Tell Me Now What’s A V.I.P. ( Enda Kenny )

The taoiseach of Ireland, Enda Kenny was in Galway to announce 200 new jobs for Merit Medical Systems.

I took some photographs of the new Merit Medical Systems building last year as it was being built, they can be found here and here.

I managed to get some photographs of him leaving the Merit Medical Systems building and entering his car. I only had a few seconds so shot in continuous drive. I didn’t get any proper portrait so decided to play around with what I had and came up with this collage.

Post title is taken from the song V.I.P, from the very enjoyable new album How About I Be Me (And You Be You).

See Your Name in Neon, It’s a Dream, 15 Minutes of Fame (Occupy Galway)

My blog post yesterday was my most viewed blog post to date, with over 1,000 page views yesterday alone.
It really was a case of lucky timing and a bit of work as well.

On Tuesday I had a day off work and was wandering around Galway. I was strolling through Eyre Square, decided to visit the Occupy Galway camp and document it through photographs. Little did I know that the gardaí would raid/’dismantle’ the camp that very night. I was also lucky that I posted the photos here the same evening, if I had left it for a day or two the Occupy Galway camp would have been yesterdays news.

When I found out the next morning that the camp had been dismantled I tweeted my photographs & also tweeted several media organisations saying that I had possibly the last photographs of the camp. Several replied asking if they could use my photographs and many people retweeted my tweet of the photographs. My photographs were used by The Irish Examiner (online), Breakingnews.ie, Thejournal.ie, The Galway Advertiser.ie Facebook page and more. I was even trending on Twitter(!).

Below is some of the coverage my photographs in the media:

Post title are lyrics taken from the song ’15 minutes’ by the band Sheep On Drugs (great band name).

99 Songs For The 99% ( Occupy Galway )

Update to post-
The last Occupy protest camp in the country has been dismantled by gardai and council chiefs. Officials moved in to remove Occupy Galway activists from Eyre Square at about 4.30am on Wednesday. Galway City Council had raised concerns that the camp should be removed before the Volvo Ocean Race grand finale next month (pretty lame excuse).

The Occupy Galway group are the last group still standing in Ireland, today (15th May) is day 215. Occupy Galway began in Eyre Square in October 2011 as part of the global Occupy Movement.

I chatted to a few of them today and had a wander around the camp taking some photos.

They have a good setup; solar power, a meeting room, kitchen, living area, flowers & plants growing, storage room and camping/sleeping area.

Post title is taken from the album 99 Songs For The 99%, a compilation of songs written supporting the protesters.

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, You better run, better run, outrun my gun…

This is the second series of photographs of my new runners- VIVOBAREFOOT Evo.

The second photograph shows how breathable the runners are; the photograph on the right shows a macro of one of the hexagons. You can see that it’s made up of some kind of overlapping material with miniature holes which allow my foot to keep cool. The third photograph shows how flexible they are. And the last one just mucking about with Picasa settings.

Post title is taken from the song “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster The People. For me it was the feelgood hit of last summer.

The first series of the photographs can be found here

Watch The Sunrise

Another macro photograph. Just in case you miss it, there’s a fly climbing up the weed. I did get some strange looks from people in cars driving past; me lying in the ditch on the side of the road…..

Post title ‘Watch The Sunrise’ is a song title from American band Big Star. I know it from Belle and Sebastian’s Late Night Tales.