Terrible Queer Creatures - Book Launch

The launch was lovely. And the location made it that much better... The mansion house - so good! All the speeches were good but Ruairi Quinn blew me outta the water in particular! I'd never heard him speak publicly but he had the audience in the palm of his hand throughout the entirety of his heartfelt speech.

The Book is about a history of homosexuality in Ireland and is written by Brian Lacey. I wish him all the luck with it and I can't wait to give it a read!

Uncle Moogie

I was hired to take photos of this amazing Aboriginal dude at the beginning of the summer at the archaeology Ireland Annual Conference and this image is going to be used as well as the latest issue of Archaeology Ireland Magazine in a few other publications and possibly in the French and Lebanese media. It's always nice to see my photographs in print!

I was shooting the book launch of Terrible Queer Creatures last Thursday and I bumped into Una at Wordwell, who proceeded to tell me a funny story involving Uncle Moogie, which climaxed in her telling me that he actually disappeared... I mean... how could that man disappear??? Apparently it's an ability that the aboriginal people have - the ability to disappear or not be seen when they so wish.

I'd love if I could disappear for a while to escape all my college work that I have yet to do! However, I've got a trip to Bilbao coming up on the 21st of October, which is going to be amazing. :-)

Here's the original photograph:

The anonymity of man

These were also printed in the darkroom, including the framing. However, when I was photographing the prints, the border turned out kinda grey and it majorly pissed me off so I decided I'd process them differently in photoshop. I decided to give them the red/black look, which I'm obsessed with lately!

Any time I look at these re-processed photos, I always think how sinister they look... maybe it's because they look like how they appear in the darkroom with the red light and in films, you always see the killer in the darkroom, printing photos of his next victim or somthing... haha

In the archway...

Smithfield Horse Market

These were taken ages ago - I gotta get blogging in the moment.

Third one down is 2 negs of panning shots layered on top of each other.

Banner County - Clare

These are photographs of darkroom prints so the reproduction is a bit off. They were taken aaages ago when I went on a little road trip to The Burren. I have tonnes more negs and should prob get around to printing them up. :-/

One To Watch - Green Little Cars

I have no doubt that this band will be going places. Sure, they've already played Electric Picnic and all at 16/17! It's like reading the biog for ASH and that's probably why I've got such a good buzz about them. There hasn't been a seriously good, young band in a while and these guys are going to make waves. Some of the members have already done the rounds as The Revolts - a band that was ahead of their time. Think funk rock! With LGC, they've seriously found their footing and I'm majorly excited. :-)

Thankfully, they've put up their tracks for free download so you too, can download The Last Of The Cosmonauts and listen to it on repeat for the whole day!




Click for their myspace

Click for their bebo


Can't wait to photograph them.

MONKEY!

Coincidence? Just when I make a post about Monkey: Journey To The West, I get an email from them saying:

"MONKEY JOURNEYS TO THE O2, LONDON

8th November to the 5th December 2008"


Does this mean it will venture over to Ireland? Please say so!! I don't have the money to venture over to London AGAIN for a while!

Another day at The Tudors...

And Joss Stone was there! She had the most life in her out of all the cast... I say she'd be cool to go on a night out with.

ASH 1977 gigs in London.

Thursday morning my alarm went off from 5.00am until 5.45am, when I finally stopped snoozing it and actually got my arse out of bed... Aircoach was at 6 so I managed to squeeze in a quick shower and pack my bag before I made my way to the stop. Flight went grand. Online check in is a god send - No messing at the airport.

Got the train down to Victoria and then sorted out my Oyster card so I could get around London. Got a bus to Camden Town, where our hostel was and by pure luck, I bumped into Brian and Tim who have become my favourite Americans by a long shot. Brian is a freaky little bootlegger from Texas and Tim is a genius who is going to be an Olympian Rower and save the world!


Brian, myself and Tim!

