Year: 2015

I want to see a Gruffalo!

I am on holidays, and all I do is taking family pictures of no public interest. Yet, there is a place I really want to tell you about, so that if you travel through the area, you spare some couple of hours to visit, or even camp there over night. Antelope Island, Utah, a home to the Antelope Island State Park.

Great Salt Lake’s largest island looks like another world.

It is my third visit, and I have a couple of photographs to share.

In the image below you can see a 7-mile causeway to Antelope Island the way it looks from the top of the Buffalo Point. The causeway was submerged for most of the 1980’s, because of high lake levels.

The island hosts countless nesting and migratory birds of about 250 species, including various species of waterfowl and birds of prey.

More than forty freshwater springs produce 36 million gallons of water each year supporting wildlife and vegetation. Pronghorn antelopes are native to Utah, and there is a big herd of them on the island.

Bison, or American buffaloes, are the most famous residents. There are about 600 animals in different parts of the island.

I have also seen hawks, lizards, mull deer, coyotes, and a porcupine in the tree.

The picture of the porcupine is not great, but I think I was very lucky to take it.

Another attraction is the historical Fielding Garr Ranch, and I advise you to visit it. A tip: it closes early, so you better go there first thing in the morning.

I could not resist to take a picture of this old Dodge pick up truck.

Here is an awesome map of the Antelope Island I borrowed from Wikimedia.

The most spectacular is the road that runs along the eastern coast. I have never been there in summer, but even in the winter haze it looks like a different planet.

Buffalo Point hike is very steep and rough, but it offers you some truly breathtaking views over the White Rock Bay.

This time we didn’t do any hiking. We were looking for buffaloes.

There were many of them, all far away from the road. It is very difficult to explain to a toddler that a black dot barely visible in the tall dry grass is a promised huge buffalo. ” I wanna see a Gruffalo!”

But it was our lucky day indeed – we met one at the side of the road.

After that we went off to the shore.

Great Salt Lake is a remnant of prehistoric Lake Bonneville which covered more than 20 000 square miles during the Ice Age.

Water flows into the lake from four rivers, but Great Salt Lake has no outlet: water leaves only through evaporation. Concentration of minerals is very high and no fish or any other creature can live in this water except for brine shrimp and brine flies, and some algae.

Oolitic sand is a unique feature of Great Salt Lake. Round grains of sand are formed similar to how pearls are formed, with the pellets of brine shrimp faces in the middle.

A 15 minute walk to the shore in some 100F was a mistake: the lake smells 😦 The sand was crawling with the tiny flies, and I suspect, their larvae… Probably it is a seasonal thing.

Nevertheless, it is a place I highly recommend to visit, especially during the Annual events like Moonlight Bike Ride, and celestial events – for night photography. I am in love with the island and hope to come here again in Spring.

Thank you for taking this short tour with me! 🙂

Have a great weekend!

All creatures

For those who are reading the fox story for the first time – here are two links to my previous posts – Kindness and Fox News.

This spring, I got a word that Minnie, the six-years old vixen, was pregnant. The only “suspect” was a two-year old male fox Henry, badly mauled by dogs in his early days and restored to health in Pat’s care. Being very busy at that time, I didn’t come over to greet the cub and take pictures. I feel sad about that – I don’t think I will have another chance. Now the cub is gone. Pat has too much on his hands to accommodate one more fox, and a lady from Kilkenny was happy to give the little foxy a family and a little kit for a sibling to grow together. I only hope for an interview in near future.

I didn’t take pictures of Henry. He was in a bad mood, and we left him in his pen. I only can tell that he looks very grown up, and his injured eye is not as teary as it was last year.

I have got a new “fox picture”, this time with Minnie.

Grainne and Minnie are full of character, and are visually different.

Minnie is not angry in these photographs, or upset in any way. She is just being herself, playing and watching if your attention is still on her 🙂 As you know from my previous post, Minnie doesn’t like walking and prefers being carried and cuddled, and talked to all the time. I think I performed all these tasks very well, and she expected me to carry on, but Patsy thought different and Minnie had to walk to the den on her own feet.

After the photo session, we all went to the garden. The weather improved, a lovely change. All the creatures of the house joined us, and I was amazed with their friendliness and good humor: even a huge rooster didn’t mind to be photographed. Cats, chickens, dog Blackie – all of them relaxed and at ease with the strangers.

And of course we talked about foxes, how important they are to the environment. Their diet consists mostly of rats and mice; if they steal a chicken it only means that the chickens were not locked properly. Wild fox killed his ducks yet Pat doesn’t blame the fox but the hole in the fencing. While opposing the fox hunting, Pat doesn’t encourage people to take a fox cub home if it has been found alone. The cub is not abandoned. Foxes belong to the wild and they will survive in the wild. Pat wishes people would just leave them alone.

