A cold April evening:
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Sadness is… totally inappropriate planning (Ireland’s tallest building)
So I bought the Rymus 20D, and have taken a few photos to try her out.
As always, Puds makes a good subject.
Chilling out:
I hope the weather is horrible in Ireland. :-)
On hols in Dubrovnik. Posting will be even less likely.
This is extremely similar to the view I had of what remained of the WTC when I visited New York in late September 2001. It was of staggering proportions.
Strangely, photos like this make the terrorism that happened in New York seem more real to me than the ones we are used to. This appears to be a chair that hit a BMW after the planes hit the WTC.
Amazing.
Fantastic photo from Donncha who’s on holliers in San Francisco…
Almost exactly the shape of the X-men symbol!
Ryan has posted some great pics recently, including these ones of the hunt and wren boys in Carrigaline, and some taken on New Year’s Day. Great stuff as ever.
All of these were taken on Christmas Eve, except the Emirates Towers ones.
Sheikh Zayed Road from the Skyview Bar in the Burj.
Palm Island from the Skyview Bar.
Palm Island at sunset.
A lamborghini outside the Burj, don’t like the colour though.
Burj and the sky.
Helipad and sky.
A Rolls.
The Burj from the Madinat Jumeirah.
The Burj at night from the Madinat.
At night again, different aspect.
Different colour Burj.
The Amphitheater in the Madinat, Burj as backdrop.
Emirates Towers, Christmas morning.
Emirates Tower, edge-on, Christmas morning.
Always interesting to find a headstone with one’s family name on it.
Or this holy well beside the beach, with trinkets and beads tied to the holly bush above it. One note put there with a 2p piece on it had a wish from children asking St Finian if they could fly someday. Maybe I should have put a wish to win €112 million in the Lotto.
I’ve uploaded some photos I took in London to Flickr.
Rannie’s latest photos are just completely amazing. Oh when will I be able to take photos like that?
This earlier one is a picture of a snowy tundra, yet looks like a scene from hell. Cold and hot at the same time. Keep it up Rannie!
I was struck by this photo, one I don’t remember seeing before. I am always struck by photos of this nature, I think because this happened in ‘modern’ times it makes it more real. But photos from the First or Second World Wars also show people who are about to die, and you know they are about to. I think the ‘immediacy’ of older photos is lost, but they are essentially showing the same subject - inevitable death. And death does come to us all eventually.
Perhaps photos like this remind me of my own mortality, and I know when I look at this photo that hundreds of people were alive when it was taken, but moments later were dead. I think the space between the plane and the building demonstrates how short life can be, how little time we have here, and how precious each moment is. So I do not think this photo morbid, instead it gives me solice, and makes me reflect on my own life and how I treat people as I go through it.
Just posted some more photos to flickr, if anyone is interested!
New Irish blog with a hilarious and great set of photos….only in Ireland indeed.
Ireland may be the nicest place to live in the world according to recent reports - but since May 1st a veritable deluge of people have arrived from Eastern Europe. Polish registered cars now seem to be the most common non-Irish car on the roads. The numbers coming to Ireland seem to mainly come from Poland - with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia following behind.
And they come to work - and the Irish economy seems to be handling it all quite well. I have already started learning some Polish and Russian. It might come in handy.
Here is a photo of how much Ireland has changed since May 1st - and I think changing for the better.
Baltimore is the town in West Cork - at the very south west tip of Ireland. If you keep going from here you end up in Canada. It has become very popular for building holiday homes as this photo shows.
The weather isn’t great in the winter either.
I went to the Madinat hotel the other night, after my few hours inside the Burj al Arab. The Madinat is actually 3 hotels, interlinked by a network of canals. Boats take guests to restaurants, bars and shops in the hotel. It is unique as far as I can tell.
Here is the Burj at night, taken from inside the Madinat hotel.
Here is a view of the massive Madinat complex, taken from the SkyView Bar inside the Burj.
Here is the Jumeirah complex view from the SkyView Bar.
Of course being an Arab country, there are mosques everywhere, this is the rather nice one on Jumeirah Road. And in case you are curious about the wealth of this country, just outside the picture was parked two Porsche Cayenne Turbo SUV’s, one black and one white, and an Escalade had just driven by two minutes before. Oh and a nice red Ferrari, what looked like a 360 Modena, sped by just before as well.
This is one of the many beaches in Dubai, but one of the public ones. Many of the hotels own private beaches where you pay for entry etc.
