I want a lion

Do you think it would fit in my yarden!

Garden/Yard update

A COUPLE of weeks back we finally got rid of the excess stuff in our back yard including the concrete inside of a fireplace, various bags of green rubbish, other rubbish from moving and a large wooden coal scuttle, so I was at last able to stretch out the yard a bit and try to work out what should go where.

The before pics




The rubbish to be removed



The after pics









This is still a work in progress as I need to find somewhere to put a bin. The thought of leaving bin bags of our weekly rubbish out the back for the delight of the local feral cats is not something I relish or want to do over time. So I need to find a place for a bin, currently you couldn't swing one of those cats in the back never mind slot in a wheely bin, but I may think of some kind of solution.

On the growing side of things I am pretty happy, the rhubarb is doing well and though I should I don't use it as I love the massive prehistoric leaves. The strawberries are still coming along, though they seem to have waned on producing lots of fruit, still they look healthy and happy in their welly boot and hanging basket homes. My berry bushes are also happy but not producing anymore fruit. Again I am not too bothered, they have been moved about a bit so are probably just getting used to their new positions.



The sugarsnap peas have been so easy to grow, I mean incredibly easy. The seeds produced some 48 plants which I planted along with sweet pea flower. The idea being that they would grow around each other giving me lovely flowers with lovely vegetables. While the flowers are still growing there hasn't been any flowers yet, but we have enjoyed sugar snap peas with dinner a couple of times.



One thing I have learned with the peas is that they don't like a zig zag trellis to grow up along. One trough of the plants had a wire one and they have taken off madly, the other trough literally withered into itself in the short space of a week. Since then I have replaced the trellis and am hopeful that where there's green there's life. You can see the mad difference between the two, which were grown at the same time and have received the same light, love and water. Despite its sad and sorry appearance, this trough of peas is still producing flowers so there will be more sugar snap peas from the not-so-good batch.







The greenhouse is heaving with tomato plants which were held back for about two months when they remained in their sowing tray despite needing to be planted. But with all the stuff that needed shifting from the back yard I literally had nowhere to put them. So now they are potted and living in the greenhouse in the hope of tempting them quickly along the upwards and thriving path. Because they remained too long in the sowing tray, some have adopted strange kinks and twists, despite that they also look pretty healthy.

The runner beans and broad beans seem to be happy, I just need to watch that I haven't crowded them into a corner too much, but they are flowering, though no signs of any beans yet. I also planted kale at the start of the summer which is working away. Unfortunately I have one pot which would probably be eaten in one forkful, so last week I planted more. Trouble is I thought I had also planted salad leaves and so far all three pots planted look exactly the same. So they are either remarkably the same at an early stage or I have planted all kale or all salad leaves, time will tell and that is part of the fun.



Courgettes are also remarkably easy to grow and so beautiful. I literally popped a seed into a pot and that was it. The flowers are absolutely stunning and I think the courgettes might need to flower to keep growing. You can see one courgette which grew great guns and all of a sudden is withering. I should chop it off but I cannot bear too. However I will to give the other courgette growing behind that beautiful flower a better chance.







By far the most work I have had to do, with a lot of help from herself, is the watering. All those pots need regular watering. The hanging baskets in particular need a lot of attention and I must get better at pulling off the dead leaves and flowers, its just a never ending battle. The good thing about the pots is that because we are renting it means if something more permanent ever comes up, my pots can come with me. (And I am not talking about the social and affordable housing lottery, I got my 'you were unsuccessful, again, letter last week.)



Flower-wiseI went a bit nasturtium crazy and I don't think I will do that next year. They are lovely but are taking over everything. I was also kinda stupid and would see a blank patch in a pot and would push in a seed. They are taking over one of my window boxes that came from our former flat which has lavender and fuscia in it. It is growing crazily and I am thinking at some stage I might have to pull it out or cut it back to help the other plants. Currently though the window box looks fantastic. On top of all that black flies seem to find these plants irresistible and I have been spraying a lot of soapy water on them to try and shift them.

So far it has worked, but a massive swarm have taken over one bit of my hanging basket and that soapy solution wasn't working so I got a spray and hopefully it is shifting them. How on earth do these wee blighters, with no gardens around us, manage to find us.

I planted herbs as well, basil, parsley and chives. Other than the parsley, this was basically a fruitless expedition. There are about 10 chives growing, big wow and the basil plant while sturdy and healthy is rather pathetic with its two stems. Are they worth it? I don't think so. The basil and chive plants I bought from Lidl or Aldi (can't remember which) on the other hand are thriving, the chives in particular once re-potted have sprung into life, and are even flowering!




