Christ what a trip!!! (Not the drugs kind)

Whoa...where to start!! Well first of a big thanks to Ste for his usual organisational genius. Everything went of without a hitch, no fuck ups whatsoever.

So On Monday 19th I set of for Zurich for a nice relaxing break for the week. How wrong was I! On arrival it was straight to the imagine bar which serves ice cold Heineken. Its very tasty. Also being able to smoke in the bars there is like a dream come true so I should have seen this as a sign of what was to come. I had arranged to meet a friend that evening in Lucerne and arrived already pretty drunk which was not a good thing as I wanted to make a good impression, not your usual drunken Irish impression. Ah well we learn from our mistakes. Next evening found us having a beautiful meal and chilling with some drinks so I guess was really the quietest night of the week.

Next it was of to Austria by train from Zurich. This is by far and away the best way to travel. No cramped leg space, nice food, drink and beautiful scenery passing you by. We arrived at our hotel the Gridlon hotel. Family run and absolutely fantastic. We were on half board so got an excellent meal every morning and night and if you ever go that way I would highly recommend a stay there.

So Thursday morning saw us hitting the slopes.......literally. Well in fairness Ste and Baz can ski so it was really only Elaine and myself who struggled. Damn skiing is a bitch. Your natural tendencies are fecked out the window and with massive boots on it was not long before the hurt set in. Well I was eager so went of with Ste and Baz to show off my skills on the kiddy slopes. Ski gear and skiing makes me look weird hence no pics of me. So exhausted by 2:00 I headed back for a steam and sauna to clear some of the aches and pains.

On Friday the two boys took me up higher on the mountain and this was grand until I had to get back down. It was a blue run which is an easy one but by christ the fear hit me hard. Once I saw an edge I froze and could only ski in the opposite direction. which is not a good thing as you move forward at about 2cm a minute. I fell about 25 times and got really pissed off and just wanted to be down and drinking a hot chocolate smoking a fag. So I realised I needed a bit more training before attempting that again.

Saturday much the same with me sticking to the kiddy slopes again and the guys off skiing for miles on end. By this time Christina and Morgan had joined us so we arranged to meet in the mooservirt bar at 3:00 for apres ski. Well you know the movies, people chilling to a nice drink after a ski........It was mental. I got stociously drunk and had to get Baz to carry my skis down the mountain while I slid down on my arse.

I took a break from skiing on Sunday as I was bolloxed tired and had a drive around the mountains with Morgan and Elaine. I am usually pretty bored with this kind of thing but the scenery was amazing. So that about wrapped up the trip. Just a nice train journey home and then we got to meet Ash and Peggy who are friends who used to live here in Dublin and so got a bit pissed again.

All in all a fantastic trip and I would highly recommend a similar trip to anyone up for a good time. Problem is that I need a break to get over this one....

Holiday!!

Well the sun is shining and all is well in the world! Well it was snowing today but in my head its sunny as I am off on a weeks holidays! I am off to Switzerland again and then skiing in Austria.

So I will more than likely be a lazy git and not post for the next week.

Feel free to leave any comments about the site or about anything you would like to see included in the future.

Have fun!

Tagged by Sandy....Damn.

Ok so Sandy has ever so kindly *Cough*, tagged me into this silly bloody tell the world five things about yourself that they would not already know. Now normally I would not bother my arse but 1) I had no post for today prepared and 2) She did such a good and honest job herself that I said I would give it a bash. The picture is one taken of me by the bro a while ago. I am such a robbin bastard :)

1. I have different personalities at home and work. In work I am an organisational freak and get stressed and annoyed when things are not perfect. At home I couldn't give a fuck.
2. I hate tomatoes and peppers. Love tomato sauce, bolognese sauce and the flavour of peppers in food once I cant see the actual pepper. It was the same for mushrooms but I am getting better with them.
3. I have strange sleeping habits. I sleep on my back either with my hands behind my head or straight by my side. Apparently I point at things, sit up, talk and raise parts of my body for no apparent reason for minutes on end while I am asleep.
4. I fantasize about being able to stop time except for me and be able to do all sorts of things, like steal cars, sleep for 4 days straight, move people around so they go insane when I start time again and generally just have a laugh. Also that I can touch people and start them up again so I wont be too bored.
5. I love to love but probably do so too easily. Oh and I love porn.

