Lanky's blog

A new blog from me

Louise — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:49:40 +0000

I’m pretty useless at keeping this blog up to date so I’ve gone and created another one which will involve posting a photo a day hopefully. You can see my efforts at www.golanky.com. I’ll still keep this one going in case I swallow a few dictionaries or have some funny things to say.

Travega @ The Academy

Louise — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:54:51 +0000

I got the opportunity of doing another gig so I jumped at the chance. Travega a band I shot before last year were playing at a charity event at The Academy last night. The lighting wasn’t great. I had to rely on the 580exII quite a bit even though it’s considered a no no where gigs are concerned. There was a pro guy there shooting Travega too so I felt the pressure a small bit. I’m no pro but I felt there was pressure to do better than him! The area that photogs are allowed in in The Academy is crampted. There wasn’t much room to move especially with the security guy and the other photog. The crowd were mega close and by the end I was getting my hair pulled by girls in the crowd. I did get a shot I am happy with though. This is a taster shot as I don’t have time to process them all right now.

Waxwing

Louise — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:40:51 +0000

I rank Waxwings just below Puffins in my list of favourite birds ever. Waxwings are a regular visitor to Ireland but they don’t come in massive numbers. They tend to be found gorging themselves on berry trees around the east coast of Ireland although some are known to be spotted on the west coast. They don’t generally hang around in the same spot for long either so they are difficult enough to spot (unless you want to ring the premium rate bird info lines and re-mortage your house at the expense). I had been keeping an eye on the net for sightings and some Waxwing had been spotted around O Connell street in Dublin during the week. This morning on my way to Bray I decided to walk by where they had been spotted on the off chance of seeing some and low and behold up in the tree beside the Rotunda Hospital beside the Ambassador there were about 30. This is the first time I’ve seen one and they say you never forget your first Waxwing!! Beautiful little birds so they are and such a stroke of luck to have seen them too. I did get some shots, they are all rubbish. I’ll post one just to prove I saw the birds though :)

I’m back

Louise — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:13:30 +0000

It’s been a while but a friend convinced me to post again. I’ve got into birding in a big way as of late as anyone who checks on my flickr will see. It has caused my work colleagues and other friends to think I am a complete weirdo (well more weirder than normal anyways). I’m only at it a few months and still finding my feet. My list (the list of all the birds I’ve seen to date) is short enough so in order to get a new tick (see a bird I haven’t seen before) I went to Dun Laoghaire and Sandycove on St. Stephen’s Day to try and see a Mediterranean Gull. These are scarce enough visitors to Ireland and Sandycove is one of the best places to see these birds in Dublin. In winter they’re very like black headed Gulls to the untrained eye. The way I could tell the difference was the absence of black on the wing tips and the red bill and legs. I only saw one bird very near the 40 foot although there are larger numbers of this bird seen regularly around this area.

Here is a photo of the bird I saw and below is this bird amongst some black headed Gulls.

The one that got away…

Louise — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:49:19 +0000

I headed out to the Bull Wall at high tide today to see what I could get with my current camera setup 40D and 70-200 2.8 with 2xTC and also to see where the birds were at during high tide. It was very rushed. I just happened to look up the net to see what time high tide was. It was 20 minutes away from when I looked. I quickly grabbed the camera bag and jumped in the car. I got down in about 30 minutes. I saw some little egret and grey heron on the right hand side of the causeway road. I think there were some lapwing too. They were far too far away to photograph. I decided I’d walk down along the reserve on the left hand side of the causeway road. Again I saw some little egret, some black tailed Godwit, redshank, curlew and always lots of evil gulls. Everything was too far away to photograph :(. I need to work on my field technique I think. I did get a nice surprise though while scanning the marsh with my binoculars. I spotted a hare a good distance off. I kept watching him and after about 20 minutes he decided to make a run for it. I tried to catch him on camera. Unfortunately the 70-200 with 2x tc is as slow as F*** to auto focus :(. The following are two shots but they are not sharp. If I had had a prime I am sure I could have got a better shot…

I’ve been looking into purchasing a new lens for bird photography. I’ve been reading lens reviews from various internet forums and have cut it down to three options the Canon 100-400L, Canon 400mm f5.6 and Canon 300mm f4 and 1.4TC. I’ve felt the weight off a 500m f4 and it’s way to heavy never mind the very nice price tag that comes attached. I briefly contemplated the 300mm f2.8 for use with my 2xTC. I can’t justify spending that much on a lens at the moment when I don’t even know if bird photography is for me..

Well done parns

Louise — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:21:22 +0000

Got a text from my mate today to tell me she has an easy 5km walk ahead of her tomorrow to finish the Camino de Santiago walk. It’s about 1 million kilometers long.. well 800km to be exact. Some days she had 40km to complete. It got me thinking about my biggest feat of endurance. Coming a close 2nd was the all you can eat sushi night on Parns’ last weekend in Dublin. Team Louise won that challenge and I couldn’t eat for the next day due to all the sushi consumed. Coming in 1st place for me was the Tongariro Crossing this year. At a mere 18.5km it’s no Camino de Santiago but it felt like 800km when I had finished it. I went back over my photos from the walk and processed two I didn’t do before. It brought back some good if not painful memories.. Well done parns and see you soon..