We were invited for a cup of tea. Pat’s brother showed us a photograph of their parents. Calm, intelligent, beautiful faces. They have raised their eleven children well.

As I have learned, Pat is famous not only because of his foxes. While attending a hurling game, he was spotted and taken a picture of for Kilkenny People newspaper. What has drawn the photographer’s attention? A hat. Pat’s sister is knitting these hats for the match goers, in county colors. Amber and black – Kilkenny colors. I asked Pat if he had another hat for a photograph, and he brought me a Red and White, a Cork one… Didn’t feel comfortable in it… 😉 I should have replaced the colors in Photoshop… 😉

On our way back home we took a few pictures in Thomastown.

A French tourism-oriented website recently posted a story about Pat and his foxes, and asked if they could use my photographs. I am delighted that more people will learn about this wonderful man and his beloved pets. They are already known in England, Scotland, and New Zealand, thanks to Grainne who is kind of a movie star, since she has several film and tourism commercial credits.

I hope you enjoyed the day with Pat Gibbons, and will visit with him in person on your next trip to Ireland.

Have a great week!

Thomastown FOX NEWS

This week I visited Pat and his foxes again and took some photographs. I am reblogging my old blog post so that you can read the story again to refresh your memory 🙂 Next Friday I will share some news and pictures of this famous family.
Information about the blogging rewards in the end of the post is outdated and belongs to my original post.
Keep in touch! 🙂 Thank you for reading!

Making memories

It is my second blog post about Patsy Gibbons and his foxes. In early April, almost 4 months ago, I went live with a blog post KINDNESS, amazed with my own boldness, and having a very little knowledge about blogging rules and ethics. Still learning.

That time Pat invited us to come again in summer when the foxes look gorgeous on the green meadow. Two weeks ago a friend of mine arranged a visit, but when he rang to confirm it Pat told him that he is in the hospital waiting for admission. They kept him in from Monday to Thursday; Pat’s brother fed the foxes, but they had to stay in their den all this time, and they also missed their bath – a day when they all walk to the pond to get bathed. Needless to say, the foxes were upset, Pat wasn’t feeling well either, so…

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People in the streets

What is street photography? Almost everything! Photographing street scenes, public events and human characters; landmarks and architecture, urban environment, transportation… Plus colors, patterns, shadows… Simply everything.

People walk in the streets, but they also do many other things. They sell and buy stuff, sometimes quite amazing, like this green cat…

… or this hand-made jewelry. Well, the sellers can be remarkable too.

This young man is not texting. He is reading. Not good for the sales, but good for him. I took this picture because of the color arrangement: red parasol and hoodie – blond hair and wooden kitchenware.

More amazing stuff, and the artist himself is a character.

Street vendors in NYC are not different from their colleagues in the rest of the world. It is an old photograph – I wonder if anything has changed.

People also perform in the streets. I already posted about the street performers in Dublin. This guy was spotted in Belfast.

That’s NYC again.

Tall Ships festival in Waterford.

Dublin Pride – this girl came all the way from Brasil. A spectator in his underpants could be from anywhere – could be a time travelling gone wrong…

This band was actually brilliant, but the streets were empty: beach party in progress.

This guy is a reggae musician Cian Finn. I had no idea when I spotted him in Cork and asked for a photograph. Things happen 🙂

People use electronic devices in the streets.

People sometimes cook in the streets.

People are generally friendly and happy. They pose if asked nicely.

People chat with strangers.

Unhappy people protest, usually peacefully…

… or use electronic devices…

Some people stay in the streets most of their time.

Some people own terrific cars and look darn cool, like this Italian policeman. In 2004, Lamborghini donated two Lamborghini Gallardo police cars to the Polizia di Stato on their 152nd anniversary. On the 31st November 2009 one of these 165,000-euro cars was badly damaged in a collision near the northern Italian town of Cremona where it was on display at a student jobs fair. It was repaired in January 2010. I took this photograph of the famous Lamborghinis in Tivoli in March 2010, and consider myself very lucky for being in the right place at the right time 🙂

Some people own bikes, like this shiny one. I was circling around it long enough to get arrested 🙂

Some people just wait for their bus.

Most of people walk…

… and cast shadows if the day is sunny.

Most of the days are not sunny here, it is why I am posting a sad song for you: Johnny Cash – Streets of Laredo.

Have a wonderful weekend!

William Despard Hemphill, Clonmel, County Tipperary

Clonmel is one of my favorite towns in County Tipperary – a place rich of history, and surrounded by beautiful landscapes. If you travel Ireland and are interested in photography, it is a place to visit for many reasons.

In 1840 an instruction manual in the use of the daguerreotype was offered by the Dublin Mechanical Institute and the natural Philosophy Committee of the Royal Dublin Society purchased a camera for taking daguerreotypes in the same year. Photography started its journey in Ireland.

