Monday, September 03, 2007

Belfast Flickr MeetUp

WELL that was a great weekend. Mymsie, a pal on Flickr who is based in LA, was in Ireland and we had arranged a Flickr meet up in Belfast on Saturday.

Having headed up on the train on Friday evening, dog and all, we went in on Saturday afternoon and met with the others at Custom House Square. When we arrived Anna was there with StepBar with Nicky and over time we were joined by Alan in Belfast, digitalEnvironmentalist, Dogtired and Jett.

Flickr meet, hiya

Just some of the participants, sorry that my camera isn't wide enough to capture the full row of people

With no real plan in place other than walking about to find interesting things we set off and wandered around all the little back streets until we came to St Anne's Cathedral to inspect the new spike they have installed instead of a spire.

St Anne's is a beautiful building with lots to photograph so off we ambled around until we all were drawn to the sectioned off part (eh the altar) underneath the spike/spire. Alan thought the first person who went shimmied under the guard rail was due a prize before promptly slipping under and pointing his camera up at the roof.

I'd say I was about the fifth person to do it and at that stage was feeling very brave and not at all worried about someone coming and shouting at me to get the hellskates out of there.

snapping the spire

 the spire

Anna in shadow

 the spire

After the Cathedral we moved across the road where a gang of lads were freerunning, you know where they run around and throw themselves at walls, jumping, somersaulting and generally flinging themselves around the place.

Well they were excellent models and great fun, they ran at the wall when we asked them to. They posed and made for an interesting shoot and judging by the pics the others came up with, we all enjoyed ourselves.

jumpin



From there we walked up towards the Crumlin Road where we stumbled upon the orange shoe...

Jett and the shoe

As we walked on we could hear the beat from a marching band so the next stop was the Shankill.

marching band

marching band

marching band

so eh don't!

At this stage coffee was definitely in order, although in poor Anna's case, eh not in order and she wasn't amused particularly seeing as how the rest of us were all served long before her. That aside the break allowed us a chance to chat more and check out some of the pics we had taken so far as well as some silly snapping.

taking the photographer, taking the photographer

coffee and gnome

From there we headed back slowly to Custom House Square where the day was wound up with a much-earned pint and more shots (from the chair) of kids playing about in the fountain.

Custom House Square

The next day, Sunday, Mymsie and I headed off to shoot the Falls (he) just so she would have a more balanced view of it all and finished up with a pint in Kelly's Cellars, the oldest bar in Belfast, before heading for the train back to Dublin.

Black hack

Mural

Kellys cellars

Kellys cellars

You can see more of mine here and everyone's pics at this link. Thanks to everyone for making it a great and productive day. Now I can't wait till the next one.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great pictures! I love the irony behind the "no defacing" defacement.

Reymos said...

Thanks for featuring me in your journal. I will save it for my personal copy (if you dont mind). See you soon!digitalenvironmentalist (rey)

Stephen Barnes said...

Right - I'm peeved.

I'll tell you why.

I spent ages trying to get some nice captures. I was positioning myself in dangerous places, where with one minute misplacement of the foot, or one microsecond mis-timing I would have had my ribs crushed. I tried new angles. And what were you doing? Simply picking up your camera when you felt inclined and pressing the big silver button.

And the results? Mine are mediocre, and yours are just amazing.

I hate you.

I never want to meet you again. Oh! To have natural talent! :-)

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

Thanks for organising! It was fun.

NickyBe said...

A brilliant day out, and even better due to what was packed in without any planning. Hopefully we can repeat it sometime.

Red Mum said...

Olivier, absolutely!

Curious tan, I really enjoyed meeting everyone and the day, and work away with saving the image. Maybe see you at the next one.

Stephen B, Ach give my head peace, you got some cracking shots. But thanks anyway for the lovely compliment. You'll just have to ignore me at the next one ;)

Alan in Belfast, it was fun and it was lovely to meet you.

NickyBe, it was only afterwards I was thinking how it could have gone badly wrong. But then I think we would have found lots of stuff anyway. It was a great day and hopefully I can get up to the next one.

stwidgie said...

Looks like you all had a great time. I especially love the freerunners - those are just amazing images. You've got me thinking about organizing a "let's go take pictures" outing in Chicago soon.

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