Sometimes I am asked to do press photos – and when these are for a worthy cause, I’m always willing to oblige, if I’m available, and last week I travelled over to Ballymena to help with publicity for the
FAIRHILL 5 MILES RUNNING EVENT
This is an annual race, sponsored by Fairhill Shopping Centre, and run by BRAC, the Ballymena Running and Athletics Club, – this year in aid of Castle Tower Parents, Friends and Staff Association,
Sometimes, when you are tired, and cold and wet, and your legs feel like lead – all you need is an encouraging smile, and a helping hand to enable you to go on…
Clash of Construction
A city centre walk around Belfast brought me to Royal Avenue,, where classic Victorian architecture clashes with garish modernism. This example stands out…
Fujifilm X-T50 F=18mm, f/5.6 @ 1/60th sec, on ISO80.
I’m always glad to be asked to provide press photography coverage for events, everything from business conferences to lobbying groups meeting at Stormont to church events and occasions.
This recent project was a church installation service at Dromore, Co.Down…
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’
Photography captures a moment in time – a moment that sometimes can never be recreated, and in that sense is an important tool in recording our local history (and our national and international history too).
These images are of the old Ballystockart Mission Hall, between Comber and Dundonald, where I preached one of my very first sermons, back in the 1970s. It held great memories for me, for I had shared with the people my call to be the pastor at Annaghanoon, Co. Down. As I left the building one lady asked, “Whereabouts in Africa are you going?”
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.
No sweat! An athlete finds the going relatively easy, as she smiles her way to the finish line.
Lots of towns have festival weeks during the summer months, but I don’t know of anywhere that can put on a week long event like Portstewart, Co.Londonderry. The Red Sails Festival is named after the songwriter Jimmy Kennedy’s classic ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’ which he wrote after seeing a yacht sailing across Portstewart Bay, during one of those spectacular North Coast sunsets.
Thousands must flock to the seaside town for these events, many of which take place outside, around the town, and particularly at the Band Stand – right by the sea. Here’s a section of the crowd at this popular venue, undeterred by the rather inclement weather…
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.
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.
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