10 Reasons To Exist

10 Reasons To Exist is rumoured to be album title from U2′s much anticipated new album, it’s currently the ‘working title’.
This is my photography website and in this, the blog section, every blog post has a related music title. Why? Because I love photography and music and it’s a fun thing to link the two together. The title could be as simple as a band name, song or album title or maybe lyrics from a song; anything music related that the photograph makes me think of.

Below are some photographs of mine that are linked to some U2 albums titles. It’s simple to guess which photograph represents which album but it gives you a visual example of how I link photographs in blog posts to music references. When the new U2 album is released (10 reasons to exist maybe) I’m going to try to have a blog post and photo for each song title.

Buy a photograph print for charity (Santa Claus is coming to town)

I’m getting to this a bit late as tomorrow is the last day to bid.

The BOARDS.ie 2012 Photo Book was launched on Saturday 1st December and contains the images submitted by the wonderful users of the Boards.ie Photography forum.

This PRINT AUCTION is organised to raise additional funds for the Santa Strike Force – which was helped set up by Tom Murphy (DeVore) one of the founding members of Boards.ie. The SSF are a really cool charity: in the run-up before Christmas, they start quietly collecting toys and when the big day comes, all the SSF elves help Santa to hand out presents to kids who are staying in not-so-nice places. Places likes hospitals and care-centres.

HOW TO BID
Please place your bid (minimum bid is €25 and includes postage) in the comment below each photograph (link below) or email it to boardsbook@gmail.com

If bidding by email, include the title and user name as it appears in both the book and the photo on pix.ie. If you would like to bid to a maximum, state what your maximum bid would be and we will then comment on your behalf on pix.ie in increments of €5 up to your maximum. E.g. If the maximum amount you want to bid is €50 and actual highest bid at auction is €30, you will get it for €35.

You will receive an email if your maximum bid is exceeded prior to the auction.
Here’s the link to the site with full details and for bidding.

Santa Claus is coming to town is a song title by J. Fred Coots, Henry Gillespie.

Boards.ie Photobook launch & Photowalk- all welcome

Every year, the users from the photography forum on Boards.ie stick their heads and hands together to organize the annual Boards Photobook. The entire project is conducted online and is organized by volunteers from the forum and I have a photo in this year’s book.

The book showcases some of the finest photography work from both amateurs and professionals and will make a great Christmas present; as for each book sold, a charitable donation will be made to Santa Strike Force.

Book Launch- everyone invited
Boards Photo Book launches at the Dublin Camera Gallery on Camden Street at 8pm on December 1st 2012.
Dublin Camera Club have once again been so very kind to offer their gallery space for free in order to support the project. Many of the contributors and users of the photography forum will meet each other there. Remarkably, it will probably be the first time many of them will have met face to face – as all work behind the book happens entirely on the forum, which is an amazing feat!

We herewith extend an invitation and warm welcome to all interested in attending the book launch, the more the merrier. We hope to make the book a successful venture to ensure that Santa Strike Force can keep providing their fantastic service to institutions that, in these budgetary times, so much rely on donations from the public.

How can you buy the photobook?
The publication will be made available for purchase to the general public by Shakespeare Photobooks, a Waterford based company who have been selected for a third time for the printing process. After the book launch, copies of the book will be available for purchase directly from Shakespeare Photobooks.

Print Auction
A Print Auction of photos in the book will commence on the 2nd December and run for approximately 2 weeks – visit http://pix.ie/boardsbook for more details.

For any further inquiries, you can contact Tracy O’Brien and the team behind the book on boardsbook{at}gmail.com

Photowalk
The Boards.ie group are also organising a photowalk for Saturday afternoon, full details below.

