Architecture » Ronan Palliser Photography

Grand Canal Dock

Aug 142011

Every now and then in Dublin Camera Club – usually in the quieter summer season – the weekly Tuesday meeting moves away from the club premises in the form of an outing to somewhere around the city. A few years ago we visited the War Memorial Gardens for instance. Last Tuesday a small group of club members met at Hanover Quay for a photographic stroll around the Grand Canal Dock area. It’s a lovely location, and a good choice for a photowalk, but there were two issues to contend with on Tuesday. Firstly, for the time of year, our 7pm gathering was a couple of hours too early to see this area at its best, and secondly, it seemed no one had informed Mother Nature that this particular group of photographers would like some nice natural light. A duller, flatter evening would be hard to imagine. So it was time for me to dip into my bag of tricks.

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Right place, right time

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Jun 302011

I’ve been in Dublin Airport four times in the last 5 weeks, but my feet have not left Irish soil on any of those occasions. Rather less exciting than flying out to some exotic destination, I found myself there to rent (and return) a car on two different weekends. Most recently, last Thursday evening, I picked up a Volkswagen Golf, which I (reluctantly) returned on Monday night. While waiting for the courtesy bus to where the car was parked, I took a short stroll from Terminal 1 down towards the newly opened Terminal 2. I’d heard alot about Terminal 2 since it opened, but hadn’t seen it for myself until a few weeks ago, and from a photographic point of view I could see that it had potential as a subject. Getting a good shot of it would require finding a good angle from which to photograph, and would involve being there at just the right time of day. So it was with a little bit of surprise and a lot of good fortune that I found myself stumbling across a good angle at just the right time, with a camera in my pocket that was perfectly suited to the task, and about three minutes to kill. My main concern, therefore was not how to take the photo, but more fundamentally, how to take the photo without getting arrested.

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Hustle and bustle

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Jun 132011

What do you do on a rainy Sunday afternoon in South Dublin? Yesterday it seemed the answer was: Go to Dundrum. The place was busy. So busy that finding a parking space took a while. And I’m sure everyone else was thinking the same thing that I was thinking: this was probably a bad idea. But still we persisted. Treating ourselves to lunch before and a coffee after the weekly grocery shop made the whole experience a bit more enjoyable, never mind the two scoops of Australian ice cream in between. And as we sat with our coffee (or in my case, hot chocolate) overlooking the bank of travellators and lifts, I took a few photos. I still haven’t managed to take a definitive photo of this part of the shopping centre – I know one is there for the taking – but the shot above is getting closer than I’ve got previously. Of course getting such a photo would be easier if it weren’t for the ‘paranoid-about-photography security guards’. Read on for another photo which shows what I mean.

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The Fuji X100 and me

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May 172011

It’s something of a tradition now for me to take a new camera to St. Stephen’s Green shopping centre for a test shot. Pretty much this test shot above in fact. My Nikon D300 was first tried out there, and the D700 paid an early visit too. Yesterday, on my way home, and for old times’ sake as much as anything, I brought my newest camera – the Fuji X100 – in for its debut. I got the camera last Friday, and so far have taken about 100 shots with it. That’s not many, but already have the feling that the X100 is going to improve my photography. And yes, that’s a bold claim to make after 4 days and 100 shots, and a big ask from what is, at the end of the day, a compact camera.

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If at first you don’t succeed…

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Jan 192011

I’m long past the point of only blogging photographs that I’m very proud of, or photographs that I think work really well. Even though, as I discovered last night at the camera club, photos I think work don’t necessarily work for other people – this month’s league judging didn’t go so well for me, but that’s another story. Anyway, for every photo that works (even if just for me) there are probably 9 or 19 or maybe more that don’t. The photo above is one such image. But even though it is flawed – and I’ll explain how I think it is flawed in a moment – it also proved worthwhile because my attempts to turn it into an image that would work taught me some things.

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