Scott Kelby photowalk - 365

I WENT out on Saturday with a huge group of snappers for the Scott Kelby photowalk organised by McAWillams. I love photowalks and try to get to as many as I can, normally they are a smaller more intimate affair. Saturday's (now in its second year) Scott Kelby photowalk attracted some 60 attendees in Dublin with nearly 50 showing up on the day.

I personally find that amount of people too big for photowalking but that is not a criticism of the event at all and probably shows how successful these now annual walks are more than anything else.

For me this amount of people meant at the very least sometimes waiting for someone in the group to walk out of your shot, or someone's head popping into your shot at the last minute, or setting up a shot and having others join in and shoot it too (I'm sure I'm as guilty of these things as anyone). And in fairness (while sometimes a little mildly annoying) all these things I suppose just add to the challenge of trying to get some shots you're happy with. So while I am saying all that, I will definitely do next year's so its nothing that would put me off in the slightest.

While there's some duplication of shots (but not as many as you would think), there are fantastic variations in how people saw the same thing; so do check out everyone's contribution on Pixie. And if you are interested you can check out all the other photographs I took here, with more to go up over the next day/s.

We have to pick two images for the competition, so any thoughts on which ones I should choose? I'm steering towards the lads crowded under umbrellas or the orange umbrella one with the black and white building background. Do let me know what you think in the comments.

Finally, well done to John for the day, particularly managing a crowd like that - no mean feat, especially with hecklers like Rymus.

Trinity walking tours - 365

(July 14th)

I'LL have to, at some stage, get a pic of those tours with the tour leader walking up front holding an umbrella or mini placard.

Speaking of tour leaders some of you may be interested in this weekend's photowalk (Saturday July 18th, 12pm Custom House) which has been organised by John McAWilliams in conjunction with the World Wide Photo Walks coordinated by Scott Kelby. There was a sign-up, which is full, but that just means you are not able to enter the competitions associated with the walk; it doesn't mean you can't come along.

I missed the sign-up last year but it didn't stop me (and a gang of us) from joining in anyway. I can normally know who to expect at photowalks but there was a whole new crowd of snappers I hadn't come across before which was brilliant. So we are meeting at noon at the Custom House, do email John to let him know you are coming (as there are always stragglers); details of that are on the Dublin page.

(Incidentally this isn't just happening in Dublin, there's also one in Cashel (with places left), Cork (with places left), Limerick (with places left), Limerick (Adare) (with places left) and Galway (with places left). Click on the links for more information on how to sign up and where and when to meet.

You can find out more about the World Wide Photowalks on the website.

St Patrick's Day - 365

This was taken from the second floor of the Guinness Storehouse at the Pixie Party which was great craic altogether from the parade to the evening do. You can check out the rest of my pics on Pixie and everyone else's also on Pixie. I also wrote a bit more about St Patrick's Day on Dublin Blog.

Photo meet - Irish Blog Awards

EDIT: February 18th @10:50am:

Meeting place: Oak Pub, Oliver Plunkett Street and Caroline Street (map). (Thanks Donncha)

Time: noon in Cork City and 11.30am for those of us staying in the hotel to head into town




WE'VE done a bit of talking on Twitter about the photo meet before the Irish Blog Awards in Cork next weekend, February 21st and seeing as how the Ladies Tea Party begins at 4pm and some of the photowalkers are booked in for that, I would suggest that we finish up by 3ish so the lady lunchers can make it back to the Cork Airport Hotel.

So far we haven't settled on what to do, but I believe there is a general consensus that we will make our way into Cork City and follow our noses. I imagine to give us a good shot at the afternoon that we should meet in Cork City at noon. For those of us staying in the Cork Airport Hotel, I'd say we should get taxis from 11.30ish into town.

I know a good gang have already said they are up for the photowalk so what about you? Any thoughts on what we should do, where we should go, what we absolutely cannot miss? Oh yeah where should we meet in town. As things are firmed up, I'll update this post so do check back.

As always this event is open to absolutely anyone. If you cannot make the noon start, drop me an email with your mobile number and we can keep in touch over the afternoon.

You can find out about the other blog awards events on the awards blog. And thanks to Sabrina who made the photo walk graphic last year, hopefully she won't mind that I recycled it.

If you have any thoughts let us know in the comments.