Damn Sandy was right, this was a pain in the arse. There are so many things to say! At the same time when you start thinking about what to write its suddenly the hardest thing in the world. Its not like you are saying these things to a partner or a mate. Who knows who the fuck could read this. However I would recommend anyone to try it. It is quite enlightening. I am going to tag Caitriona, Fustar and Iced Coffee, see if they have the balls to do it. Hopefully Caitriona can get Aonghus to try as well.

Ok so now I have a question for Sandy. As I have answered this question what do I get. Is it that something good will happen in the next few days? Will I meet a nice girl? Will I come into money? You know the way there is always something when you do these!

Dawn Pappawazzi.........

So I went to see my little God daughter last night and she was in great form. As I am now carrying my trusty crappy camera around with me I decided to get a more up to date picture of her for a post.

Well Diva does not even begin to describe!!!! So there she was just chillin out sitting on her Daddy's knee. I pull out my little camera and she goes mental! By all accounts, as her Dad takes so many pictures she is all about the cameras. So I am snapping away with her playing little Miss Grabby Mc Grabgrab. This is about the best shot I could manage......It really did put me in mind of those celebs who go ape shit about getting their pictures taken. I am also glad to see that I caught my brothers chin in the top right corner of the pic.

I did nothing to this pic as I was feeling too lazy. just a snap and go jobby. This using no flash is getting much softer and more pleasant pictures, albeit a teeny bit blurry. I had to use the hunker down position yet again......My brother slagged me. I reckon that is just jealousy at the fact that I am getting better picture results out of my crap camera in comparison to his Canon EOS 350d.

So at Christmas they dressed her as Santa. I wonder what embarrassing outfit they have in mind for Paddy's day?

Today I was stuck for an age in traffic coming home from work. Guess why? Some idiot blocked a lane on the Bridge over the Liffey from Phibsboro to Christchurch. This road is a nightmare at the best of times so this was just shocking. So to whoever that was I must stand up and applaud you. Tosser.

Razor

"The bar of light through the drawn curtains of the pokey apartment glinted gently of the young mans (I am taking license, so feck off) electric razor"

This razor has had a life I tell you! Its blades have never been changed because you pay as much for a new one as you do for the replacement blades. Load of crap in my opinion and as it is not a good value purchase I wont do it (Like buying a house). So instead I just drag this thing across my face for hours on end trying to remove what little stubble I get on my face. There is a story for this razor though. I brought this with me to Brazil the first time I went and somehow managed to leave it behind. I was very pissed off when I got home and discovered I had to subjugate myself to the "BLADE", I hate them, yes they give a better shave but they also take up too much damn time.

About a year and a half later I went back to Brazil and believe it or not was reunited with my precious phillishave!! Well by this time my razor was fluent in Portuguese and had a really good tan but I managed to snap him out of being a Carioca and we are still best friends (He forgave my carelessness eventually)

Well I tell you what, I am starting to get an idea of the difficulty photobloggers have to go through to get a decent picture. I am your average one snap, happy chap kind of photographer but this one annoyed the hell out of me. I took 15......YES 15 pictures of this and could only use one!! With the flash it looked weird as hell and you could damage your eyes looking at it. So I used no flash, and again the little flower button! I think the flower button focuses on one part of the picture only and gets that really sharp and the rest goes blurry. When you use the flower button you cant use the zoom so have to go really close. Also if you are not really steady of hand it looks crap. So I held my breath and tried not to move. Seemed to work out ok. In photoshop I created a duplicate layer and gave the original an overlay to darken it a bit. So I learnt something new! How cool is that! I promise I will sometime venture outdoors to take a picture but so far I just couldn't be arsed.

Scuff Kote.

I have a question about Scuff Kote. When you are using it are you cleaning your shoes or just covering up the dirt? Think about it. You have dirty shoes and you squeeze out some gloopy black stuff and cover you shoes in it. What happens to the dirt?

So this pic was interesting to take! I put the bottle down on a piece of white A4 paper and went click. Plastic comes up nicely though. A nice shine! So I used that flower button again and would appreciate it if someone told me what the hell it means. I really need to start taking pictures where I am standing up. I am getting a sore back from hunkering so much.

Again the picture had to be played with in photoshop but only for cropping and levels. I am going to try to learn what else photoshop can do because there are loads of options that I have never even looked at. I had my aperture set at whatever it is normally set at, I think. I forgot to use zoom hence the hunkering.

On another note I am looking for a new apartment and will be moving at the start of April. I am getting pissed off though. So I am looking online everyday and the problem is that everything is available immediately and not in a couple of weeks time. So what the hell??? Does no one give a months notice anymore?? Everyone just decides to move and legs it?? So I am in a situation where I cant start looking until closer to the time and by the law of the magical Murphy when it is time for me to go there will probably be feck all available. I feckin hate moving.

