Our fabulous CHRISTMAS MINI SESSIONS ARE BACK in December 2019!
Come and join in!
For just £20 per session (1 child) you get:
2019 Christmas Mini-Sessions
Belfast Bikes
If you are fortunate enough to ever visit Belfast, Northern Ireland, you can get around the city easily and quickly on a ‘Belfast Bike.’ Download an app, pay a small fee, and borrow a bike! Take it from one side of the city to the other, and park it at the nearest bike-park! Easy!
A rack of public-access bicycles at Botanic Gardens, Belfast.
Hobbies Photoshoots – NOVEMBER SPECIAL
SPECIAL OFFER FOR NOVEMBER
HOBBIES PHOTOSHOOTS
Our special HOBBIES Mini-Photoshoots – Fund-Raising for Cardiac Risk in the Young and The Lullaby Trust. For both ADULTS AND CHILDREN
It’s just £10 – and 100% of your donation goes to research into cardiac conditions in children and young people, or to helping families who have suffered through SIDS, and educate parents about safe sleep for babies.
Harsh Life
This is part of life in any city.
I captured this scene in a reasonably affluent part of Belfast, an area full of life and vibrancy where students from across the world mix with young professionals in coffee shops and bars. Where the streets are teeming with people enjoying friendship and a casual happy lifestyle. Where the side streets are student flats, posh detached homes and family terraces. And where a man lives on a pavement in a grubby sleeping bag.
If any picture can speak a thousand words, surely this one does. What does it tell you about the man on the ground? Why has he positioned himself there? What conversation is taking place between the man and the woman at the bank machine? She doesn’t look threatened – in fact they seem to be having a pleasant enough conversation. He’s sitting beside a ‘meal deal’ sign – would anyone go into the shop and spend some money on a ‘meal deal’ for him? Is that why he’s there?
I love photographs like this, not only documenting real life on the streets as it happens, but exciting the mind – raising questions; seemingly incongruous juxtapositions of objects and subjects, apparent conflicts of themes and interpretations.
Fujifilm X-T30, F=55mm, f/5 @ 1/125th sec on ISO400, shot in ACROS film simulation mode.
Moneyreagh Gospel Hall – Update
In June 2018 I made some photographs of the derelict exterior of the old Moneyreagh Gospel Hall. The building had been unused for some years and was up for sale. Here’s one of the images from that day…
The hall has, presumably, been sold, and the roof has been removed, and the walls stripped back to the brick, – so it’s probably going to be converted to a dwelling. I stopped at the site a few days ago to make some more photographs, and to see what the inside of the building is like now. Continue reading Moneyreagh Gospel Hall – Update
I Dare You…
It’s a CHALLENGE!!!
When you chain your bicycle to a sign which reads ‘Take me home!’
I found this scene when wandering around the Botanic area of Belfast on Saturday morning. Someone has chained a bike to a pole, and an advertising sign above the bike reads, “Take me home!” What a challenge for a would-be bike thief!
Fujifilm X-T30. F=181mm, f/9 @ 1/60th sec on ISO400. Shot in Acros Film Simulation mode.
The Smoker’s Rest!
‘The Smoker’s Rest.’
A grubby chair at the back door of a Belfast restaurant, in a make-shift shelter and beside the ashtray. Fujufilm X-T30 F=18mm f/4.5 @ 1/60th sec on ISO400
Good Grief!
Traditional and Modern Ways to Remember.
I found these two memorials in Ballintoy.
A very traditional way to mark a life…
And a more humorous take on memory and commemoration…
Which would YOU prefer?
World Politics – In Belfast
Political graffiti in the university quarter of Belfast – and why you don’t always need humans to document human interest.
An interesting aspect of documentary photography is that human influence and interaction can be implied, rather than overt.
Even if people are not actually in the photo, the human element is still present and the human story is still told.
This gable wall in Belfast points us to events on the other side of the world, and indicates the desire of locals here to show solidarity with their fellow students there. There is a significant Chinese community in South Belfast, many of whom are students at the university, and many of them would have Hong Kong origins.
Fujifilm X-T30 shot in Acros film simulation.
F=22mm, f/11 at 1/60th sec on ISO400.
Fujifilm and iPhone – Syncretism.
Yes. I agree. It’s a totally uninteresting photograph. A picture captured by a camera, sitting on a newspaper in a cafe, looking at an empty chair. ‘So what?’ I hear you exclaim, as you conclude that I’ve finally lost the plot entirely.
So, why have I posted it? Because of how it was captured. The camera is switched on, untouched. On my iphone the Fujifilm app has connected by WiFi to the camera and is showing me the image being recorded on the sensor. I can adjust the camera settings, shutter, aperture, ISO etc etc.
Also, because the camera is mirrorless it can capture images silently. No noisy mirror to move out of the way. With the focus beep switched off, and the camera set to ‘Electronic shutter’ instead of the mechanical shutter, there is no sound as it does its work. (Ideal for church interiors incidentally).
So, to a casual onlooker, the photographer is simply sitting playing with his phone.
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