Category Archives: Belfast

Beautiful Ulster, Belfast, Landscapes, Travel

Exploring Squire’s Hill and Cave Hill Country Park

Squires Hill, Belfast, viewed from Cave Hill Country Park.

Today, Thursday 7th August 2025, I had a few minutes to snatch a packed lunch sandwich between appointments, and where better to stop en-route, than the Cave Hill Country Park.

After the quick lunch, I jumped out of the car to look at the stunning views across the city, and the surrounding countryside, a moment or two in a busy day, to soak in the stunning views of the Lagan estuary and the beautiful hills that cradle our city, from the Castlereagh and Holywood Hills in the south to the majestic Black Mountain range in the north It’s hard not to fall in love with this landscape. 

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Belfast, Documentary, Photo-Essay, Reportage, Streetscapes, Travel

Belfast ‘Troubles Tourism.’

One of the growth sectors, it seems, in Northern Ireland, at least since the so-called ‘ceasefires’ of the 1990’s has been ‘Troubles Tourism,’ where visitors to the city are given guided tours of relics of the troubled past pf the region. You can book a ‘Troubles Taxi Tour’ from around £75. Hotels, travel and holiday companies and cruise ships are including Troubles Tourism in their itinerary offerings. Visitors take open-top buses, coaches, bicycles and walking tours, looking at the locations of riots, bombings and shooting, photographing political murals and of course visiting the infamous Belfast ‘PEACE LINES’

The Peace Line at Northumberland Street,,- a wall that has divided the unionist Shankill Road from the nationalist Falls Road for around 50 years. It’s still there and still needed 27 years after the ‘Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.’ The gates are closed during hours of darkness. 
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Beautiful Ulster, Belfast, Black & White, Documentary, Photo-Essay, Streetscapes, Travel

Exploring Belfast: A Day Trip Guide

July 29th 2005

It was a reasonably good day, meteorologically, warm and not raining for a change, so I suggested a trip to Belfast might be a good way to put in the day, – after all, I’m meant to be resting this week… And with me went Janette, my long suffering wife, and the Nikon FM3a.

So we caught a train at Antrim Station.  If you’ve visited here, and never used Northern Ireland Railways, you should put that right on your next visit. The trains are modern, clean, warm and safe, and best of all, they are mostly on time! Not bad from a state owned company! 

Antrim Railway Station
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Beautiful Ulster, Belfast, Black & White, Co. Down, Landscapes, Travel

Carrowreagh Road, Dundonald

Summer fell on a Friday in Northern Ireland this year (2024). It was Friday the 30th August, – just at the very end of what the Met Office call “Meteorological Summer.” The rest of ‘Meteorological Summer’ was a complete wash-out, more or less. But today, the sun was shining, the wind had absented itself, and little fluffy white clouds drifted lazily across an azure sky. Why can’t it always be like this?

I was in Newtownards, Co.Down for the morning, and driving over Carrowreagh Hill from Dundonald to Holywood, – to access the M2 thus avoiding the traffic jams on the Newtownards Road, Belfast. I stopped in a small lay-by to place something in the boot of the car, when I noticed this small, twisted bush across the road. Taking my camera from the car, and my life in my hands as I avoided the would-be rally drivers, I managed to get a few exposures, with our historic Scrabo Tower in the distant background.

Carrowreagh Road, Dundonald – with Scrabo in the background. Photographed in glorious sunshine with the Fujifilm X-T5 camera and a f/2 7Artisans manual focus lens. Acros film simulation with digital red filter.

Belfast, Black & White, Co. Down, Reportage, Streetscapes

St Matthew’s RC Church

St Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church, Bryson Street, – situated just off the Newtownards Road, in loyalist Ballymacarret, –  East Belfast. 

I deliberately picked out the flag in colour. (I’d followed my usual practice of shooting in RAW/B&W Jpeg) 

The Ulster flag, flying outside the church, and the wire fence between the road and the grounds perfectly illustrate the divisions and tensions that exist between the two communities that live in the area. 

Belfast, Black & White, Reportage, Streetscapes

East Belfast Bonfire

It was bonfire season in East Belfast, – early July, so an opportunity to make an image of kids building a pyre, with the famous Belfast cranes in the background.

Newtownards Road, Belfast.

This image was made with the Nikon F100 camera on Rollei RPX25 film, processed in FD10 for 5 minutes, and scanned for digital viewing. Digital processing in Lightroom using one of my favourite presets.

Beautiful Ulster, Belfast, Black & White

Middlepath Street, Belfast

The murals on the overpass at the end of the Sydenham ByPass, and adjacent to and viewed from Middlepath Street.

Photographed with a Fujifilm X-T5, simultaneously in Acros black and white film simulation, and in RAW. The RAW image was processed in colour, and in Photoshop overlaid with the monochrome image; a mask applied, and the mural colours revealed with the brush.

I’d intended it to be in monochrome only, but the result was drab, – and that street corner is brightened greatly by the colour on the walls, – so I went for a compromise, – a monochrome image with a splash of colour. In the early digital era, that technique was frowned upon as ‘cliched!’ But sometimes it just works.

Fujifilm X-T5, with 50mm with Nikon manual focus lens, f/5.6 @ 1.125th sec on ISO500