Dive, Dive, Dive.

This is one of my favourite photos. I know the lighting isn't great, I was still trying to figure out how to use our Cannon EOS 400D and I failed big time. Personally I like it because it reminds me of this great day when me and my friends all went to the lake in the evening time when it was kind of chilly despite the sunshine.
John decided to back flip from the boardwalk and luckily I happened to snap him mid-air.

Electric Picnic

I'm really excited about Electric Picnic this year. Although last year's was a mud-fest I still had a great time. This year I'm volunteering with Oxfam, it will be the 4th festival that I've volunteered at this Summer with all my festival buddies. (Who I'm moving in with in a few weeks!)
The bands I'm most looking forward to are;
Modest Mouse
Friendly Fires
The Japanese Popstars
Foals
Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Booka Shade
Hot Chip
LCD Soundsystem
Tiga
& of course Massive Attack

Even though it's really exciting, it's also kind of sad. I know this is the last festival before we all go back to college. I had such a good time at Castlepalooza, Life, Sea Sessions and Oxegen this Summer but I know this time next month I'll be sitting in a cold room, hopefully in Marino studying research skills for journalism or something.
Which is great, but I'm going to miss waking up in smelly tents, living of packs of crisps and peeing in rotten porta-loos!

Anyway, even though I was trying to avoid it, I guess that this is kind of good bye Summer post!
And a hello again college!

Blink 182: This is my rant, deal with it.

Blink 182 are playing the O2 in Dublin tonight. So here's a picture of them by my favourite taker of photos, David Lachapelle.

I'm actually pretty upset today. I was all set to go to Blink, I'd been Facebook status-ing it up and Tumbling about it non-stop. That's often how you know something really has me all hot and bothered. Unfortunately I am unemployed and living with my parents in the middle of nowhere, Co. Westmeath.
My plan was to borrow some dosh from my parents for the ticket, as I was supposed to meet a mystery internet girl who would sell me the ticket before the gig.
To my dismay, it my plans turned to poop and now I can't go. And yes, I know it sounds kind of sad and slightly melodramatic. Mostly because Blink aren't really a very serious or meaningful band to most people. In fact they're kind of a joke with their quirky videos and their whiny pop-punk voices but I don't care! They mean a lot to me, they were well and truly my gateway band.

I always remember when I was I dunno, say 11 or 12 or something like that, when my Grandad was the only person in my house with Sky on they television. I would sneak up to his sitting room after school, while he was still at work in Dublin. I used to use a tape to record my favourite music from the telly so that I could watch it in my own room on my giant boxy hand-me-down television from the year 190-splosh.
 I remember one day flicking through the channels and seeing All The Small Things on Kerrang. I immediately recognized it. It was a popular song even years after it had been released. I recorded it, along with some shit HIM song, Evanescence and Pain by Jimmy Eat World.
After that, I would constantly go back to Kerrang and P-rock and Scuzz searching for bands like Blink. Yes, there were some bands that I became attached to that are a little less... well, good. Like say Bowling For Soup. Because of bands like Blink I discovered NOFX and Sonic Youth and so many other bands. In reality I kind of have Tom, Mark and Travis (Drool.) to thank for all the awesome bands that shuffle about my ipod today.

Things could have gone very differently and right now I could be upset about never seeing Tiesto live. Basically, I've been waiting for Blink to play in Ireland for quite literally years and years and now that they are it's killing me that I'm going to miss that performance. I know it's whiney and stupid but it really is making me upset. I really hope that someday I get to rock out to some live Blink 182.

In other, more important news the interview for my journalism with photography course is tomorrow. Fingers crossed that I'll get it. This year has certainly been a journey of self exploration, now that it's finally clear what I would like to do it's terrifying that I might not get it.

Review : The Orphanage

This is a review that I had to write for an English assignment a few years ago. Found it on an old blog of mine and decided to re-post it. I recently watched the orphanage and had forgotten just how creepy it was...
Title: The Orphanage 
Cast: Belèn Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep 
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Release: 11 January 2008 
Time: 105 minutes Juan Antonio Bayona

Bayona's Orphanage is a contemporary Spanish horror set in a scenic, coastal area in Spain. The film focuses on a young couple, Laura played by Belèn Rueda, her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and their adopted son Simòn. The family relocate to The Orphanage, an aged house in which our protagonist Laura spent her childhood. It's not long  before the building's dark history is projected in a supernatural manner. 


