Derelict rural schoolhouse
Here’s a few shots that I took yesterday with my brand spanking new canon 5d mark iii of an abandoned schoolhouse that I came across on a roving drive around county Monaghan yesterday.
It took me 5 years to upgrade from my canon 450d, which was my first entry into the world of photography. I finally decided to splurge on the best camera that I could possibly afford because I really fancy moving into making videos and I figured that it’s best to go for the top tier of the market if I want to start making some money from my photographic efforts.
I’ve not had the time to make many videos just yet, but the difference in the quality of the images and the ease with which I can take them is one hell of a step up from my old camera. On my old 450d if I put the iso up to 200 I’d start noticing noise entering the image. Some of these shots are taking at iso of 12,800 and I still can’t see any noise. That’s one heck of a difference! Gone are the days of lugging a tripod around everywhere or worrying about my shaky hands. Behold progress.
These shots are of a derelict schoolhouse that caught my attention as I was driving around looking for an interesting subject to test out the capabilities of my new camera on. I thought that it looked like a schoolhouse from the outisde, so I threw caution to the wind and parked up and hopped over a fence or two to carry out some investigations.
Turns out that the school has been left to crumble since the 1970s. Seems a strange place to have had a school out in the middle of nowhere, but I guess that times have changed. I found a sign for planning permission inside dating from 2007 to turn the school into a house, but I guess that the crash of the Celtic Tiger put an end to that notion. Personally, I can’t help but feel thankful that instead of another faceless rural abandoned property development, there still remains this dilapidated vision of rural Ireland’s past.
I hope that you enjoy the pics.
Watching the sun set over the River Corrib
I’m back again after a prolonged absence due to my having exceeded my storage allowance on wordpress, as well as being busy working on my new improved site, whilst also eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new canon 5d mark iii.
So after deleting and resizing a few old photographs on my blog, and having wrestled myself away from my computer for a few hours in order to enjoy my last few weeks of shooting with my old trusty canon 450d. I came across this nice little riverside scene at dusk over the Corrib…
Galway City Protests Against €100 Million Fish Farm Off The Aran Islands
Yesterday I took part in this protest against the extraordinarily ill-conceived and poorly thought out proposed 465 hectare salmon farm in the lee of the Aran Islands off of the West Coast of Ireland.
This farm poses a grave threat to the fragile ecosystem of the already much depleted salmon stocks of Ireland. I strongly believe that it is up to the people of Ireland to protect this habitat from the destruction which will be wrought if big business is allowed to exploit the fishing industry just like they did with the meat industry. Which has already suffered untold damage after the shame of the much publicised horse meat scandal.
The west of Ireland already continues to suffer the exploitation wrought by big business through the Corrib Gas Pipeline controversy. And so yet again it falls to people power to resist the destruction of our country in the face of politicians who don’t seem to give two fucks about selling our precious natural resources to the highest bidder, and to hell with the consequences for future generations.
Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) is the Irish fisheries body that is supposed to protect Irish waters, yet it continuously misrepresents and withholds scientific data and lies to the Irish public about the well established risks posed by open water fish farms.
In order to avoid the obvious dangers of farmed salmon spreading lethal sea lice to our native wild salmon, the BIM proposes to use chemicals to kill parasites. Now it doesn’t take a genius to see the dangers of pumping yet more chemicals into our already damaged waters, yet the BIM doesn’t seem to be able to see the risks that anyone with half a brain can quite clearly perceive, and which scientific research has also proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
All that the BIM likes to shout about is the creation of jobs for the local economy. But I think that the Irish people have heard enough bullshit about job creation that never comes to pass from our politicians as they ravish our country to be rightly cynical about the chances of any actual new jobs ever transpiring.
When the fecal matter from millions of fish is washed into Irish seas, alongside parasites, chemicals, and god knows what else, and then goes on to ruin our pristine environment, kills our fishing industry, and damages our tourism industry beyond repair, then I’m quite certain that more jobs will be lost than could ever be created from such a deplorable misuse of our natural resources.
Local and national media as per usual seem to have little or no interest in reporting the dangers of this farm to the Irish people as well as largely ignoring this protest, and so I felt it that it was my duty to make my small contribution to making this a more widely discussed issue. The Irish Times reported about the protest yesterday here, yet they didn’t even deem the protest worthy of a photograph. The Galway independent reported about the protest here, and again didn’t bother adding a photograph of the protest and also reported that only 500 people attended the protest compared to the Irish Times report of 2,000 in attendance. Quite the discrepancy huh.
I’d say that the figure of 2,000 people was much closer to the mark, and I salute all those who arranged the protest, the few politicians who bothered to attend, the great speakers who spoke with such vigour, and each and every person who attended in order to assert their opposition to this wanton destruction of our local environment.
Fair play to all involved and let’s just hope that the people with the power to put a stop to this monstrous idea for a fish farm will start to listen to the will of the people before it’s too late.