Eh, a guitar??

Oh my god.........I enjoy going out but man do I hate the day after. Especially when you have to work early in the morning. Those jagerbomber things are an evil that has been unleashed on this world and should be avoided at all costs. It was one of those evenings where I even danced.......Oh god the flashbacks. I was sure I must have looked really cool. What is it about drinking that makes you do things that you wouldn't dream about sober. I even get extra careful when I am drinking because I am aware of the inherent risks involved with drinking and doing stupid stuff. I remember thinking "Ok don't start dancing" and next thing I know I am bopping away like a moron. Met some lovely people from Sweden who stayed with us for the night. I can only imagine the impression my friends and I left with them. Although I did get a thank you for the great night text today which was weird. So the moral is this. Don't go get drunk as fuck if you are working the next day. It is just not worth it........

So with my brain feeling like gloop I have feck all to write about the above picture.

I own this guitar and have had it for ages. I like listening to music and often daydream about being a superstar. Problem is I cant play the thing for love nor money. I suppose I could learn but am a lazy Irishman. So it just sits there in its corner and is a pain in the ass to dust.

I picked up my camera and took the shot in 3 seconds. Greyscaled it and hey presto a picture of a guitar. Whoopede dooda. Its amazing how, as a professional photographer, I still managed to take a perfect picture with my head stuck halfway up my own arse. Some of you photobloggers should take note of this achievement and set yourselves the goal of being just as good. Ha!

So which one is mightier??

So its a question that has been asked throughout the ages. A question which requires hours of quiet contemplation. The answer is not an easy one to come by. It depends on the context of when the question is being asked. If we asked the question in medieval times we would have an obvious answer. The sword. But in today's society what is the correct answer?

I pondered this as I sat watching the beautiful Carol Vorderman attempt to inject humour into the mundanity that is Countdown. Ever since the demise of the fantastic Richard Whiteley it is just not the same. So anyway, looking at all the letters and numbers I was struck by how much one can do these days through the use of knowledge and intelligence. So in essence the answer for today's society would obviously be the pen.

However I then proceeded to bring this question down to its base level.

If some bugger comes running at me in a dark alley with a pen raised threateningly towards me, I would probably raise an eyebrow and ask him whats wrong. If the same bugger came running at me with a big pointy sword I would make a dark stain in my jeans and leg it.......

So realistically the answer is wholly dependant on the situation at hand.

Now I actually spent more than thirty seconds on this shot!! First it was hard to fit a teeny pen in a pic with a sword. Then the flash was again too bright. I pressed a little flower button on the camera that did something but I am not sure what. I then pressed another button that gave me an S and a lightning bolt that seemed to do the trick. Again I was in a hunker down position with the camera at a slight downward angle. Imagine if I had a real camera.......I would be so fecked. I of course photoshopped the picture but only a little bit. I cropped it and used a few auto level and auto contrast things that didn't really do much. I then used "save for web" instead of the normal save and it uploaded way faster. Thanx John!!

The Spooky Candle.

Well I took this picture today because I have run out of old stuff to throw up here. Yes all of two pictures.......I lit a candle and put it on my seat so it would have a nice black background. I started snapping away trying to stop my hand from shaking after way too many coffees today.

Once I got them onto the PC I started going through them to see if any looked decent enough to put online. I have my professional photographer rep to look after you know. Imagine how startled I was when I reached the last picture!! There in the flame was an image! In no way shape or form something chucked into the flame through the use of photoshop! Wow!

So what did my camera see you might ask? Well I will let you work that out for yourselves.

There was cloud cover in my sitting room so the shot was made all the more difficult. I tried using the flash but it was too bright so had to wait for the cloud to disperse before snapping. As the pic was taken on my seat I had to use a hunker down position to get a straight on view. I had my camera set to no flash and a bit of zoom but not all the way. It was a lucky shot because it was soon after that it started raining.

On another note I just want to whinge about traffic in Dublin. Whinge. Feckin eejits all over the place with no idea how to drive. Pisses me right off spending an hour in the car for a 30min journey. "Oh maybe if I indicate this way, then that way, I will be quicker. Oops I made a mistake and am now stuck blocking 17000 cars, 2 buses and 1400 trucks". Tossers. I reckon if they retested everyone who has a full a license our traffic problems would be solved.....

Ahhhhh family...........