Saturday afternoons with Beaut.ie and Pixie

I'LL be at a loss this weekend following my last two Saturdays, the first nearly two weeks ago I met up with a number of women bloggers for a photoshoot and then a long lovely boozy lunch, then last Saturday I met up with a group from Pixie for a special tour of the Guinness Storehouse as part of their new monthly photographic competition.

I should have written about both of these things before now but I just haven't had time to never mind the fact that I have to still go through pics from Scotland, so far I have just managed to work up to the point where we fixed our puncture. More on that when I get to finishing the pics.

But back to two Saturdays ago when myself, Grannymar, Annie (and her pal), Gaelick, Zeta and the girls from Beautie met up for a photoshoot for a future Irish Times article. Between the Grannymar's clamberings all over a sofa, great girly craic over a long boozy lunch and then the biblical rain at the end of the day, I couldn't think of a more fun way to spend a Saturday. Keep an eye out for the article in the next couple of weeks and many thanks to Beautie for organising the afternoon :)


Pic by Grannymar, sort of, well it was taken by a 'toyboy' waiter on her camera but still its hers...

Then last weekend a group of us from Pixie were lucky to be part of a special tour of the Guinness Storehouse before it opened to the public. The tour was organised as part of the Storehouse's monthly photographic competition, more details available later in the post.

So on the first morning of my two-week holiday I was dragging myself out of bed at 7am to meet up with everyone else at 8am. Course I was a little late and found myself wandering around places in Guinness by myself. Lisa from the Guinness Storehouse was brilliant explaining the set up of the building, whats going on where before leaving us to our cameras and the empty building. The morning in the Storehouse was finished up with a wonderful breakfast before pints in the Gravity Bar. It was a really great day and seriously excellent to get such an exclusive tour of the place particularly given how busy it is once it opens.

I would have liked to have chatted more with some of the other people taking part whose names I only know through Pixie but I'm sure we'll get more things organised in the future. You can read more about our day at the Guinness Storehouse on the Pixie blog where you can also find out details on how to enter as well as links to blog posts by others who took part.

So onto to the pics, here are some shots from the Guinness Storehouse, with more to come as soon as I get to them :) You'll find more on Pixie.













So after those two excellent Saturday afternoons, I'll be at a loss this weekend with nothing planned :(

Finally Toe Jam photos

WELL they were taken nearly two weeks ago at the last Toe Jam photomeet at the Dublin Maritime Festival and finally here are some of the images of the day. It was another great photomeet, with outrageously wonderful weather. Not only were there some Toe Jam regulars, our new name, some new snappers came along from boards.ie as well as someone who read about the meet on Dublin Blog.

I will come back and edit this with everyone's links, but for now I'll just post some pics to prove I have actually posted them at long last.

As ever it has been cool to see everyone else's contribution from the day in our Flickr group. On the day itself there were hoards of people at the festival which made taking photographs rather tough but I suppose on the other hand it made you work harder for images.

There are more days out planned and if you fancy coming along check out the Facebook group, or our Flickr group as well as keeping an eye here and on Dublin Blog for details of the next one, which I imagine will be sooner rather than later.

So over to the images.

Finally Toe Jam Photo meet pics

WELL I had a ball at the weekend's photomeet, thanks so much to everyone that came along. At various points of the day Caitriona, John, Darren, 73 Man, Davy, Phil, Nathalie, Alexia, Debs, Will, Bob, Claire, and some other pals were there making the whole day great fun. You can check out lots of different pics in the Toe Jam pool.

We started out at the George Bernard Shaw pub Toe Jam carboot sale which was too cool for school with wonderful things to photograph, amazing colours and great backdrops. I think a lot of the people involved all knew each other so a gang of us with cameras turning up was above rather then below the radar. There were a few comments about the amount of cameras/snappers by the Toe Jammers. Some of us had more camera kit than others, you know who you are Davy, which later led to multiple camera-nerdy moments and impromptu portrait-taking with various lighting techniques using home-made and very effective flash equipment. I have to say that the more I take photographs the more I hate having my photograph taken.

Once our group was complete and everyone had their fill of Toe Jam and cakes we walked down to the Temple Bar Saturday market where once again we did a couple of circuits of the market, taking pics, buying beautiful fresh produce before retiring to the beer garden at the top of the Fitzsimmons Hotel.

