McAWilliams Photoblog

Hello and welcome to McAWilliams.com the new improved version, but more about that later.

This photograph was taken up on the new bridge which connects Bray with Enniskerry, which opened last week. I am getting home at 7pm ish so I decided to try a traffic zooming by type shot, I think this worked quite well, anyhow onto the main story.

As you may well know, Movabletype 4 proved to be a big headache for me, so much so that I decided to change platform all together and move to Wordpress. I thought it would be easy enough, how mistaken I was the install etc was fantastic and to be fair to the Wordpress programmers they aint lied about the fact it is quite easy. My problem was how I used Moveabletype over the years.

I coded all the templates in Movabletype myself and as such used the default entry page in a strange way, I had also created custom entry fields using a plugin for the likes of meta keywords and descriptions etc, these fields unfortunately did not transfer to the database I had to create for Wordpress, and in the mayhem I lost all the details I had spent years entering.

So with Wordpress I had to start from scratch all that remained from the old site were the entry details and comments but all pictures keywords descriptions for 411 entries had to be re-entered from scratch, hence the delay.

I am using a theme for now but will be modifying this to get some originality back into McAWilliams.com, and what do I think of Wordpress, well as I told Caitriona tonight I aint looking back.

Technorati Tags Bray, bridge, enniskerry, image, mcawilliams, passing, photograph, photographer, photographs, photography, picture, traffic, wordpress

Claire Wilson also known as Gingerpixel put up a photograph recently which really inspired me.

What she had done was take a photograph in a forest and apply an effect created by a photographer called Michael Orton and unsurprisingly called the Orton Effect, in post processing. This effect basically takes one image and merges it with the same image out of focus, and creates a wonderful dream like look.

I had to give it a try.

So this image of a bridge leading to the hotel at Glendalough became my subject. Many thanks to Claire for also posting up a very simple yet effective tutorial to get this effect.

Technorati Tags claire wilson, gingerpixel, glendalough bridge, orton effect

I love taking pictures of bridges, I dont know why!

This bridge in Ballybunnion also has the honour of being photo number 400, so as the title says its another bridge crossed in my time blogging.

Technorati Tags ballybunnion, bridge

Sorry about the delay in this image coming up but we have been a bit bogged down with stuff, Paula’s aunt is in a critical condition in hospital at the moment, because of three aneurysms been found after she had a stroke. Also our house seems to have unwanted visitors at the moment, ants, and not crawling along the floor but coming out from the spotlights on our ground floor, so its been fun trying to tackle them.

Anyhow this is a photograph of the new, still unopened, pedestrian bridge that connects Bray to Enniskerry. It spans across the N11 dual carraigeway and looks fantastic as it goes from one side to the other with no supports except at each end.

Technorati Tags Bray, bridge, enniskerry, n11, pedestrian bridge

I took this picture the other night while waiting on Paula to pick me up, I was planning on putting up a picture from the top of the bridge looking down on all the rush hour traffic heading out from Dublin, but this picture came out a lot better and is a lot more interesting to me.

In relation to yesterdays picture it looks like Bertie Ahern has got a third term in office although it wont be a Fianna Fail/Progressive democrat coalition like we have endured the past 5 years.

The PD’s have done atrocious this election with only 1 seat at the time I am writing this, with Mc Dowell, the PD’s leader losing his seat and resigning from politics promptly, Liz O Donnell the PD’s deputy leader and hottie also lost her seat, you catch my drift! although they probably will get a second, it will not be enough to get the majority for the Dail, so Fianna Fail may go down the FF/Labour route or as many are predicting FF/Greens and a few independants being the more likely option. For more information on the Irish Election if you are really bothered, check out irishelection.com’s blog page it is a great font of knowledge, and well done to all the contributers on a very finely run broadcast.

I told everyone a good while back their posters were terrible, I think thats where it all went wrong.

Lastly I appreciate the texts, mails and comments about Soupy Norman, I am thrilled to see that everybody seemed to have loved it, mainly because Barry and Mark who came up with the idea and script, really believed it may only appeal to a specific market, but by all accounts looking at the comments I got from people, it seems to be a much bigger success. Also with so many people enjoying it I can honestly say the first episode for me is the weakest, mainly due to the fact that the main characters had to get established along with the story. Trust me it gets even funnier….. and weirder.

Technorati Tags cabinteely bridge handrail, soupy norman

Dublin’s most famous bridge the Ha’penny bridge. Taken down and refurbished although looking at the lights on it they could have done better, although I do have to say I feel safer crossing it nowadays.

Technorati Tags ha'penny, hapenny bridge, river liffey

That damn bug that got both myself and Paula, hit Rebecca yesterday and so I had to stay at home to look after her. Because of this I have had to go back through my backups and I found this image which im suprised I have not put up before.

This is from one of my many visits to Glendalough during the summer.

Technorati Tags bridge, Glendalough, wooden