No cars to photograph this week, so I’ve uploaded an image I made at an event I attended recently.
These two titans, the mighty Scania and the magnificent MAN diesel, parked at the Galgorm Resort and Spa for a very special occasion indeed!
This week in Northern Ireland saw yet another political agenda being promoted and furthered by the skilful use of photography. To say that ‘the camera never lies‘ is no longer true in the age of digital manipulation, but was it ever? The simple shifting of the photographer’s position can change the perspective of the viewer, flatten distance, and be used to make a political point.
In Northern Ireland, the building of a bonfire, and the lighting of the fire on the 11th July is a tradition, long held among certain sections of the Unionist or Loyalist community. It is an expression of loyalist culture. When I was a boy, back the 60s and 70s, little bonfires were made in each street, no more than little piles of planks and scrap. But the local authorities tried to regulate the tradition. The street bonfires left a mess that needed to be cleaned up, and sometimes caused damage to properties. Often the materials that were burned were far from helpful in controlling pollution; tyres were often burned, pouring out toxic smoke into the air. To solve these problems, some councils began to offer grants to buy pallets, which would burn more cleanly, on condition that the street bonfires were replaced with centralised pyres, and pollutants excluded. This led to pyres like this one in Newtownards:
It was this massive bonfire that became the subject of a media scam, fuelled by deceptive photography. Apparently this bonfire in Newtownards was built RIGHT BESIDE THE LOCAL FIRE STATION! An image was produced to prove the point, The media picked up on the story immediately, – radio programmes, a Twitter storm, newspaper articles, with the collective might of the left lining up to demand that the bonfire be dismantled and removed.
On 9th July 2021 I reproduced the photograph which caused the ‘offence’ – an image showing the ‘alleged’ juxtaposition of the pyre and the fire station.
It looks authentic. There’s no Photoshop manipulation, the image is ‘as shot.’ But what has happened is that camera position is flattening the distance between the bonfire and the Fire Station. It is deliberately deceptive, and it set the local news agenda for a whole morning, before some locals pointed out that the distance between the fire and the station is considerable, with a stretch of waste ground and a four lane road between! Still, the Left got a whole morning of free publicity and a chance to pour more odium on the working class loyalist community of the town.
Here’s some more images…
This old brick gateway at Ballyhome, Coleraine has attracted me for years – I pass it quite often on the way to our family holiday home at Portrush, and I’ve always wanted to point a lens at it – but up until last week I never had opportunity, for one reason or another…
…Until ask week, when Janette and me were driving back from Bushmills, and I determined to stop and make a few images – in between the passing cars on the road down into Coleraine!
I don’t know who owns it or where the path leads, but it’s a striking entrance for whatever property!
Photographed on the Fujifilm X-T4, F=50mm, f/5.6 @ 1/125th sec on ISO800.
Fujifilm X-T4, F=200mm, f/8 @ 1/500th sec on ISO800, Acros B&W film simulation, shot using a Nikon 100-300mm lens, manual focus using focus peaking.
Shooting seagulls at Islandhill, near Comber today, using the Fujifilm X-T4 and a 55-200mm lens. The tide was fully in when I was there, so there was no chance of getting along the Causeway to the island itself. Still, there were a few photo opportunities.
On Thursday 7th January I crossed the straits between Portaferry and Strangford on the ferry, with my Fujifilm X-T4. It was a cold, bright winter day, and Strangford village was sparkling in the winter sunlight.
It’s encouraging to drive along a road and see some inspirational words on a wall. In Belfast, it makes a nice change from some of the darker, paramilitary or terrorist inspired murals. Ant when you are ‘getting on a bit’ like me, this wall on the Newtownards Road is particularly appropriate – a good incentive to keep going!
This area of Belfast is known as ‘Ballymacarrett’ – an ancient townland name, and the home of many of the old Belfast industries, most notably the famous Harland and Wolff Shipyard, Short Brothers aircraft factory, the Belfast Rope Works and the Scirocco Works.
The mural features everything that is good about East Belfast, its community and renown, including CS Lewis, born in East Belfast. Also included are a ballerina, Belfast City Hall, and a group of children playing in the street, a boy releasing a dove, symbolising peace.
The main text on the mural is:
Back in September, 2020, Janette and I did a drive around the Lecale District, an area of outstanding natural beauty, not too far from where we live in Co.Down. I did three blog posts about that area, and in the first of those pieces, https://bobmcevoy.co.uk/2020/09/01/the-lecale-district-1/ I mentioned Van Morrison’s song, “Coney Island.” (Is it really a song?), in which Mr Morrison, one of our native sons, mentions many of the local places of interest in this part of Northen Ireland. But one of the lines of the song intrigued me. For Mr Morrison writes of driving through Shrigley to take photographs before he travelled on down to Killyleagh.
Continue reading Shrigley, Van Morrison and that Clock!I was sitting in the passenger seat of Janette’s car, crossing the M3 bridge in Belfast, with the Fujifilm X-T4 in my lap, when this track maintenance vehicle crossed the railway bridge which runs parallel to the road. A quick adjustment or two, and thanks to the X-T4’s in-body image stabilisation and continual autofocus, and I got this shot from that rare angle, a shot that would be impossible on foot!
So the only thing planned about this shot was the readiness of the camera!
F=55mm, f/5.6 @ 1/150th sec on ISO800
Around 2.30pm this afternoon, I was about to cross the Slaght Level Crossing, outside Ballymema, when this old trackside hut caught my eye, and I thought, “Ah ha! There’s an old trackside hut! Time to get the camera out.” I parked the car, and walked to a gate with a view of the track, and fitted a medium length zoom on the Fujifilm X-T4. (No, I wasn’t trespassing on the tracks.)
Fujifilm X-T4, F=200mm, f/4.8 @ 1/250th sec on ISO 1600.
I needed the faster shutter speed to steady the lens in the wind, – I should really have got the monopod out, lowered the shutter speed to 1/60th and the ISO to 400.
Actually, a few days down the track (see what I did there) and I decided to take away that ugly sign in Photoshp. It probably improves the image significantly!