The Young Wan did well out of the door with a couple of cool t-shirts, a cool bag, not to mention dinner picked up in Temple Bar courtesy of the Gallic Kitchen. I managed to get the pics up on Flickr and Pix.ie over the weekend so to finish it all off I'll post some here.

There was talk as well of the next photomeet and a couple of things were mooted, we mentioned Cork as well as a North Coast run from Belfast up to the Giants Causeway taking in all the amazing sites/sights along the way. Thats one where we would need drivers but it is definitely something we should look at for the summer.

Anyways before I post some of my pics of Saturday I want to thank everyone for firstly turning up, I would have cut a lonely figure pottering around Toe Jam on my own ;) and secondly for making it such a fun-filled and full day.

Last minute photo meet organisation

FOR all you who are coming to the photomeet tomorrow and think you may be a little late, drop me an email to redmumATgmailDOTcom and I'll send you my mobile number. Looking forward to it.

Photomeet anyone ? (Dublin - May 17 or 18th)

EDIT: MAY 12 @3.30PM

We now have a date and time for the photomeet thanks to Caitriona's suggestion of a car boot sale.

When: 1pm, May 17th

Where: George Bernard Shaw pub (see where on google maps), Portobello (we'll meet out the front - no early drinking please ;)

Let me know what you think in the comments. The plan would be to wander around the car boot, we could then wander down the canal before retiring for some pints, and then later pints with Alexia.

--o0o--

Claire, John, Phil, WillKnot, Darragh and I were twittering the other day about another Photomeet. Are you interested? The date we agreed on is in two weeks time, May 17th or 18th. As for where and what so far we have a blank page and are open to suggestions.

As with the last time, this is open to anybody who wants to come along, learn a little, have some fun and meet with other snappers. We may even do the 'how many pics have we taken in total' game again...

So come on let me know if you are interested and if you have any burning photography desires that we may satiate that weekend (ie any ideas on what we could do). Leave any thoughts in the comments. You can also check out images from the last photomeet we did during the Irish Blog Awards weekend.

Irish Blog Awards - long post

WHAT a weekend. This post has been two days in the writing all the fun and frolics of Saturday's Blog Awards saw me take to my sick bed/sofa for most of Sunday so a little was written then and then rewritten today.


Maman Poulet organising the registration


Maman Poulet, Ellybabes highfiving and Mrs Chicken

My weekend kicked off lunchtime on Saturday with the photo meet where nine of us met up at the Spire, headed to Trinity, then up Grafton Street before retiring at O'Donoghues. Rymus, Mcawilliams, 73man, Gingerpixel, Ellybabes, Phil, Andy and Keith were all present and snapping away. Hopefully this can become a regular thing, there are great meet-ups but it would also be great to meet up with other photobloggers more.


A wistful moment on Grafton Street


WWMD? in Trinity


Mcawilliams and Rymus

One thing that was really cool about the photo meet is that there were four nominees from the Best Photoblog category including the eventual winner and we didn’t scrap once.

At the end of the afternoon we had a competition to guess how many images we collectively shot, everyone put in a fiver before guessing the total amount. Then we reported on how many we actually took and it amounted to nearly 900 shots, not bad for an hour and a half's shooting. It is a bad show when the proposer of the competition wins so eh sorry about that everyone.


Scores on the doors/ brown envelopes

At least I bought a round with my winnings before Elly, Gingerpixel and I headed back to my place and then hitting the Ladies tea held in the Market Bar. I couldn't even begin to list them all here, even without my brain being mashed following the weekend madness. And wow what a yummy spread and so many women bloggers I didn't know before but I did meet Debs (sorry Debs I had to duck out of Sunday's bunch but I was rendered completely useless), Sabrina (we met once before though the first time was brief) and Sinead. I met Aoife and Una which was excellent as well as taking a pic suggested by Mary Rose of all the women from above, thanks for that Mary Rose.



Then it was time for the awards and we gasped at the size of the room, the decorations looked great and the video announcements before each category was really cool; the awards have really come a long way since 2006. I brought Nanny and the Young Wan and we all had a really great night.

