I was allowed to take a look around a house this weekend. I don't normally get into the emotional side of photography, but given the pictures and the subject I felt maybe it was time to try to supplement what I had rather than just tell you what I did.

I'd never been in the house before. I'd often past it and one summer years ago I stood at the door and talked to him about festivals and football. He'd lived there once, but even years ago it wasn't where he lived. But it was his home.

With his passing, the house was closed up. His children respectful of the memories and time was allowed to pass...

At the weekend, for too brief a time, I was allowed to intrude on those memories. I'm not a good enough photographer to do his home justice, but hopefully these pictures go some little way towards it.

Inside the house I could see the two lives lived there. On the one side, the home for a man and his family, on the other his place of work.

The family man with the memories laid out in the trophies and the religious items.  Whilst dust and damp had started to claim ownership, the family and the warmth of their love was still there.

He was a tailor in a time when people put value in clothes beyond the name on the label.The tools of his trade still present in the workshop, from the yellowing patterns to the hangers, its all still sitting waiting for the next customer.  Whilst in pride of place beside the window sits his Singer.

I took other photos in the house. Mostly they don't show the house well. Not because the house doesn't have a story to tell, but because I'm still not the photographer I'd like to be.

I'm not sure I'll be in the house again. I don't know if it's disrespectful to his family to tread on memories or if it's painful for them to open the house up to me. But if I am, I hope I can take something more from it.

It's been a busy week in camera world. Between an opportunity to try street photography with Andrew and then 4 days at the Mary from Dungloe festival in Donegal, I've had a lot of fun taking pictures.

I'm working through them and will pick some to talk about over the next few nights, though updates will be slow for the next while as the Peoples Photography thing needs sorted.

In the meantime, this caught my eye as I was doing the uploading.

(f/4.0, 1/60sec, 50mm, ISO-200, 29/07/08)

I think I've entered a black and white phase. I was happy with the boat shot the other day and it lead me back to some of the other photographs I took during that trip to see if they worked in monochrome.

I'm still not decided on these, but I thought I'd share and see if anyone felt like commenting.

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Old Row Boat

(Just in case it interests you, the Row Boat used to be much more blue. Most people seemed put off by the colours though, so I toned it back. I still like the blue version though...)

Ok, I'm sticking my neck out here and hoping for once I got something right.

Remember the HDR stuff from a day or two ago?

Well, I remembered one of the Chromasia tutorials talked about conversion to grayscale and it got me thinking...

If you'll excuse the pun, this picture floats my boat.

(The conversion here was performed using photoshops lab colour mode. the original plan to use the channel mixer worked well, but this seemed a little less contrasty and a little more light).

I'd put the process to convert this here, but you should really just check out Chromasia's tutorials as they're better than anything I could write.

"My name is Paul, it's been one month since my last HDR photo."

I swear HDR is like crack cocaine. It all starts innocently enough. Sure, you're just compensating for the lack of range in the photo. what harm can it do? Then, next thing you know you're seeing improvements in the picture, maybe saving an image that might not have been great otherwise. And then, before you know it, you're back looking at psychedelic skies and crazy moonscape beaches...

Well, I tried to be good. I tried to stay away from the evil addiction of HDR.

But, dammit. I love those skies man. I love those skies...

Original Image. (Some minor tweaks to curves)

(f/13, 1/80sec, 22mm, ISO-200, 19/07/08)

HDR - Image 1. Simple balance here to keep it close to natural colours but to remove some of the shadows and generally balance the thing out.

HDR - Image 2. High contrast drugs ahoy.

I know it's wrong. But why oh why do I still love 'HDR - Image 2' so much?

Ah well back to cold turkey.

Oh, in case you're interested, the boat here is an old trawler that's been beached on the channel between Donegal and Cruit Island. During low tide you can walk out to it from either side.

"They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed."

The Shadow Over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft

I've mentioned before that my wife comes from an island fishing family. Well, sometimes fish turns up on the menu when we visit. Normally shell fish, but not normally in a form where it might just eat you back.

Poor Larry wasn't long for this world so I thought the least I could do was give him a pictorial memorial here.

(f/5.6, 1/200sec, 250mm, ISO400)

Sometimes these photo opportunities fall on your plate (excuse the pun). It's a good reason to always have a camera close to hand (like a fork).

No lobsters were harmed during the shooting of this picture. Afterwards...

Sometimes I just hold up the camera and click. I know it's bad. But, I enjoy it. I sometimes get nice pictures, I almost always get shouted at for taking too many pictures. Sometimes it's worth it.

This shot is the exception. I saw the fencing and considered how best to frame it. I thought out the line of posts and considered what I wanted the depth of field to do.

I quite like it.

I still got shouted at though.

(f/7.1, 1/50sec, 55mm, ISO-200, 13/07/08)

Months ago I mentioned my obsession with taking pictures of red flowers after Dermot said it was difficult.

Well, I think I'm getting closer.

(f/6.3, 1/100sec, 50mm, ISO-200, +4 close up filter, 15/07/08)

As a point of reference, in the last two weeks I've taken in the region of 700 photographs and I'm likely to shoot another 200 over the next two weeks. I may jump around a lot with my train of thought in here as I review and post pictures.

This weekend saw the start of the annual Burtonport Festival. Given we've family there it's always a bit of fun and since Mad Dog McRae were playing it seemed like a good chance to try something I'd been wondering about for a while.

How exactly do you take a photograph of a band without using a flash?

The answer, it would seem is - "With great difficulty".

The band were playing on a converted trailer (I did mention this was happening in Donegal right?) which was lit by fluorescent tubes (Donegal, remember) and some simple stage lights. The sun was a setting and the music was a pumping.

(f/5.6, 1/50sec, 208mm, ISO-800, 19/07/08)

(f/3.5, 1/15sec, 50mm, ISO-400, 19/07/08)

Even with lighting on stage, it was very difficult to get enough light into the camera from the angle I was working at to keep shutter speed down. Also, given the light setup was "different" there were a lot of shadows obscuring faces in many of the shots I'd taken.

I tried a few things, initially using my zoom lens but quickly realising it wasn't fast enough (if that's the right term) and so switching to that little f/1.8 50mm I own. Whilst the second shot might have been cleaner if I'd upped the ISO a little more and reduced the shutter speed by opening the aperture, I just kinda liked this version.

Of the thirty or so shots I took, these were probably my favourites. By no means the best I've taken, they're definitely soft/blurred and unimpressive compared to concert shots I've seen elsewhere.

That said, it was Saturday night at the festival and the beer was flowing so I'm lucky it wasn't a picture of my eye or my toe.

There's two more weeks of festival fun, so if you've any suggestions or tips for this sort of shot please let me know. (the band, not my eye or toe).

Oh, and if you're in the Donegal area you'd probably have a good time at the Burtonport and Dungloe festivals. alternatively, if you get the chance to see Mad Dog McRae, they are much better than my dodgy pictures suggest.