Water, Stone, Light, Discover Kerry!

Our Coastline in Ireland is full of interesting places. If you
walk around near the sea, you´ll find all kind of micro landscapes with wonderful simplistic settings. A few stones, a rock that was softened from the waves and those roundish stones everywhere,  will get you great photos. You will discover that arranging and organising the different shapes and colour or greyscales in your frame is an easy way to learn composing your images. I have noticed that a lot of photographers forget to turn the camera for a portrait shaped photo but it is actually the easiest way to create something completely different. The options are endless, I´ve reduced the 30 photos of my selection to those 13, all photos were taken in a space of about 5 m² near Whitestrand, Over the Water, Cahersiveen with a Canon 5d, 50mm macro and 17-40 lens, with Polarizer Filter. Tripod mounted.
Be careful, the ground is uneven and if wet very slippery!

Carrauntoohill, County Kerry the highest peak in Ireland

Carrauntoohil or Carrantuohill^[2] ( /ˌkærənˈtuːl/ —   from Irish: Corrán Tuathail)^[1] is the highest peak in Ireland. Located in County Kerry, it is 1,038 metres (3,406 ft)^[3] tall and is the central peak of the Macgillycuddy's Reeks range. There are two other peaks in this range that are above 1,000 m—Beenkeragh (1,010 m) and Caher (1,001 m). The peak of Carrauntoohil is topped by a large metal cross 5 metres (16 ft) tall.

 I went there yesterday with my big tripod, Canon 5d, the lot, in the company of Tatjana and Christian. I did´nt how the photos would look like, but one thing was sure for me from the moment I started climbing; they would be black and white. Most photos were taken with the 50mm macro lens, a lens that I use a lot for landscape, until I´m rich one day and can afford a 50mm Zeiss lens. Enjoy!

p.s. I did not go the Devils Ladder, went from Lough Acoose instead, much more fun.

How to make a virtual photo book

Here is a new version of how to make an e- book with your photos, written by Eva for her Digital Photography Course project, which you can actually download on issuu if you want to.
Since we wrote the article of how to publish your photos with issuu.com they have changed what type of files you can upload. So, on top of pdf files you can now upload word documents and powerpoint presentations (not only by Microsoft but OpenOffice as well).
The powerpoint presentation is a relatively fast way to organise your photos in a book compared to putting your photos on any  background in Photoshop.
Still faster and easier is to use the SLIDESHOW MODUL in Lightroom if you have that program.
 (I will write about that soon.)

One of the things you need to consider is the size of your photos plus background. The first e- books I made were the ones about the Skelligs and although it is nice to be able to see them big and in a good resolution it takes too much time for the pages to open. When I look at the statistics about how often the single pages in a book were looked at, the numbers decrease with pages further into the book which I think has to do with the slow opening and not the quality of the photos I hope.

Open publication - Free publishing - More e-book

Waterville Beach and Blue Hour

The South Kerry Camera Club went to Waterville tonight. A calm evening, a slight haze over the sea and a bit fog on the hills. Ideal conditions for all kind of different photos. Left from us were two surfer in the water and while I was standing near the sea an otter passed by, making a noise like a bird. Waterville is hosting a Comidy Film Festival in August because of Charlie Chaplin, who used to spend his holidays here.
The camera was on the tripod, shutterspeed over one minute, I´ve used a ND8 filter for some shots. The blue hour photos were only slightly darkened in Lightroom, no colour change.

Blue of the Night is a wonderful radio show on Lyric fm, starting at 10pm every night until 1 in the morning.   http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/blue/