I was delighted to meet up with so many new faces/blogs as well as catching up on others whom I read regularly and haven’t had the opportunity to meet before now people like Curly K, Darragh, Grandad and Granny lost the plot and of course Granny Mar and I was raging to have missed out on meeting Flirty and many others. It was lovely to chat with one of the girls from Beaut.ie, then there was Caitriona and Ken . I nearly met Conor O'Neill who came hooting down the room before standing in front of me with a manic grin and jazz hands before moving/running/hooting on but I did meet his wife Catherine who like everyone else was really lovely.

There were also a few funny/embarrassing/shameful moments such as my giving out for not being salsaed, my ahem joy at winning one of Fustar’s manky toys, Maureen the barbie, only for a stewards inquiry to be called by Elly who wrestled me to the ground for Maureen or when I heckled Rick O’Shea as he thanked the Young Wan for her beautifully executed trophy handing over – eh sorry about that, I’m just a proud Mammy.


Ellybabes and Maureen

We had a great crowd around us and we were all absolutely delighted when the lovely and fellow Nordie Sharon from the Family Voyage lifted the Best Specialist Blog, I got a great cheer during the photoblog category (thanks family) and was delighted for Claire when she took the honours in the category for her beautiful images. We claimed to have been robbed in the Group Blog category wearing my Dublin Blog hat but hey Beaut.ie are a huge force to be reckoned with, and as clichéd as it sounds we were really delighted to make the shortlist.


Sharon, Grannymar and Grandad

I had hoped to rob my print from the wall, but in the blurriness of alcohol we staggered out without it. Or maybe we weren’t allowed to do that… I also forgot my Twenty book for signing so I must get that sorted.


Checking out my pic

Towards the end of the evening I kept a beady eye on one of the Kilkenny musicos who was chatting away to my beautiful Young Wan just in case there were any ideas there.

I know I will have missed a load of people in this post and I apologise for that, I met so many people and unless I noted them down there is no way my memory + alcohol would hold onto everything. So if I have missed you out after bending your ear I am really sorry.


Rick O'Shea and Damien

So finally thanks to Damien for another cracking night/weekend and thanks to all of you who helped create the incredible buzz in the hotel. So here’s to all this year’s winners and to 2009 :)

Oh and Thats Ireland (someone else I wanted to meet and didn't bump into) has a brilliant box list of all 400 blog nominees, pre shortlist, head over there and do a pot luck on any number of wonderful blogs, you never know what you'll find.

Irish Blog Awards 2008 - short post

A POST on the Irish Blog Awards is coming soon. Too. tired. Now. To. Do. Anything. ZZzzzzzz. But here are a few taster pics, I have a post in progress which I'll upload post when I feel more human again and am sure I haven't written complete and utter rubbish.

I really enjoyed meeting up with everyone, new and not-so-new faces and the heartiest congrats to all the winners and well done Mr Mulley for another crackingly good evening. But as I said more later...

Ladies tea 

Photo meet group

Irish Blog Awards - Photowalking tour

Just to keep you reminded about this weekend's photowalking tour. In order to facilitate as many people as possible bearing in mind all the different events that are taking place on Saturday, I am suggesting that we meet at noon at the Spire and we can take things from there.

We'll make our way to the docklands area and see what we can see/snap. Things will then be wrapped up around 3pm giving people time to get to the other pre-awards events.

If you think you might be late for the noon start drop me an email and we can arrange for you to catch up with us somewhere along the way. If you can think of any photo games we can play, feel free to shout them out and Elly may or may not have something for us to do too.

There is a Facebook event which you can use to invite anyone you think might be interested and it has been mentioned in a couple of the different Irish Flickr groups.

Okay I think thats everything, drop a comment if you think of something else; so to wrap up:

What: Photowalking tour

Where: Meet at the Spire, then walk to the docklands

When: Saturday, March 1st, 12noon - 3pm

Who: Anyone from camera phones to mega-feck off cameras, you just should want to take photographs.

See you then :)

Photowalking tour - Irish Blog Awards 2008

THERE seems to be a great level of interest in the photowalking tour being held the weekend of the blog awards. I was thinking then 'okay what will we do?' and I thought about themes and projects and decided against them all thinking if we are to attract newbie and oldie people at all levels of photography it was best to keep it simple.

So I thought it best that we meet somewhere like O'Connell Street around lunchtime and take it from there. One place I was thinking of which was mentioned to me also by Simon is to make our way along the docks, there are lots of things of interest there for us.

Again what do people think?

PS: Thanks to Sabrina for the excellent graphic :)