Olivier's Blog

Photography hasn't been at the top of my agenda lately.

Instead, I have developed new skills in seeding, planting, hoeing, watering and back breaking soil turning. It all started with the setup of a new large raised bed in our garden followed a couple of months later with the granting of a nice forty square meter allotment a couple of miles away from our house. Most of my week-ends have been occupied with working a ground packed with stones and intertwined weed root systems until suitable for growing vegetables. In retrospect I should have probably rented a rotavator... Anyway ...

The fairly new Samuel Beckett bridge in the Dublin Docklands area has been a source of great interest for amateur and professional photographers since its inauguration in 2009.

The bridge stands over river Liffey in a great harmony of curves and straight lines, echoed in the distance by the somewhat less esthaetic but more historical O'Connel Bridge and its little sister Ha'Penny.

Curved under the apparent great tension of thick steel cables, its prominent arch protrudes high above the water with a shape reminiscent of the Celtic Harp.

In its flank, a large circular opening acts as a ...

A few days ago, I found by accident an article on the web describing a photographic process unknown to me and perfectly suited for low-light photography.

Named by its creator, Tony Brackley-Prower, the Magic Cloth technique is an extremely powerful way to extract information from high contrast scenes without using graduated filters or combining exposures for HDR processing.

In principle, the technique is so simple that it seems surprising it hasn't been exploited by other photographers before, at least not that I'm aware of.

The idea is as follows, instead of using strong graduated filters to darken the ...

These autumnal days we are lucky to experience what many would consider excellent weather for this time of the year. Mild temperatures, sunny sky and rapidly changing trees would make you believe that Ireland is currently under the spell of a very enjoyable Indian Summer (OK, not quite... ).

It is under these conditions last Sunday afternoon that I headed with my camera for North Bull Island, a nice stretch of land sprawling within the Dublin Bay, easily reachable by car or by foot thanks to a nice wooden bridge connecting the island to Clontarf Road.

The island is ideally located ...

Sometimes a  location can strike by its unique beauty and atmosphere. A place that keeps on bringing us back and again over the years. A place we consider a bit of our own because we see it as a reflection of ourself or what we aspire to be.

I remember the few months following the purchase of my first SLR. This was back in 2001 and at the time I was discovering the beautiful places surrounding Dublin, driving around with a brand new camera and a scratch free tripod on the passenger seat.

Lying on the Eastern coast of the ...

Gosh that took a while...

I mean, you have an idea in your head and it stays there for months nagging you on a regular basis until you finally give up and do something about it. Well, this could describe in a few words the story of how this blog came to life.

A blog? - I hear you say. Who needs yet another blog? The Web is littered with posts that virtually nobody reads. And that is exactly what kept me away from blogging until now. 

Let's face it, I do love photography but pretty pictures won't bring ...