Guest Photo Post – Ciarán
February 11th, 2009
Today’s snowy photograph is from Ciarán O’Kelly:
“I took a picture of this bud in Belfast’s snowbound Botanic Gardens. As time has gone on I’ve become far more interested in using my computer to adjust the image afterwards. In this case I decomposed the picture in The GIMP and then added the original on top of the red layer at 25% transparency. Then I saturated the red in the picture. I rather like the almost hand-painted feel of the photograph where the shades are so muted.
I do seem to spend a lot of time in the Botanic Gardens with my camera. It’s very difficult to take a non-hackneyed photo of a flower but the Gardens at least provide some quiet opportunities and hidden corners to try. When I lived in Dublin I used to catch the DART every day from where I lived west of the city to where I worked in the south suburbs. I always thought that it would be impossible to get sick of the first sight of the bay as the train emerged at Booterstown. I have a similar feeling for the Botanic Gardens up here. They’re between work and home for me and provide a couple of minutes of refuge from traffic and noise twice a day.”
