For My Grandson
Manny this one is for you--The John Deere dealership. Straighten up and fly right and you can achieve and or be anything.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”

Saint Augustine

I have returned from the family wanderings in Ireland. And to my credit, I am told; I turned in the rental car with the mirrors intact, with only very minor scratches to the finish on the passenger side, and only missed one turn on a roundabout. With me I have brought back roasted barley from the Guinness brewery in Dublin, slate from the Cliffs of Moher, 361 photographs and 113 video clips. And now a quick travelogue and then its back to the back roads of Virginia………………

Day One--Bunratty





















Bunratty Castle
Impressive on the outside. Too touristy on the inside. Located only a few miles from Shannon Airport. This is a major tourist hangout.

My First Pub
My travel companions crashed soon after our arrival. Having nothing better to do I put down a few pints at the local pub which is a converted creamery--thus the name. I must say I left a bit disillusioned when I saw Budweiser and Coors Light on tap and were informed they were quite popular in Ireland. The Coors Light being quite popular with the ladies. This fact and the realization that there were more Yankee than Boston fans in Ireland were the two greatest shocks during my visit.



An Abandoned Church Yard
Located directly behind our hotel was this abandoned church yard. The cemetery is still in use. I did notice that a few distant cousins have been laid to rest here.

I'm going to let these pictures speak for themselves. I do think it is important to point out that we did hike the entire length of the cliffs, four miles out, and four miles back, along the edge. Its amazing what a 16 year old can talk you into.......

The Obligatory Abandoned Home
An old stone house along the road. Had to have at least one in this set of photos to keep my average up. Needless to say this is a common site in Ireland. I took this photo because the hearth is still visible.
A View from the Fort
At the end of the island is a very old, megalithic I believe, stone ring fort. This photo was taken while looking from the entrance of the fort back across the island.


The Coastal Road
We toured the main island on bikes. This is a typical section of the coastal road.

Barna Cemetery
Barna is a coastal town located outside of Galway. This is the original church cemetery. The church itself is gone. Of interest in this photo are the gate cap stones. Most of the original population of Barna left during the Great Famine in the 1840s. During that time the local priest set up a soup kitchen in town at the quay. The cap stones came from the front gate of the soup kitchen which itself is long gone.


Adare Castle
A 12th century castle. The damaged state is due to Oliver Cromwell ordering fortification torn down in the 17th century to keep a restless population from taking advantage of them. The bridge in the background was built around the same time as the castle and is still in use today as a main road into Adare.



Interested in Moving?
A cottage on the main street of Adare. Originally build as workers quarters for those employed at the manor house located down the road

Since embarking on my photographic odyssey I have become more aware of color, contrasts, and shapes and see opportunities to take the everyday and, hopefully, with a bit of computer magic, make the scene a bit more interesting. With a little cropping, enhancing the colors, cranking up the contrast, and pushing the button, I hope I have provided you a little different perspective.....

A few days after I returned from Key West, my boss Dave went on vacation for just about two weeks, leaving me in charge.  I was kind of looking forward to it as I figured the dead of summer would be a nice time to ease into the management chair.  It turned out that juggling my assignment load along with the duties of managing a department led not only to a few long days but also a much better appreciation for what a department manager does. The short explanation is that it pretty much sucks.

There is enormous pressure to keep everybody within their allotted hours and still put together the jigsaw puzzle that is our photogs’ schedules and the assignment load. Toss in the assignment requests that didn’t make it back to photo and are now last minute ‘emergencies’, strange requests from various people, reprint orders, along with the two daily budget meetings and it can make for long days. Especially since I still need to perform my staff photographer duties along with playing photo editor.

In some ways it was good to see that part of the newsroom process. In others it was bad because when I did shoot assignments, I often only had 30 minutes instead of the hour or two I normally would have preferred.  I had more than a few discussions about why reporters just can’t go out and take a picture, that its more than pushing a button, why ‘good enough’ is precisely the reason the industry is in trouble and I got a little better at saying ‘no.’ That is probably my biggest weakness – I didn’t say no enough. I wanted the paper to look good, I wanted there to be lots of good, storytelling pictures in it and so I tried to be accommodating.  That ideal butts up against the very real barriers of time and money, both of which management is now primarily preoccupied. It is sad that journalism takes a backseat but that’s the way it is, I guess.

The upside is that I gained a better appreciation for my job as a photographer and what I like and dislike about newspaper photojournalism. Either way, as of Monday I get to be a photographer again and do what I do best.  Here are a few pictures from the last couple weeks that didn’t suck too bad: