Books, Bokeh and Beaches

The 23rd of October was rainy.  I already posted for it, but had been lucky on that day and got outside before the rain hit.  Once it hit it kept going until early on the 25th.  This forced me to stay inside on the 24th and find something worth photographing within my apartment.  

I have been reading (and greatly enjoying) Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.  In an attempt to keep a visual list of the books I've been reading, I have been taking a photo of each book.  Compelled to stay inside by the rain, I give you...something inside my apartment that is at least slightly worth photographing...

A good book

I grabbed my camera and my homemade tilt shift lens as soon as the rain stopped on the 25th.  I didn't know how much time I would have before it started again, so I ran around outside looking for something to shoot.  A train went by, I squeezed my plunger-like DIY tilt shift lens and pressed the shutter button.  

Not as tilt-shifty as I would have liked

My tilt shift lens was still attached on the 26th, so I used it again.  There are some pretty awesome "post boxes" (mailboxes) around here.  Here is one that is right outside of my apartment.  

Mail me things!

In an attempt to add on to one of my new projects (architectural photography that might not initially seem like architecture) I got this shot of a wall on Thursday.  I don't know if I can actually add it to the project (it is strange, but I think it is pretty obvious that it is indeed something architectural)  but I really like the angle.

Biggest cage ever

I woke up to the sounds of this happening on the 28th... 

I think they were trying to melt the road.  Is that normal?

I then took some pictures of my wife and her morning tea.

With only window light.  

In the evening we went to what was supposed to be a haunted botanical garden.  It would have been nice if it would have been free.  We stood in the line until finding out it wasn't free.  Then we left.

I absolutely love Halloween...but not enough to pay to walk through a garden with people dressed up in an attempt to appease crying children.

On the way back I was trying some low light shots...

...and ended up with some beautiful bokeh.

We went to Larne yesterday.  In an attempt to get people to use a new train that has just been added, they had a "try the train" day.  We tried it.  A free train trip?  Most definitely!  We got off the train and walked around...rather disappointed.  Larne seemed to be a very boring town.  With horrible crosswalks.  We almost died a few times.  What was strange was that we had looked into the town and found what seemed to be some interesting things.  Apparently they were farther away from the station than we had thought.  We chose a direction and walked that way...hoping it would take us somewhere interesting.

After a few miles we came upon a cute little park.  With a stone on the other side of it.  We made our way to the wall and slipped through a little gate and...

  much better.  We thought there was supposed to be some water around Larne.

We found the coastline path that we had read about.  We headed north on it, hoping to find a tunnel that had seemed rather alluring.

that little hole in the mountain...that's my tunnel!

We found the tunnel just as the rain found us.  We went up to the tunnel, looked around and turned around.  The half hour walk back was not much fun, what with the ocean breeze slamming the rain into our faces and soaking us thoroughly.  We found a little shelter, asked an old couple that was taking refuge there if we could join them, and they told us of a very nice little cafe that would hang our clothes up by the radiator and give us hot soup.  We went there.  The soup was good.  My roasted red pepper and mushroom panini was better.  But they didn't hang up our jackets by a radiator.  

This isn't the cafe.  It's a close up of the tunnel.

Over A Week's Worth

It has been a long time since my last post.  There was a reason why I made a commitment to updating on a daily basis...because I knew if I didn't do it that way, this would happen.  I have an excuse, well...had one....my ability to log onto my blog was based on the decency of the workers at my local coffee shop...I'd buy one cup of horrible coffee and sit there for hours.  Now I have the INTERNETS.  So I may just need to go back to my daily updates.  We shall see what happens.

I'm going to have a hard time remembering the stories and locations that go along with these photos...I shall do my best.

Here we go!

The 6th of October was a pretty boring day.  Nothing special happened.  I know this because I felt like this here photo of a guy looking around on his half constructed building was a good enough photo for the day.  Eh...I actually do like the oranges and greens.  I at least knew that one photo of this caliber wasn't good enough, so yea...there are two pictures of insufficient quality!  The second photo shows a guy with an X on his briefcase.  That is interesting enough...right?

The 7th was a better day.  It started off with me (kind of) surprising my wife by taking her to a lookout that actually extends out of the top of the mall.  It provides a nearly 300 degree view of Belfast and allows a different take on Samson and Goliath, Belfast's massive shipbuilding cranes.  I'm sure I will get up close for a more traditional image of them sooner or later, but for now they act as a good backdrop to the city.

We went for a hike the next day.  As beautiful as it was with red leaves everywhere and broken down stone walls, you'd think I'd remember the name of the place.  I don't.  Again, that is definitely an issue with not updating on the day of these excursions.  In lieu of a name, these pictures will have to do.

There is a wonderful thing called a Full Irish Breakfast.  It is something that my smorgasbord loving Lancaster County friends would be all over.  For my wife and I it is something that, even without the three types of meat it normally has, we could only eat once a month.  Well, we have been here for a month and a half now, so it seemed like we should try to create our own.  It was rather successful and rather delicious, but like before mentioned, it was probably half the amount, at most, that would normally constitute a Full Irish Breakfast.  Normally, one can expect two types of bread (at least), two types of normal breakfast meat (at least), at least one type of the abnormal kind (search black or white pudding), one fried egg (at least), half a fried tomato, mushrooms, and baked beans.  Fairly glorious. There was a tie for the best breakfast item.  It was between my wife's homemade potato bread and Linda McCartney's vegetarian sausage.  Yes, Paul McCartney's wife makes delicious vegetarian sausages.

 

I was taking a walk the following day and came across a building.  I would have passed it by but it had a very strange window.  The window had no glass panel, just some wood work, and when you looked into it, you could see clear out into the sky.  The building looked perfectly normal, but apparently was hollow...or enough of it was hollow for this to be possible.  Also, the inside part of the window had grass growing around it.  This was a third story window.

I found a beautiful fern on the 11th.  It made me hungry for fiddleheads.

I caught my first leaf of Fall on the 12th.  I have been waiting patiently for one to come to me.  I decided this year, even if it meant I didn't get one, that I wasn't chasing after it.  This leaf fell right in front of me, nice and slowly.  It's a rather cute little leaf, no?

Another walk, this time on the 13th, took me to this location.  We walk a lot.  Oh, and though it might look otherwise, this is not a composite image.  Just one single image that reminds me of something out of Mary Poppins.  Minus the tons of telephone wires.

 Guess what...I went for a walk yesterday.  

On the way back to my apartment I had the luxury of walking past a photo shoot that was in the process of being set up.  I stood there patiently, and as the ?dragon and trumpet players? got into position I started shooting with the actual photographer.  No one seemed to mind.  

I then walked past what seemed to be the aftermath of a fire.  A bunch of guys looking tired, leaning against some hedge, with a firetruck in the background.  

 I went to the Belfast loch today.  Just meandered around until it started to rain.  These seagulls were nice enough to fly in a pattern/line that corresponds well with the leading lines in the photo.

This photo, also from today is probably not what you think it is.  Awhile ago I remember reading something about a guy who used landscape techniques to shoot buildings and architecture.  He would shoot up the walls/with the walls as opposed to at them.  This created a very unique and sometimes even futuristic result.  I've been toying with the idea of doing something similar.  My twist would be that the result is indiscernible from a normal everyday perspective...or at least close to it.  I expect slight giveaways, but I hope that I can at least make it difficult to assume that I am shooting straight up building walls.  Here is my first attempt...
The giveaway that this isn't just a normal brick path with glass windows next to it would be the sloping ground.  The slope gives it the appearance of a roof.