only depended upon where you took as the starting point. And it seemed from this distance that Sanders was ventilating an idea for a future that took into account those that are being marginalised with the current lot and with answers that reflect something that didn't contain the poison of fascism.

   

One thing !

I have gotten to the point where I just don't care who wins the US Whitehouse. But the one thing that's hacking me off is that the world will be inflicted with this same horseshit in two years time when the whole drama filled circus begins all over again. Gaagh  

A sunset

Traffic

I really like what the lense leaves does to street lamps on a long exposure.

In the moment and a few new ones

No photoshop. Acetate gels over the flash.

Now this is a photoshopped edit.

Winter fuel

I just go the winter fuel supply today. Twenty-five, 40 kg bags of high grade anthracite.
One of the problems houses have in Ireland and the UK is dampness. And not as you'd think from rain, well, at least not primarily anyway. No, the issue we have is general humidity. So when in Spring we stop lighting fires dampness permeates the walls of a house and this needs burning off before one can be comfy in winter.
I discovered the truth of this when I got hygrometers and put them all over the house thereby discovering I have 80 plus in summer but only 60 plus in winter. No matter how wet or dry it is rain-wise.
I helped the men schlep in the bags off the lorry and got the compliment that he could see it wasn't the first time I humped bags. Something as a newly minted Artist, slash classical historian slash landscape designer I'm not sure IS a compliment.
But I have moved thousands of those darn bags in my youth, filled with chemical fertiliser or seed grain, and I expect your body doesn't forget how to make the bag do the work for you.
Anywoo's.

On the mountain today, and a Virginian chick

Shenandoah valley is seems.

The woman in the white top is the mom of the kid. I was a bit shocked to be honest.

The last summer flower of 2016

Foreign ministeries and Chancelleries

I expect Foreign ministeries and Chancelleries across the world are watching the proceeding of the US election like a hawk. Since we can, barring utter catastrophe, say with a certainty is will be either Clinton or Trump. And since they would have to deal with the US whichever arrives in the Whitehouse I expect they are hoping that the other houses cause a locking that would stifle the US's ability to act. Not that that had much luck with Bush when circumstances impinged and caused to the entire DC political system to act in lockstep.  

Mayfly

After Ansel Adams. Update !. :-)

After Ansel Adams. A long ways after.

Opinions sought !.

A dog

Autumn, somewhat !.

WOWZA

The keys are 8 inches from the tip of the car key to the end of the brass chubb. Bottom of the thing and top.
Anyhow's it must be 20+inches across.

Photo walk, a report.

This is the text of a mail I got from Kelby on the 29th. (It has come to our attention that your published walk has less than 5 registered walkers. In order to Lead a walk, your walk must have at least 5 registered walkers. 

Please promote your walk via Social Media or whatever other avenues you feel fit to try to obtain at least 5 walkers. if the walk does not have 5 registered walkers by Saturday, October 1, we will have to delete your Leader application from the website. 

If you currently have less than 5 walkers, you can also choose to  join another walk published in your location. 

Decided not to lead a walk?  Please let me know and I will remove your walk from the PhotoWalk website.)  

At that stage I had 2 walkers registered on the site but I kinda knew what would occur. By Friday evening I had 7, and another two on Saturday morning. I also said in the local newspaper that all were welcome but only those that registered could enter Kelby's competition. Anyway, when I arrived to the start point at about 2:10 I had about 20 waiting there. 

What put a bit of an exquisite squeeze on the thing was the local satellite tv asked if they could tag along with a cameraman and a reporter.

All in all it seemed people liked the idea and the walk. They could get a bit of information on this and that without feeling foolish. They could shoot whatever they wanted, in however they wanted, all I asked.

The end was a little disappointing, but not too bad. There was a re-play of a major football match and a lot of them went before the finish. 

So all in all it was good. 

Now I have to await their photos and choose the best. They get something for the winner. ANd that's uploaded to the main site. But that's a few weeks away.

Because I was trying to keep things going and watching that people weren't being left out I totally forgot to shoot the group. But the others did and here   if you scroll through a bit you'll see the others and some of their shots.

OK. A debate ?

You'd have to wonder just why Hillary Clinton decided to enter one-to-one TV whatever-it-is with Trump. She is in a lose lose scenario. There is no upside that I can see, for her. For him, it's all upside.
Could it be that this night, or tomorrow morning at 2am Irish time, will be the time she can say she lost the 2016 election.

This is the write-up in the local newspaper. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of point in being coy on the net anymore.

Prep for winter.

These last few weeks have been all a-go here. The insulator people came and pumped lordy knows what into the walls. Here we build, since the 70s or so with two skins of block or brick. Back when the house was built insulating was a seen by the builders as a nuisance and so they never were all that great at it. Plus the inch or two of polystyrene was only slightly better than useless.
Once the walls were done they proceeded to the attic and put another 8 inches of rock wool on top of the glass fiber already there.
I also got two fans installed, one in the kitchen and the other in the bathroom.
Also a path to the tank in the attic. So no more balancing on joists when I check it and clean it.

I'm doing the Kelby One World Wide Photo Walk in Clonmel. And had a big write up in the local paper. A far far faaaar more impressive achievement than getting into the national papers, (chuckle).

Going viral.

Someplace in the interior of the US state of Georgia exists a 4th grade teacher with an image that went viral.
Partice Brown has had about equal number of people thinking she's a harlot for the way she dresses, split to, a fine specimen of black womanhood.
Me, I think the way she dresses is her business and given her students are 9-10 if they are thinking sexual thought about her then it sure isn't the problem with the school nor the teacher. And if they were 14 or 15 year old boys, and she was their teacher in say maths. I can guarantee that she would bring in the highest marks in the State. And for heavens sake 15 year old boys are randy little sods and sure as shooting manage things on their own.
On the whole my issue would be that the salmon coloured dress is under so much stress that it couldn't be comfy. 

The lord of the rings

Just watched 'the 3 lord of the rings', tesco was doing an offer. Wouldn't say 9 hours wasted but at times you did root for the big eye thing.

9/11; or the 11th of September.

I was building a garden outside Dublin that day. When the clients daughter arrived out to say a plane had hit one of the towers of the trade centre. She had Sky and was watching the news at the time. Me, I processed it and thought a small Cessna sized plane was flying the city like occurred in Moscow and other cities in the previous few years, one landing in Red Square, had hit the building.
But I wasn't that bothered for I knew the size of those building and also knew that such a tiny thing wouldn't bother the building much at all.
Soon though more news came to me and I went in to see what was occurring. This was 2 o'clock our time.
That day, that evening, I went to the beach and looked out over the sea and sky.   

The biggest ugliest most poisonous thing.