Dublin Zoo

Louise — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 13:14:46 +0000

The boards.ie lads had organised a trip to the zoo. I turned up late after my morning of wrestling a dog (yes I won but my car smells of dog now). I have been extremely lazy with the camera lately. Not sure why, but I thought a trip to the zoo would give me an excuse to take some shots. I’ve gotten interested in bird photography lately. Probably since my trip to the Saltees this year. I was actually looking forward to going to the zoo to see the grey herons that setup camp near the sea lions exclosure. I ended up taking the most shots of them. I’d say people thought I was a complete loon. They are correct in thinking that. It’s rare you can get so close to these birds and I was enjoying shooting them at such a close distance and seeing them cleaning their feathers etc. One of my fav shots of the day is of a squirrel. It’s not a special type of squirrel, just a normal grey one who happened to be sitting on a fence as I walked by. I had the 70-200 2.8 and I love the bokeh from it. Here are some of the heron shots and the squirrel shot and my favourite “zoo” animal shot.

Counting Crows - Ambassador Dublin

Louise — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:35:35 +0000

Managed to pick up a ticket to see the Counting Crows in the Ambassador last night hours before the show. Got the ticket on the ticketmaster website even though the gig was listed as sold out. Goes to show you should keep checking the day of the gig.
I was so excited and told a friend to was informed Counting Crows were a rubbish band for girls. Thankfully I didn’t believe him about the rubbish part. I don’t care about the girls bit. Adam and the band came out at 9pm and launched into the weirdest song to open a gig ever. A slow song off the new album (When I dream of Michelangelo). They played from the new album for most of the night. I haven’t warmed to the new album as easily as I have to others. They played (i think) in no particular order

Hanging Tree
Los Angeles
Sundays
Insignificant
Cowboys
Washington Square (big cheers at the ireland references!)
When I dream of Michelangelo
Anyone but you
Come Around
Mr Jones
Goodnight LA
Round Here
A long december
Catapult
Children in Bloom
Hard Candy
Good Time
Black And Blue
Colorblind
High Life
Hanginaround
Big Yellow Taxi
On a Tuesday in amsterdam Long Ago (more big cheers at the ireland references!)
Holiday in Spain

It was a good mix of old and new. Adam said at the start he wasn’t going to talk much that he was going to cram as many songs in as possible. They played for over 2 hours. I was over the moon they played Colorblind and Children in Bloom and the very last song was Holiday in Spain :D. They couldn’t have picked a better song to end it on. They’re playing the festivals for the summer but promised they’d be back in Dublin before the end of the year. I’d love to get a photo pass to this. I’m going to have to put my thinking cap on.

Rip off Ireland - Dicey Reillys

Louise — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:25:33 +0000

We had a work night out last night in Dicey Reillys on Harcourt street. They have a summer BBQ and they offer different BBQ menus depending on the companies budget. It all went wrong yesterday afternoon when our S&S rep got a call from someone in Dicey Reillys to say the seating area we had originally reserved had been downgraded to another spot in the pub due to a bigger group booking in. Our Rep had asked for us to be seated at the large Bay window at the back. We got demoted to a stupid strip of seats across from the bar while ‘The bigger group’ got the nice bay window area! The bigger group incidently were leaving the bay window area at 8pm to go to a casino night somewhere else in the hotel and we were told we could move in to the bay area after them. They’re very nice altogether the staff at Dicey Reillys!!!

The BBQ food came around 7pm ish. When I say BBQ food, I’m not sure the food ever saw a BBQ (even from a distance). It consisted of a burger, one chicken drumstick and one pork rib, a “backed” potato and an excuse of a salad. Yes the token said “backed”. We were correct in assuming it was a baked potato :). This was 15Euro per head. A bit excessive if you ask me!!

When the S&S budget for drinks ran out we had to buy the drink ourselves. This is where the fun started. While the S&S club were buying the drinks the bottles of beer were five Euro, a pint was somewhere around five Euro too. When we went to the bar after 8pm the drinks had gone up to 5.90 for a bottle of Heineken, 6Euro for a pint of Heineken and 5.80 for a pint of Guinness. They put the prices up from 8pm!! A colleague had two pints of flat Beer served to him and had to return both and settle on a bottle. For 6Euro a pint you’d expect a pretty nice pint I would have thought.

I wouldn’t have gone there normally and I won’t be going back there any time soon. You can go there if you would like to be robbed completely blind!!!

The Sally Gap

Louise — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:27:11 +0000

While everyone was at Merrion Square at the Street Performance World Championship I hit the road and went looking for two trees I saw in a photo from one of my flickr contacts. Yes it was mad. Finsing two particular trees somewhere up the wicklow mountains makes me sound mad as a brush but I did actually find them. They’re at a place called the Sally Gap. Very close to the source of the liffey and Kippure. I had just purchased a new Manfrotto tripod that morning and was excited about trying it out. I opted for IR shots only. The weather wasn’t exactly ideal but I took some shots anyways. Here is one from the afternoon. Not of the two trees mentioned but a different two trees.