Laura's plan is to re-open the orphanage to children with special needs just as it was when she was a child. Her son, Simòn soon makes some imaginary friends to keep him company in the isolated house. As the story unfolds it is suggested that these new friends of Simòn's are less than savory as they begin to toy with the family by playing sinister games. Laura's dream of opening the orphanage is soon shattered as Simòn goes missing during a celebration. Laura believes that Simòn's new friends are responsible for his disappearance and that there is surely a supernatural explanation. As she becomes obsessed with investigating this, the atmosphere in the house becomes very macabre... 

Despite the use of classic Gothic supernatural machinery resident in old horror movies Del Toro's Orphanage truly stands out from the average, special effect ridden modern horrors that dominate our screens. Although the primary concern of this emotionally intense horror is to use the extra-mundane to terrify it's audience it is also an impassioned tale illustrating a mothers maternal fixation on the belief that there is a supernatural explanation for her sons disappearance. Rueda's excellent performance engages the audience in all of the emotional distress involved with grieving the loss of a child and the creepy occurrences in the house. This is especially apparent when Laura is confronted by a child, clothed in attire suited to a different time whilst sporting a disturbing cloth mask.

Sergio G. Sánchez remarked in a television interview “I think that our biggest challenge, was to do a movie that could be understood as a ghost story, and that you could also read as the descent into madness of a woman who just doesn't know how to cope with the disappearance of her son”.  With the admittedly intentional nod to to Henry James' literary work 'The Turn of the Screw' and director of the Orphanage, Guillermo Del Toro 's previous cinematic wonder, 'The devils backbone”  the film is sure to leave it's audience tense, uneasy and quivering in their seats.

Jimmy and Adam @ Castelpalooza

"A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it."

William Styron interview, Writers at work 1958

I wish that I knew who this was, it just so happened that my shift ended in the Boudoir tent in time for the begging of their set. I took this picture from backstage where I had been picking up rubbish for hours!

Adabisi Shank

I don't mean to bombard those of you who have stumbled across this blog with photographs but I'm incredibly tempted to post some pictures that I took at this Summer's music festivals. These snaps in particular are of a band called Adebisi Shank. They were taken using a Fujifilm Finepix S5500. It's not my favourite camera but it's finally been passed down to me now that my mother has began using a more modern Cannon.
It was the first time that I was allowed to bring the camera to a dirty festival and I made the most of it.

Adebisi Shank themselves are quickly making a name for themselves in Ireland and the UK. They recently played at Castlepalooza festival in July. Despite the small crowd the atmosphere was great. The weather was fine, people were head banging and the music was awesome.

Not so long after their Castlepalooza appearance I caught the trio in Whelans, Dublin. The place was packed, it was almost impossible to squeeze through the crowd, the cramped venue wasn't about to stop people dancing and downing pints. To add to the wreckless feel of the gig, there were various crowd surfers being passed around the audience, the air must have been about 60% sweat. The music vibrated around the small venue sending people flying into a sort of dancing fit. It was really brilliant seeing three talented lads making some new, interesting sounds. There are a lot of really great Irish musicians at the moment, but Adebisi Shank aren't like anyone else. That probably explains why the bands audience is so quickly expanding.

To end off their Whelans gig they allowed the audience to get up on to the stage and dance with them, all while their bassist was surfing the crowd. I'm pretty sure that some of the audience members tried to walk away with him in their hands. Of course my friends joined in and hopped up onto the cramped stage with about 30 other people. I really wish that my camera was handy for that moment!

To find out more about the band, or new Irish bands like them go to http://www.richtercollective.com/

Old Film Garden

This is another photo from the lookbook shoot. I know it's very dark but I kind of dig it.
Feel free to click through the picture where you will be wisped away to my Flickr account.

Robyn's Lookbook shoot.

Robyn and I set out to style and photograph an outfit for her lookbook.nu page. We took a few great pictures of the outfit. After which decided to take a few photos for my own personal photography. This one is my favourite so far.

3 me

This picture was post-fauxhawk. My little sister, who can be found here. did my eye make up and wanted to get a few shots. I'm really bad at being in front of the camera so excuse the awkwardness of these pictures! It's even embarrassing placing them here on my own blog.

Faux Hawk Tryout

I really wanted to try a DIY fauxhawk. At first I didn't think it possible but eventually with the help of my mother and sister we managed to create one using one million and two hair clips, half a can of hair spray and the type of back-combing last used in a 1980's Bananarama video.