I meant to take a little break, but then I blinked and two months had zipped by. I’m still here, just enjoying the summer. We’ve been doing a lot of fun things and I’ve taken lots of photos. Now that I’ve broken the blank post ice I will be blogging again very soon.

I didn’t take many photos at Sabrina’s fabulous Ladie’s Tea Party, mainly because I was too busy chatting but there were yummy cakes that just had to be photographed. The cupcakes were at least as yummy as they looked and were made by the very talented Jo, and the brownies were courtesy of Niall Harbison. They were so chocolatey even a confirmed chocoholic like myself was defeated after a couple of bites. Yum!

But this lady is so popular we even had gatecrashers clamouring to see her:

Ben and Peter arrived to receive their ToyBoy badges:

I think this is a first…Peter Donegan rendered speechless:

There’s a few more to be seen on Flickr.

Canon 5DII, 28mm, f1.8, 1/160, ISO 800

I know, I know, I’ve totally missed the boat on posting photos from the Blog Awards weekend down in Cork. It was such a brilliant weekend but when I got back I stepped right back into a mountain of work that has had me a bit overwhelmed for the past few weeks. I didn’t even have a chance to look at the photos I took until last night. This post has some of the photographs taken on the photowalk around Cork the afternoon of the awards. We started out at the English Market…

Canon 5DII, 28mm, f4, 1/500, ISO 800

Canon 5DII, 28mm, f2, 1/200, ISO 800

From there we walked across the river to Shandon Bell Tower…

Canon 5DII, 17mm, f5.6, 1/400, ISO 200

Canon 5DII, 17mm, f5.6, 1/320, ISO 200

Canon 5DII, 40mm, f5.6, 1/800, ISO 200

Canon 5DII, 50mm, f4, 1/640, ISO 200

I take a walk around Greystones most days, it’s about 3 miles long and it’s the perfect head-clearer. Most of the time I’m working from home, sitting at my desk so it’s good to get outside and away from emails and just enjoy the scenery. I don’t usually take my camera with me on my walk but it’s like I have a little camera in my head nowadays. I hope this doesn’t sound pompous, I think it’s like when I used to play Tetris all the time and I’d start to play it with shapes on the road and couldn’t get it out of my head (not safe while driving!).

Today, I set myself a little project – with just one lens (a 50mm) to try and take some of those photos that I see in my head everyday. I thought it would be a document of my walk but I went exploring in a ruined house along the way and before I knew it an hour had gone by but I was still only 5 minutes from home. Good thing is I now have a store of photos to last me the rest of the week.

In other news, I’m chuffed that Gingerpixel has made it to the fnal round of this year’s Blog Awards. Matt and I will be heading down to Cork on Friday for a weekend of geekery and laughs. If you’re going to be there and we haven’t met, say Hi…I’m a bit shy so I’ll be the one hiding behind my camera

*Edited to add some link love. These are my fellow nominees in the Best Photoblog category which is sponsored by Pix.ie, all brilliant and if you don’t already read them regularly, get to it!

redmum
inphotos
glasseyalley
darrengreene
icedcoffee

Canon 5D, 28mm, f/2, 1/80, ISO 400

A favourite from a wedding I’ve been meaning to post for ages. This is Joy (and she really lives up to her name) being helped into her dress by her Mum and her sisters. I was laughing so much it was hard to hold the camera still, it was such a fun wedding.

This is also the photograph I sent in as my submission to the excellent Homepages project by Catherine Brodigan (which is still on sale from Lulu.com if you want to nab a copy).

Why is it whenever I sit down to do a couple of small tweaks on my site I end up getting engrossed and before I know it it’s 2:30 in the morning?

I will be attending the Irish Businesswomen’s conference in Mullingar on Thursday so if anyone is going along I’ll be the one blinking as if she hasn’t seen sunlight for awhile.

Canon 5D, 85mm, f2.5, 1/3200, ISO 200

A couple more from Saturday, this time some portraits of the people that work at the markets selling their wares. The girl above arrived with her friend towards the end of our stay at the carboot sale and I think they feature in nearly everyone’s photos of the day

Canon 5D, 85mm, f2.2, 1/200, ISO 200

Canon 5D, 85mm, f2.2, 1/640, ISO 200

Canon 5D, 85mm, f2.5, 1/2000, ISO 200

Canon 5D, 28mm, f2.5, 1/4000, ISO 200

Finally getting around to going through the photos from Saturday’s photomeet in Dublin. It was a great day and a fantastic idea for a venue (nice one Catriona!). We started off at the Toejam boot sale around the back of the George Bernard Shaw Pub. We had a great gang of people…Redmum, John, Catriona, Will, Davy, Alexia, Nathalie and Eoghan, Eoin, Phil and Darren. Some excellent bargains to be had if you’re in the area on a Saturday, I indulged in a bit of spending (all in the name of portrait bribes you understand) and came away with a brand new soft leather bag for €8. Yummy food and interesting characters too:

Canon 5D, 28mm, f2.5, 1/3200, ISO 200

Canon 5D, 28mm, f2.5, 1/6400, ISO 200

Canon 5D, 28mm, f2.5, 1/1250, ISO 200

Canon 5D, 17mm, f5, 1/2000, ISO 200

We then took a walk down to the farmer’s market in Temple Bar (where Deborah of Humble Housewife fame joined us) for even more snapping:

Canon 5D, 28mm, f5.6, 1/1600, ISO 200

Canon 5D, 28mm, f5.6, 1/800, ISO 200

I have loads more but I think that’s enough for one post! If you want to have a look at what everyone got (and it’s cool to see how we all were in the same places yet we each had our own unique view) there’s a toejam group up on Flickr here.