Well it seems to be a generally accepted fact that professional photographers are always popping a few random family shots into their blogs. So what the hell!!! This is an old one of my little god daughter Rebecca.....Awwwww. She was wearing a Santa suit (because you can be cruel to children at that age) and it was her first Christmas. There was joy in the air as the sounds of gurgling and random baby farts permeated around the house. After so long with just us older family members she was the main focus of everyone.

Now as a professional photographer I obviously had my camera with me and set out to capture this precious moment. It was all set up. Baby on mum's lap, ripping the paper from her presents and no smoke in the room as we cant smoke around the baby (hmmm she should have been called pub).

And what happens! The "parents", wanting to have pictures to embarrass their daughter with later on in life, never wiped the poor things mouth. Good going, way to ruin the perfect picture. It looks like a damn boil for gods sake! But anyway, nobody said pictures had to be perfect. It is just an unwritten rule.

I took this picture while sitting down. Photoshopped it grey because everyone else does this the odd time. I was going to add a few touches to make Rebecca look like Satan instead of Santa but realised that it would mean I would not get fed by John and Paula when I call out to them anymore.

The plug of enlightenment.............

Well I decided to get started before I am offline so that I have something to come back to. Otherwise Irishman laziness will set in and I just wont bother. So here we go. The first high def pic from a mind of an idiot.....................



So there I was having a smoke outside the back of an old building in Dublin. The air was chill and an atmosphere of quiet unease was settling on the tree limbs above my head. "Look down, look down" they seemed to whisper. So I looked down only to discover what you can see above. Through happenstance I for some strange reason had my camera with me. Photos happen. They are random captures, never preplanned, preplaced, prepared sets. *Cough*. So with my trusty Fuji Finepix F401 in hand I endeavoured to capture this moment.

What did it mean?? Was it the fall of technology in the ever changing mind of man? Who has become ever more focused on improving both self and mother earth. Was it the rise of technology? Technology having developed beyond the need for plugs. I felt sorry for this plug. What had it ever done wrong to be thrown aside like a copy of the sun newspaper.

I delved deep into my soul and searched for an answer. The wind through the trees above were still whispering. But now it sounded like "phOOOOOooooooooooooo, PhoooOOoooooooOOOOoo". Yet this was it. The wind was giving me the answer I sought.

It was a plug.

So for anyone who is interested, I had the camera on a bit of zoom, no idea what aperture means, I think I used the on board flash, I was slightly crouched towards the ground and I cant remember taking the picture but think I had the camera pointed slightly downwards but pretty straight. Oh and then I photoshopped the shit out of it cos it was too bright.

By the way check out this site kind-i-like it is great fun, hours of entertainment and makes you see not real people everywhere

Irish Blog Awards..... a surprisingly fun experience.

Wow! I was given the chance to go to the awards on Saturday night with my brother and his missus. His photoblog mcawilliams was nominated for the best photoblog along with some very stiff competition

• Caitriona.net
• Gingerpixel
• Headphoneland
• Ireland from a Polish perspective
• McAWilliams
• North Atlantic Skyline
• RedMum
• Rymus.net

So as an extremely amateur blogger I was pretty unsure of what I would find at this event. Would it be full of really geeky people who would talk about stuff I had no idea about?? Would it be a very close knit community who would stare at newcomers and pull out banjos??

Well the answer in short is that it was neither of the above. It was a great night! Plenty of beer was drunk and the awards themselves were quick and fun with no poncing about involved. There was however some strange convoluted dance moves going on later in the evening......but the less said about this the better.

So what did I learn? Well I had no real idea just how much work these bloggers put into their sites. It really does put a person to shame when you think of the thought, time and effort involved. I am more the 30mins a month kinda blogger. Although it has made me revisit this site for the first time in ages. Special mention here for new sites discovered Fustar, Twenty Major and Iced coffee. Don't miss fustars Manky Toy Monday.

So I do intend to blog a bit more cos it is really good fun. But what can you expect? Well I have been thinking about it and I think having looked at a lot of photoblogs recently I would like to do something along those lines. Photographers have certain ways of describing things and talk a lot about light, angles, verticals, apertures etc etc etc. Well I know bugger all about that stuff so I will be posting pictures that I think are artistic..........I will use artistic speak and basically poke a bit of fun at photographers in general. Please believe me when I say I admire these guys a lot and am amazed at the kind of images they can produce, but hey, what's wrong with the common mans interpretations of the normal and bizarre. So in closing, I have to move house soon so will be away for a while but hope to come back with a bang soon.