Start Time: 1pm
Start Point: Bottom of Grafton St / Molly Malone Statue end
Going to:
- National Library of Ireland (Nassau to Kildare street)
– St. Stephen’s Green
- National Museum of Ireland (History, Merrion St)
– Merrion Square
– Westland Row (Pearse St Train Station)
- Trinity College (Through Pearse St entrance)
- College Green to Dame Lane
– Dame Lane (should be getting dark by now 4:30ish)
– behind Dublin Castle (Chester Beatty Library)
- TBC
- St. Patricks Cathedral (night)
- stumble back to Against the Grain (6ish)

Selling my Pentax K-7 and 100mm macro lens (Superdiscount)

Hi,
I’m planning on upgrading to a Pentax K-5 so I’m selling my beloved Pentax K-7 body and also my Pentax 100mm f2.8 1:1 macro lens.
Please see here for more photos & details of the K-7 and here for the macro lens.

You can also contact me through my contact form if you want.
Cheers,
Pa.

Buy Cheap, Buy Twice. Memroy Card Trouble

As you might have noticed I haven’t posted up many photos lately. Just in case you were wondering why here’s my story and a bit of advice for you…

Memory cards are essential to digital photography (obviously) but I’ve never given them a second thought besides making sure I have some with me. Most people are the same I’d imagine. So when I saw that a well known discount store were selling memory cards at a very cheap price I decided to buy a few.
Before I did I posted a thread on Boards.ie photography forum asking if there’s any difference between cheap and more expensive memory cards (besides reading speed). A few people recommended to avoid the cheap ones but I ignored that.

About two months ago I began having some problems with my Pentax camera and memory cards. One of my cards was slightly cracked but it still worked. Next cards wouldn’t ‘pop’ in or out of my memory card slot. I had to use a pair of tweezers to ply it out. My laptop wouldn’t accept the card either so to transfer photos I had to use a cable to connect my camera to laptop.

On Guinness Arthurs Day I went to O Connell’s pub in Eyre Square, Galway to see and photograph Alabama 3. The weather was awful but they still kindly took time to pose for a group photo for me before the gig. As they were playing on a make shift stage with no security barriers I was as close as you could ever get (3 feet away) so captured loads of shots. However I noticed that when I tried to view some photos on my camera LCD screen that it gave me an error message.

At home that evening when I was trying to copy the photos to my laptop it said that the folder was empty. I tried everything but couldn’t retrieve them, much to my anger and frustration. So I decided to get my camera looked at. Surprisingly, that isn’t easy in Ireland, especially if you’re living in the West of Ireland. I phoned a few camera stores in Galway; they all said they wouldn’t repair it for me and that I’d have to post it to Pentax in the UK. I bought my camera 2nd hand from the USA so wasn’t sure would Pentax UK even look at it and even if they did the cost could be very high (like bringing a car to an official dealer for a service). So I hunted around and managed to find The Hamster Clinic, a camera repair advice thread on Boards.ie.

Basically it’s a thread for camera repair advice and there’s a guy who gives advice and also does repairs. I ended up posting my camera to him and for the mere sum of €20 he fixed it for me. If I had sent my camera off to Pentax UK I’m sure it would have cost a multiple more. Bits of my cheap memory cards were flaking off and messing up the memory card slot. I don’t know if a more expensive memory card means it’s better built but I’m not going to risk it in future. As they say (who are ‘they’ anyway?) “buy cheap and buy twice”.

The other lesson I learnt is that if you’re doing a job MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP CAMERA. Luckily for me the Alabama concert was just some hobby photography but I was scheduled to shoot a wedding. I managed to borrow a Pentax body from another amazingly generous and trusting stranger through the Boards.ie Photography forum. (This sounds like an ad for Boards.ie Photography forum but I haven’t received any financial gratitude for my opinions…).

For Christmas this year I’ll probably ask Santa Claus for a backup 2nd hand Pentax body (@mywife- I hope you’re reading this…) in case I get the opportunity to shoot any more weddings (2 under my belt so far, hopefully more in the future)

Now I have my camera back and hopefully will start posting up some photos shortly.

Postupdate: good article here at http://pentaxdslrs.blogspot.ie, entitled Raise your hand if you have ever lost digital image files.