Time for my annual visit to the Belfast Christmas Market, clustered around the veritable ‘Dome of Delight’ itself, Belfast’s historic City Hall. This year again, it was the evening when I visited. I took the Fujifilm X-T30, small enough to be unobtrusive and powerful enough to make eye-watering images. I had the ISO at 3200 throughout the evening. Despite the fantastic X-T30, the market was so busy it was difficult to make any decent images, but here’s a few…
Over the weekend the studio has been busy with Cake Smash photoshoots, 1st and 2nd Birthdays and the Christmas Mini-Shoots. Here’s just a few of our wee stars…
Saturday 9th September 2019 – the morning was wet, for heavy rain has been lashing the British Isles, causing flooding. Thankfully Northern Ireland has been spared the worst effects, unlike parts of England, where flooding has ruined homes and even led to loss of life. It’s too wet to go out on the streets, but I had a sort of a back-up plan. In Belfast is an old Victorian Covered Market, ‘St George’s Market’ (built in the 1890s) – and I thought a visit might bring one or two photo opportunities.
Bittles Bar, Victoria Place, Belfast.
An unusual street corner building.
Part of the original Victorian architecture of the city, now snugly surrounded by the modern commercial city.
Fujifilm X-T30 F=10mm (sees the same field of view as a 15mm lens on a full frame DSLR). f/5 @ 1/125th sec on ISO400.
Following my earlier post ‘The Smoker’s Rest‘ – illustrating that in most modern businesses smokers are very much less than welcome, I was intrigued to find at least one shop in Belfast where smokers are most definitely welcome!
Miss Moran’s shop in Church Lane, Belfast is a traditional tobacconists, with a huge stock of cigars, snuffs, pipes and tobaccos; not just a resource for those addicted to the weed, but a huge tourist attraction in Belfast’s city centre. Continue reading Smokers Welcome.
I’m back at it again. Skulking round the wee dark alleys and passages of Belfast, waiting for an unsuspecting suspect to make a silhouette.
This was November 1st, a cold wet day in the city, and this passageway leads up to a carefully tended and maintained courtyard at the front of a restaurant and bar.
Silhouette- Church Lane, Belfast.
Fujifilm X-T30 F=18mm, f/2.8 @ 1/125th sec on ISO800. Shot using Acros Film Simulation
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.’
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
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.
I had a few minutes to kill today before an appointment, so I had a short stroll around Holywood Priory, an old church and graveyard in Holywood, a medium sized town between Belfast and Bangor, and part of the Ards and North Down District Council area.
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