Discovering Belfast

Last year, during my world trip for my 50th birthday, I met up with a number of Blipfoto members in Australia when I was staying with Trish and Adele. They were all very welcoming and friendly. Among those Blippers was Christina (Puggle) and this week, she visited Belfast with her friend, Luisa. I was delighted to be able to show them around the city and environs over two days. We managed to include the Victoria Square viewing platform, the City Hall, Queens University’s Lanyon Building, the Botanic Gardens, Sandy Row, Belfast Castle, Scrabo Tower, the Crown Bar, the Europa and the Opera House, Carrickfergus Castle, various political murals in the east and west of the city, Donaghadee (where we ran into Tim Lawrence, Princess Anne’s other half), Bangor, St Anne’s and St Peter’s Cathedrals, the Thompson Dock and Pump House, the Nomadic, viewed the Tesco Metro’s beautiful ceiling and a fair bit more. I think we may have overdone it a little!

I spent most of my time talking rather than photographing the sights, but I have included some of my shots below:

Merchant Banker (Tesco Metro)

 

NOTA!

 

Thompson Graving Dock

 

Scrabo Tower

 

St Peter’s Pews

 

St Peter’s Tiles

 

The Needle

 

Amazing weather too! Hurry back, Christina and Luisa.

Metal Insects

I went to see Only God Forgives at the Queen’s Film Theatre this evening. It’s pretty awful and a waste of ninety minutes and £4. Pretentious arty rubbish, just like Gosling and Winding Refn’s previous collaboration, Drive. Anyway, there is no better way for me to relax after a long-ass day and a crap film, than to wander around taking some long exposure shots of large industrial metal objects like these. My favourite shot of the evening is here: Sleeping Giants. It’s in landscape and didn’t suit the blog post layout. Clicking on it will take you to Flickr.

Metal Insects

 

Dark Giant

 

Rust In Peace

 

Off tomorrow! Yayy!

Decay and Dereliction

I’ve intended to take a few night shots of the demolition of this high-rise car park for some weeks now but only found the opportunity in the early hours of this morning. I missed the initial demolition of the semi-circular lane way at this end of the building which was quite striking in itself. At 00:30, Frederick Street was quite an experience but the three separate blokes who passed me seemed quite affable and as nervous of me as I was of them.  Clicking on the images opens them up larger in a separate window, for all the gritty detail!

 

Give Me The Night

Give Me The Night is an old George Benson tune from when Mrs P and I were courting. It’s the best title I could come up with for this evening’s post. It works in a way though, as I think I prefer night shots to those taken during the day.

These shots were taken fairly close together, geographically, however, the HMS Caroline image was taken some hours earlier than the others. Last night, I found myself  with a free hour so I decided to see if I could get a decent shot of the Nomadic. I’m reasonably happy with what I managed. Caroline first though; she’s a WWI vintage British warship, which fought at the Battle of Jutland but since 1928, has been moored in Belfast as a static training ship for local naval cadets. It’s very difficult to get a decent shot of her as she’s surrounded by chain link fences. I was lucky with this one.

HMS Caroline

 

Closer to the centre of town, right beside the new Titanic centre, is where the SS Nomadic is sitting in an old dry dock. It’s now open to the public, having been refurbished to “it’s former glory” as a tender for the Titanic. She spent many years in a pitiful state as a floating restaurant on the Seine in the centre of Paris before being rescued prior to the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. More info here: Nomadic

Here are a few shots followed by one of the new Titanic centre.

 

 

I really like this monotone shot above, but my absolute favourite of the evening is reached by the link below. It’s a landscape shot and is better seen on Flickr: Nomadic Retro Click through!

A Weird Few Days

This past few days have been fairly busy, but in a good way. I’ve made some decisions and that always feels pretty good. Sunday, on Night Outreach, was pretty weird for various reasons, but I’ll not go into that here.

Last night I spent some time taking some photographs down at Belfast Docks and today has been basically about relaxing (and buying carpets). I was particularly pleased with the outcome of last night’s shoot and I’ll definitely be going back down there at night. I’m definitely pining for my old Fujifilm X100 that I sold when I came back from my trip last June. Maybe if I don’t buy that Land Rover…