Neither of these survived, though I did manage one small pot of chives

Speaking of Aldi and Lidl I bought two excellent chairs from one or the other for €39.99 each. Not only are they very comfortable but they have about four different positions, including lying right back. They fold away quite flat and are just perfect for the yard. I had been looking for something that would work in the small space and nearly killed myself trying to get the two chairs home, actually strike that I nearly killed myself and others trying to get them out of the shop. It is times like that when I wish I had a car and another pair of hands, the state of me banging my way out of the store was something else.

And that reminds me of Friday's Habitat sale which I will probably post about as well, I know its late but hey the weekend was gorgeous and I was enjoying what I bought more than writing about it. One of the best purchases was a little bright blue steel table that folds away. That was a nightmare to get out of the shop, back to work and then home later. Now it sits beautifully in the back.



Anyway thats about it, I think. I would recommend everyone to try their hand/green fingers, even if all you have is a windowsill. You would be amazed at what you can do, as this cucumber plant will testify. If you want to see more I have a set on Flickr.

Black Brown Orange and Red - more colour posts

THERE'S been another couple of colour posts as part of the colour challenge with some excellent images.

Grannymar's black

Jefferson's Brown

Baino's Orange

Annie's Red

And you can check out some of the other posts.

My red collection.

Nathalie's pink collection.

Darren's green collection.

Estelle's blue/bleu collection.

Annie's yellow collection.

Are you up to the challenge, in any colour?

EDIT: I thought I might add another colour post, so here's blue:

Add to Set

I WAS privileged along with a posse of other photobloggers to be part of the Add to Set exhibition that is currently taking place in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. Among those participating in the month-long exhibition are Iced Coffee, Alan in Belfast, John, Good on Paper, Claire. Here's what I wrote about it before and you can also read the Trans Belfast blog on the event here . On two walls there is an ecliptic mix of everyone’s images and it was interesting to hear people’s reactions to the pics not knowing who took the image. I was delighted at one stage that one woman pointed out one my pics and then another one which was a couple of prints away.





Before the exhibition was officially opened (second floor of the Waterfront do go see it if you have a chance) there was a panel discussion on the future of photography.

I am late coming to this as it happened last week but I have been aware that I should put something together from the event which was informative and fun, so here you go. While this is certainly not a definitive account of what was discussed in the event, these are some of the thoughts that stayed with me afterwards.

The panel discussion featured Pennie Smith, John Baucher and acting Photo editor of the Irish News Hugh Russell, (who incidentally 22 years ago took a pic of me for the Irish News when I was in a school play which I still have somewhere). Also on the panel were two people from Belfast Exposed.



There is a discussion on Flickr about the contribution from the two Belfast Exposed pimping their organisation rather than really getting into the debate. And while I would agree to a point, I also think some valuable points were made by them concerning deletion.

[I have to say as an aside I do have a fondness for Belfast Exposed having run into their darkrooms in occasions in the past for emergency printing as well as taking part in some of their masterclasses. While this was a few years ago I don't know if photographers find it as accessible as it used to be.]

So do we delete or not? Say you take a load of pics and only use a couple. What happens to the rest, what do you do with them? Personally I have them all clogging up my puters both in work and at home. I filled a work PC within a year of pics until there was not enough memory to even delete a word document. At that stage I bought a spare hard drive, now they are all sitting in that.

I have been thinking for a couple of years now (and all the while taking more and more images) that I need to sort them, somehow. At one stage I would ask some of the news photographers that I come across what do they do for storage/archives, so far I haven’t gotten a solution but I imagine the last thing they would do is delete images. After all in that regard there are bound to be instances when images can reveal different things over time. This is one problem that I will have to overcome at some stage, as I cannot rely on Flickr or Pix.ie as an online archive, though I do to some extent. Pennie also raised this in relation to her back catalogue of work, and the huge amount of work involved in digitising it, which up to now she hasn't done.

Another point raised in the debate by Hugh Russell is that we no longer print and to a large extent that is really true. Unlike before when film was the order of the day images were printed, now we snap even more and they sit in a hard drive, we no longer print pictures.

There is no doubt though that companies such as Blurb and Shutterfly, which both provide a reasonably priced service can help to change that. If you are in the States you can print through your Flickr account and maybe that is something that Pix.ie could do here.



Pennie Smith revealed that despite being a music photographer she hates music and she still uses film. While she can see some benefits to digital (such as pushing in low-light conditions) she prefers film. She also spoke about how her images are bootlegged all over the place, including in the Trans Belfast brochure.

