Tiger’s Bay – a working class area in North Belfast, now rebuilt as a modern housing estate. The streets give a view over the harbour and shipyard areas of the city. I visited the area on a sunny winter day with my Nikon F100, loaded with Ilford Delta 100.
Tag Archives: Belfast
Victoria Square, Belfast
Victoria Square, Belfast
Some ten years ago, the old Victoria Square in Belfast, a drab Victorian street in the south quarter of the city centre with factory and office buildings, and a non-functioning metal fountain in the centre, was demolished and replaced by an ultra modern shopping complex, featuring multinational stores, cinemas and restaurants, residential apartments, bars and leisure, easy parking, and easy access to the streets of Belfast. Continue reading Victoria Square, Belfast
Cluan Place, Belfast – 15 years on.
In 2002, I visited Cluan Place in East Belfast for the first time. I was visiting a couple of homes in the street, – people who were parishioners of a church that I belonged to at the time. The reason for my visit was to see if their homes had been damaged in the rioting that was taking place at that time. Cluan Place lies right on one of the Belfast interface lines, ‘peace-walls’ seperating two communities. In the case of Cluan Place, it interfaced with the largely republican Short Strand area. In 2002 friction between the two communities was at a height, and there was a constant police presence to keep the warring factions apart. One of my friends in the street was an ederly man who had found a pipe bomb in his garden; it had been lobbed over the wall from the other side.
In August this year I had occasion to visit the street again. It’s fifteen years from my first visit, and I havent been there since, and I wondered how the community and the atmosphere had changed. was there still that fearfullness, that alertness of suuden attack? was there a constant police landrover sitting at the single entrance to the cul de sac?
Needless to say, I had a film camera with me. I never go anywhere without one, so after my visit with one of the residents I did some photographs. I hope they paint a small picture of life in Cluan Place 15 years on.
The other side of the wall is Short Strand, equally smitten in 2002, – here’s some pictures of the wall from the Short Strand side, and a lovely new building, on the site where the old ‘Picturedrome’ cinema once stood.
If I had to choose my ‘image of the day’ – it would probably be this one, for after all, like life the summer barbecues go on!
Photo-Essay – A Walk in the Park.
A Walk in the Park, Down Memory Lane
On Friday 12th September 2015, between appointments, I took a stroll through Alexandra Park, in north Belfast. It was a poignant, nostalgic break in an otherwise mundane day, for I hadn’t gone to this park to exercise my legs, but to exercise my memory. My grandparents, Bob and Jeannie Kirk had lived in this park, in the gardener’s house, in the late 1950’s and early 60’s. Bob Kirk had been the foreman gardener at Glenbank Park in Ligoneil (where I was born) and his move to Alexandra Park as forman gardener would have been seen as a promotion. He took up residence in the Park Lodge, and remained there until retirement in 1965. While they lived there, I spent many happy days and evenings with them, travelling over by bus, down the Falls Road, and catching the No.77 Belfast Corporation Bus, (That famous bus route that wound through the streets of Belfast from the Gasworks to the Waterworks) alighting at the Waterworks.
#Hueless and Clueless?
Got Hueless?
I’ve been playing with an iphone app called ‘Hueless.’ It’s an excellent piece of technology, allowing the phone’s camera to shoot in monochrome, and giving the photographer great control over the capture of the image. the user interface screen is intuitive and easy to use. it features accurate autofocus achieved by a simple tap on the screen to set the focus point. There’s a drop down control to alter the exposure and contrast on the screen, so you can see the end result before the snap is taken. There’s a series of optional presets which the photographer can set up for instant camera control, and cropping to photo-sizes is easily achieved by pinching the screen. If you are for ate enough to own an iPhone 6 (and I don’t) then there’s even an option for high ISO shooting to make low light shots possible.
Here’s a selection of images I captured at the Tullyglass Hotel, and later in Belfast with the app.
No monochrome camera is complete without filters, and the Hueless app offers a drop-down menu with the standard filters one would use with a black and white film camera. Here’s an image with the red filter:-
Really, for a couple of quid, its a fantastic app, get it at the Apple App Store! Dont be clueless, get Hueless, – it’s just about flawless!!!
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