Photography was quickly taken up by Ireland’s professional and landowning classes and the residents of Ireland’s big country houses. One of Ireland’s pioneering photographers, William Despard Hemphill was a native of Clonmel

William Despard Hemphill (1816–1902) was born into a large professional middle class Church of Ireland Tipperary family in 1816. After graduating University of St Andrews, he returned to Clonmel and had a successful medical practice, being doctor to both the Lunatic Asylum and the Prison.

Dr Hemphill composed and played music, was an avid orchid grower, turned ivory ornaments and was interested in archaeology, geology, and Waterford glass. He experimented with the latest photographic techniques, won several prestigious awards, and left a vast historical photography record of the 19the century scenes and people. He won fourteen prizes in Dublin, London and Paris. His photographs were praised for excellence of composition and artistic taste.

William Despard Hemphill is best known for his book ‘Stereoscopic illustrations of Clonmel and surrounding country, including Abbeys, Castles and Scenery. With descriptive Letterpress’, which was printed in Dublin, in 1860.

Stereoscopic photography recreates the illusion of depth by utilizing the binocularity of human vision. Stereoscopic photographs, or stereographs, consist of two nearly identical photographs – one for the left eye, one for the right. Viewing the side-by-side images through a special lens arrangement called a stereoscope helps our brain combine the two flat images and see the illusion of depth. Stereoscopic photographs became very popular after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert received the gift of a stereoscopic viewer at the Crystal Palace exhibition in 1851.

Dr Hemphill’s “Stereoscopic Illustrations” book comprises two volumes – one is the stereoscopic photographs themselves, the other – the descriptive text. The work is extremely rare; it was never available to the general public, and possibly only distributed by Hemphill to his aristocratic friends in South Tipperary. Each known copy is unique and differs from the others. The National Library lacks all the photographs. Clonmel County Museum has two full copies containing the photographs, however, they are not on display for the general public .

Clonmel Library has a copy of the volume containing the descriptions to the photographs (no illustrations). If you ask, they will give you the book and you can read it all – 102 pages. It is printed in red & black, with the decorative red border vignettes. A sonnet written by a well-known, or anonymous author, or by William Despard Hemphill himself, opens each chapter. The volume opens with two quotes written in Greek and Latin – by Lucian and John Dryden respectively.

I went around the town to recreate some of Dr Hemphill’s photographs. The bits of information about the scenes I took from that famous book.

In 1857 Dr Hemphill photographed St Mary’s, Clonmel, his parish church shortly before the reconstruction and alteration works. The Western Wing was not altered and looks the same today.

This image depicts a part of the Eastern Wing that was altered during the reconstruction works and no longer exists.

This image of the Quay is taken from a boat. Commercial barges like this one were used before the railway was built in 1854. Some buildings along the Quay are still there, but the Manor Mills in the background have been demolished.

Quay, Thro’ The Arch Of The Bridge, Clonmel ( 1857-58)

Scot’s Church, Anglesea St, Clonmel (1857-58) with its pretty little Ionic portico

“Clonmel, the assize town and capital of the County of Tipperary, is situated on the River Suir, which here separates the Counties of Tipperary and Waterford, and is built principally on the north side, and partly on some islands in the river, which are connected with each other and the town by bridges of considerable antiquity.” (Descriptive text by William Hemphill)

In the street, you can see a car. It is a Bianconi long car. Bianconi was an Italian man who settled in Clonmel and became a Father of Public Transportation in Ireland. The headquarters of Bianconi’s Transport was in Parnell St nearby.

Otherwise the street hasn’t changed.

Another beautiful place that still exists is The Patrick’s Well and Church.

An old lady selling some religious souvenirs used to sit at the tree every day.

This is what the Patrick Well site looks these days. No one is selling souvenirs any more, but an old man, David, is there almost every day ready to answer your every question about the site and its history.

There are some changes inside the Church. The altar had to be removed because of the repeated acts of vandalism, and only the base of it remained intact. David showed me some carvings I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise: a figure of Jesus with the fields and buildings of Jerusalem in background.

And here are a few more pictures of Clonmel taken over the years. Different seasons, different vantage points, different moods. Lovely town that has a tiny Tourist office in the Mary’s church premises, because there are very little tourists. A gem that is not hidden, just overlooked.

So, back to Dr Hemphill again. His home was demolished and a shopping center was built where a beautiful garden used to be.

I went to the parking lot and asked random people if they knew who William Despard Hemphill is. Two elderly gentlemen knew to tell me about the Hemphills’ estate. Not that he is completely forgotten – in 2013, Clonmel County Museum presented a stunning exhibition of the photographs of William Despard Hemphill – Silent Exposure. It was my first experience viewing stereoscopic photographs.

I went to his parish church graveyard and found his grave. There is a beautiful Celtic cross with the inscription that says: The memory of the just is blessed.