'Dogs don’t buy newspapers', Hugh Russell said at one point recalling a former picture editor referring to publishing an image of a dog in the paper. You only need to look at what local newspapers, generally, put on their front page (cute kiddies) to know this to be true. He spoke of how the content of images has changed in Northern picture desks in recent years, less troubles therefore less hard news. Like many of the others he spoke of how a photographer should know film to master digital photography.

Interestingly while he uses digital all the time in work, if he is doing something like a family wedding or special event, he uses film.

I have to say as well there is nothing like being in a darkroom, from the smell of the chemicals to the actual process of printing your image. It is also worth noting that being the best photographer in the world doesn’t mean you can print an image worth a damn. I was once told it takes seven years to become a master printer, it is an art form in itself.

I loved printing from the first time I tried it and I am not in the slightest inferring that I am in anyway a master, far from it. Being in a darkroom makes you realise your mistakes too, such as a badly exposed image. If you have exposed an image badly, it shows up massively in the printing stages. A little knowledge is also a dangerous thing, the more you know about printing, the more you realise that a print you did before and may have loved, is actually a shite print, with little contrast, or whatever. I know this from experience ;)

“If you are good in the darkroom you’ll be good in the lightroom,” Hugh added.

Which brings me to the digital bit. Digital has made photography accessible which is the key for me. I have darkroom equipment but at one stage couldn’t do anything with it because I just couldn’t afford it. Therefore my film camera sat unused and unloved. I kept thinking at some stage this would change and I would get my photography mojo and money to do it.

But it wasn’t until I got my digital camera that this changed, all of a sudden I could snap what I wanted. I didn’t have to eek a roll of film out, being economical with every shot. After all each frame literally costs money, so why shoot something in 36 shots when it can be done in three or four frames. Not so with digital, hence the ridiculous amount of images I have clogging up my hard drives.

At the end of the day, however, a badly exposed shot is still a badly exposed shot whether it is digital or film. Just because it is digital does not mean that you have a magic wand that will enable you to take better pics. But at least you can kinda tell whether or not you have your shot in ways you never could before with film.

I am still learning with digital. In some ways things were clearer with film, for black and white expose for the low lights and in colour expose for the highlights was the general rule. Now I find myself taking shots a little darker in attempts to not blow out clouds or the white detail. Bracketing is also my best friend.

So I suppose on one hand, the message from the panel that you should know film to know digital is spot on. But at the end of the day a good eye is a good eye and all these other things can be learned. So don’t be disheartened if you have come to photography via your digital camera, just learn your craft, keep trying and keep snapping. And to quote Eve Arnold who once wrote in an autograph to me ‘make all your negs be in focus’ or indeed jpeg or raw images.

Stumble It!

Phoenix Park

St Michael's Estate

IT IS disgraceful that communities across Dublin have been left high and dry after developer McNamara pulled out of five deals. You can find out more about what happened in the Irish Times.

Add to Set

IF YOU are about in Belfast over the next while you really should make a point of going to one of the many, many events organised by Trans '08. And maybe one in particular :)

There are two cool things out of many that I want to point you to, one is a panel discussion featuring Pennie Smith who shot the fantastic Clash London Calling cover. Also on the panel is our own Moochin Photoman discussing digital versus film. This panel starts at 5pm.

At 7pm Pennie Smith will then launch the Add to Set exhibition featuring photobloggers including myself and I'm absolutely thrilled to be taking part and even more than delighted they're using my Holy batman pic for the exhibition webpage. Choosing what to submit to the group was a toughie but I finally settled on this bunch.

You've probably come across some of the other participants; just in case you haven't the others who are taking part, that I know of, are Gingerpixel, Alan, Iced Coffee, John, Andy and Mark (there's probably more I don't know about but will add them when I do).

Trans looks like a brilliant festival with so many amazing things to do from masterclasses in photography to gigs to all manner of special events to you name it its probably happening. So check out the website, their blog, Facebook page, Bebo, My Space, You Tube and Flickr. By the way Add to Set continues until August 10th and you can find it on the top level of the Waterfront Hall (Gallery 2) do stop by and let us know what you think.

Yellow on the Colour Challenge

ANNIE'S posted her colour challenge, yellow. Do check them out, there are some amazing pics. Anyone else up for the challenge to post images depicting one predominant colour?

Just to recap, again, on the other colours.

My red collection.
Nathalie's pink collection.
Darren's green collection.
Estelle's blue/bleu collection.
Annie's yellow collection.

Spot the shoes

FAIR play to this guy, he must have thought me mad. I was having a drink with pals in the International last week when I spotted this fella's shoes under the table nearly blending in with the beautiful mosaic floor. I asked him could I take a shot and he said yeah. I flashed it as well, he seriously must have thought me barmy. Anyway here it is.