intercuts

A blissful evening as the tide comes in a Bullock Harbour, near Dalkey, south of Dublin. An idyllic place to spend a few hours watching the world go by.

Another time-lapse from New Dublin at the Grand Canal Plaza. I like this part of the city at night time especially when the light show can be seen at its best, designed by Martha Schwarz. Actually, having moaned at length about the horribleness of what's happening on the far side of the river beyond George's Dock, I think this place is very cool. And it will be lent a certain theatrical credibility when the new Daniel Libeskind designed theatre opens here later in 2008.

Here is a short filmette of time-lapse material shot in and around Dublin over the last few months. These images were used in a project we're currently finishing off at The Farm for South Dublin County Council, an exhibition space housed in Tallaght. The technique used is to basically plonk the camera down in some place with a visually interesting view, stick it on a tripod, set your shot and squeeze off a frame every minute or so. Then import the resulting images into FCP and what you see here is the result. The handy thing about this technique is that the images are pretty big to start with, so the sequences could be used at all resolutions up to 2k film if you're careful. Enjoy!

This beautiful young woman was the hostess in a coffee ceremony I witnessed in a region called Sodo in southern Ethiopia. I made the trip to Ethiopia during Easter as part of a film crew, the crew was there to film a documentary about a young Irish girl who is hoping to make a difference to the lives of Ethiopian woman with an invention she devised.

There's an account of the documentary and trip in a the works available soon

In the meantime, please drop by and have a look at my Ethiopian pictures on flickr.

Thanks.

This is Sarah, who is responsible for the props on the film Spacemen Three which I've been editing with Hugh O'Conor these last few weeks. Sarah has made intergalactic sand, batteries and other props for the movie, as well as being extremely photogenic. Her contribution is subtle, a bit like editing, in that if you're too aware of it then something is wrong. Spacemen Three is a short film about an unlikely odyssey into space with three astronauts and annoying toy, ready for the Galway Film Fleadh this summer. Written by John Butler and Hugh O'Conor and superbly acted by Michael McElhatton, Peter McDonald and Pat Shortt. Hopefully you'll get to see it during the summer.

I took a stroll down the Shelley Banks, along the South Wall, looked back and marvelled at the setting sun over Dublin. I was quietly going about the business of taking a panoramic sunset shot, each of the four exposures half a minute, when I became aware of this quiet, calm sensation of something extremely large passing quietly nearby. The silence of this ship was surprising, a barely audible whoosh and low frequency rumble was all there was to be heard.

Which explains why I was a bit late turning the camera round to it. Here, for your consideration, is the ghostship.

Just recycling an old picture I took last year in infrared, near Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. Tried a little bit of colour dodging with flat colour fills. Looks kind of eerie ...

I'm not sure where I got the sudden impulse to go out and buy a medium format camera, but wherever it came from, that's precisely what I did. I went out and searched eBay, bid and bought one last week. It arrived nicely wrapped and reeking of cigarette smoke and ready for its new owner.

The first thing that struck me was the heft of the thing, it's a Rolleicord V and weighs in at nearly a kilo, precision German engineering at its best. As for its age, it was probably made in about 1956 (or not long after the Coronation for the queenophiles out there), so a shade over 50. It's in immaculate cosmetic condition and seems to have been owned by a careful or sporadic photographer.

Here's hoping I can do it some justice, the first two rolls out of it have shown some promise and that beautiful large negative has great detail.

We went up the hills yesterday: Philip, Sam, myself and the dog Boswell to clear the lungs and have some personal outside time. A great day it was too, spending time with friends up in the wilds of Wicklow. Seen here is the Glenealo Waterfull in full flood, incredible volumes of water pouring down the valley, incredible noise and completely spectacular. This waterfall is at the far end of the upper lake at Glendalough, up the zigzag path beyond the miners' village.

Sam is drawn to hills like, um, a moth to a candle, he enjoys the uphill and has a strangely developed physique that renders him about twice the speed of anybody else on the planet. He maintains it's because he was reared in Killiney and spent his early youth charging up and down the hills there. Philip and myself however have more pedestrian hamstrings and were left panting in his wake (due to shortness of breath that is, not his super good looks or anything).

A great day all in all. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I bought an amaryllis at the school Christmas Fair at the beginning of December, and had some glorious winter crimson out of it. A truly beautiful flower with four trumpet shaped blooms in a deeply seasonal red. But sadly now it's going over, as my mother would say. So I decided on a whim to take a few pictures of its passing, and here's the result.

I've also been tempted to try printing the triptych to canvas (from updone.com) and considering the euro-dollar rate, it isn't hugely expensive. I'm looking forward to seeing the result, hopefully the ttv frame isn't too thin and won't be lost off the edge of the wrap.