We picked up a few drinks before heading back to the hostel to meet the others and then the onslaught began...


Bri ended up getting a lovely makeover courtesy of Mir!

Following night was filled with the same alcohol fueled hyjinx before the gig, which was in the Roundhouse in Camden. Lovely, lovely, lovely venue. I've read loads of bad things about it but I thought it was lovely, albeit there did seem to be a lack of bars. I think my fave venue, the Astoria, is only holding out because of all the nostalgia it has had over the years. Like, ASH having played it the most! The gig was fantastic. I've never seen the band with such raw energy - it really was dripping from them in torrents.

The Set List for the roundhouse gig:







After show was upstairs in the newer part of the venue and we hung out for a few drinks. Atmosphere was good and was chatting to a few new and familiar faces. Was speaking to Mark about the t-shirts with my logo on it for a bit. It was so funny seeing people walking around with that t-shirt on. Very Surreal. Mark invited me and a few others to the hotel for a few drinks but that quickly turned into a crowd too many so we didn't bother hitting the Hotel up.

Astoria lived up to how I remembered it for the ASH gig there on the 5th December 2005... Amazing.

Basically, the long weekend was out of this world. I now love even more people in the world... You know who you are!

Oyster cards

Been reading up on Oyster cards and what is the cheapest ticket option to travel around London and inevitably came across a Yahoo answers page where one person, annabel m, points out that registered cards are "a cunning way of keeping an eye on people as the card is registered to you and electronically informs the central computer where you are, where you have traveled to, when, etc etc. More big brother stuff.".


Scary stuff, eh?


I leave tomorrow in the morning and come back on Monday at night, so it's a nice enough break. :-) Cannot wait to see everyone, especially Brian and ASH of course!! Gonna have to cream cracker it up with the food situation (no way the drink is taking a hit!!) as the hostel is sooo expensive. Would've been about the same as staying in the Hilton with my sister's staff discount! But sure, it's more fun this way, I suppose...

ASH

So anyone who knows me, knows how much I love ASH! So if they were to email me to say a logo I made for them is going to be used for a t-shirt design that would be pretty fucking cool...



:-o


Yes!

Monkey: Journey To The West

Damon Albarn (genius! I was more blur than oasis) is behind this epic theatre production. When I saw the documentary behind the making of this, I was dying to see it. That was aaages ago - I'm still dying to see it!! I'd love for it to come to the o2 (point).

If you want to listen to the music go to its album page on DEEZER:

here!

People's Photography

Was exhibiting over the weekend and had such a great, chilled out time. Pearse visited me on the Saturday for a few hours and kept me company and then Jojo and Tony came in for a bit later and after it finished up, we all went out for a bit of a roadtrip to Kathy's going away party in Stabannon (I didn't know where it was either). Memorable moments were had, including:

Dr Fun
Bouncy Castle
Dr Fun getting a chair specificaly to hang his coat on and put his shoes beneath
Bouncy Castle
Dr Fun falling over
Bouncy Castle
Dr Fun climbing up the stairs
Bouncy Castle
Dr Fun trying to stand up at the bottom of the stairs


ha ha ha

The Island

(I'm still really behind in posts...)


Pearse and me decided to go on a bit of a holiday. Definitely wasn't expecting to be as good as it was - I knew it was going to be great but not one of the best trips I've ever been on!!! T'was one of the funniest holidays I've ever been on. Deffo.



















All the photographs but the first and last one were taken from the top of the cliffs near the lake.

Walking along the cliff's edge was definitely the standout moment of the trip that I'll always remember. I've been on the cliffs of Moher and while they are whopper and all, there was something special about these cliffs... they were absolutely terrifying! If I was to die there, it would be the most perfect place to fall into another life. However, we survived the experience by clinging on for dear life, while seagulls were swooping in at our heads, content with trying to send us to that other life.

So much other stuff happened but it's all injokes that are hilarious for us but not really for anyone else