You can get a lovely view of the skyscrapers on Sheikh Zayed Road from the beach.
Sheikh Zayed Road view from beach
Here are the lovely clear, and very warm waters of the Persian Gulf:
John Kushiner left a comment wondering how far 100 dirhams will go in Dubai. Things like restaurants and food are much cheaper here than in Ireland. ‘Sin’ goods like alcohol and pork seem to have taxes added on, while most other things are tax free. There are also no income taxes here.
Money goes much further here than at home - taxis are extremely cheap, clean and usually have friendly drivers. Though if they know you are new to the city they will drive the longest way possible to your destination, though I guess the same goes for most cities. A bottle of water will set you back about 20 cents, which is a great deal cheaper than Ireland. One would think water in Ireland would be cheaper than in a desert kingdom, perhaps the economist readers can enlighten me on that one?
I took a picture of a price list at the Lebanese bakery I was at last night (quite drunk I was too). This was a fast food place so it is pretty cheap, but some of the higher class restaurants are still reasonable, in many of the 4/5 star hotels a nice meal would set you back about 50 - 70 dirhams, which is alot cheaper than Ireland.
I tried some longer exposure night photos (without tripod), its hit and miss really. This one turned out reasonably well.
I spent the day at the Wild Wadi waterpark beside the Burj Al Arab yesterday. I managed to take a rather nice sunset picture from the top of the “Jumeriah Sceriah” waterslide. It’s a 4 storey high waterslide. And its pretty scary too.
Oh and I will be going for afternoon tea at the Burj later in the week. Hehe.
For those of you curious about Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, the local currency is the Dirham. At current exchange rates 100 Dirhams is worth about 22 euros/20 US dollars. Here is a photo of some of the currency:
The massive archway on Sheikh Zayed road is taking shape, here is a photo of the Financial Services Center, side view. (165k)
Well I made it to Dubai last night, here is a rather bad night picture of Sheikh Zayed Road. Yes I did have a few pints on me at the time. And bleedin hell its hot. I got a taxi last night with some Syrian guy, we drove past the American Hospital, and I half jokingly said that Osama Bin Laden had stayed there at some point before September 11. (Conspiracy theory alert). The friendly Syrian taxi driver was not sure whether to believe me, but then I said he had definately stayed there. And the Syrians reply? ”Allah akhbar, allah akhbar Osama bin Laden good man.”
I quite like this lake up in the Knockmealdown mountains, it is a pretty peaceful place. And I really like how these pictures are turning out. Apologies to those on dial-up, this picture is 250k in size.
Ladder and rope in back garden
The famous steeple:
A test close up shot:
My new Nikon 4300 arrived today, and I have been testing it out. I am really very happy with it, simple to use and good quality pictures. I will post some pics I took.
Spectacular photos of Phoebe are coming from Cassini. Lots more to look forward to in the coming years. I especially look forward to more Titan photos.
Rannie, a photo blogger I met up with in Toronto, has posted another picture of me over on his blog. God that spot on my face looks awful hehe. I hope you are well Rannie!
Chris has been posting some very nice photos from his travels in Ireland - shame I couldn’t meet up with him on this occassion, but definately next time.
Halifax town hall, it was the only nice day while I was there!
Rannie and J at a nice meal we had in Toronto
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The nice bloggers from Toronto pose for a photo…
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Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see anything from the top, so I did not venture up.
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An amazing picture. From another planet, viewing our own humble abode, and including the horizon of Mars. Unprecedented in the history of humanity.
Cassini is fast approaching Saturn, due to arrive in June. This photo was taken from a distance of 69.4 million kilometers. Some good science coming up in the Summer!
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I’ve heard that the island has sunk by 1 metre so far - many Irish people, and celebrity football stars, have purchased houses on this artificial island.
A kangaroo with a kid in its pouch at Fota Wildlife Park, Cobh, Co.Cork.
I have posted some digital pictures taken in Kyoto, Japan. They are quite high resolution - take a look here.
Emirates Towers, two of the top ten tallest buildings in the world.
Abu Dhabi at sunset.
From the apartment I stayed in.
A cheetah in Fota Wildlife Park, Cork.
Getting stuck in the sand dunes near Dubai.
One of the most expensive hotels in the world, taken from the top of the massive water slide in the Wild Wadi waterpark next door.
Westminster Abbey, with a tree in the foreground. Heavy rain.
