All Types And Styles Of Urban Expression
DONATED FOUNTAIN IN MEMORY OF JAMES A POWER INSIDE CASTLE STREET ENTRANCE TO DUBLIN CASTLE
This fountain is located immediately inside the Castle Street entrance to Dublin Castle and have never seen it mentioned in any tourist guide and I cannot determine why it was donated to the state. In fact I cannot find any details of James Power or Three Bridges House.
“This Fountain Was Donated By The Family Of James A. Power, Three Bridges House, Carrick-on-Suir, In His Memory, October 1988.”
DUBLIN CASTLE WAS HANDED OVER TO THE IRISH FREE STATE IN JANUARY 16 1922
Erected in the early thirteenth century on the site of a Viking settlement, Dublin Castle served for centuries as the headquarters of English, and later British, administration in Ireland. In 1922, following Ireland’s independence, Dublin Castle was handed over to the new Irish government. It is now a major government complex and a key tourist attraction.
The 100th year celebration, 16 January 2022, of the handing over of Dublin Castle by the British to the Free State was a very low key event but I decided that it might be a good idea to visit and photograph the memorial plaques.
Most of the current construction dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland. The Castle served as the seat of English, then later British, government of Ireland under the Lordship of Ireland (1171–1541), the Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1800), and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1800–1922).
After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, the complex was ceremonially handed over to the newly formed Provisional Government led by Michael Collins.[1] It now hosts the inauguration of each President of Ireland and various State receptions.
The castle was built by the dark pool (“Dubh Linn”) which gave Dublin its name. This pool lies on the lower course of the River Poddle before its confluence with the River Liffey; when the castle was built, the Liffey was much wider, and the castle was effectively defended by both rivers. The Poddle today runs under the complex.
SAND SCULPTURES 2021 – DUBLIN CASTLE
It is funny how things work out. Today I went to a restaurant for lunch at 12:30 but I received a text message from the manager informing that, because of staff shortages, they could not open until 14:00.
As I had some time to spare I decided to visit Dublin Castle. I was aware that there had been an exhibition of sand sculptures in the upper courtyard but I had been advised that it had ended last Friday but much to my surprise I discovered that the sand sculptures were still intact.
Tomorrow I hope to visit the Botanic Gardens as the “Sculpture In Context” exhibition begins on Thursday but I hope to capture the artists in action as they install their sculpture.
DUBLIN CASTLE AND GROUNDS – I USED A TEN YEAR OLD SONY NEX-7
Unlike most people I do not sell my old cameras and I have all of them except for the Canon 5D which I gave to a friend on permanent loan. I did sell a few lenses because the were not full frame.
Today I decided to use my Sony NEX-7 and it booted up with no problem which surprised me as I have not used it about six years. However as I sold my cropped lenses I had to use a full frame lens [Zeiss FE 55mm F1.8 which is a beautiful lens].
I purchased my Sony NEX-7 about ten years ago and despite its many flaws it was one of my favourite cameras and it was the camera that resulted in me deciding to switch from Canon DSLR to mirrorless. At the time I also has a Canon 5D and a Canon 1Ds III. The DsIII was very expensive but my copy was faulty and I did not like it the 5D was excellent but I considered it to be too heavy and bulky despite its performance.
The Sony α NEX-7 is a digital camera announced 24 August 2011 by Sony. It is a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera and as such inherits a smaller body form factor than a traditional digital single-lens reflex camera, while still retaining the sensor size and features of an APS-C-sized model. It is targeted at experienced users, enthusiasts and professionals. It is replaced by the ILCE-6000 (α6000).
Albeit being delayed for a few months because of 2011’s Thai floods, the α NEX-7 was very well received by critics and users. In regions like Hong Kong, α NEX-7 was always running out of stock. DPreview.com and PhotographyBlog gave it their highest awards, with the highest score ever attained by an APS class camera. α NEX-7 also won the best camera in Camera Grand Prix 2012 under professional catalog, which was voted by a professional community consisting of 57 council members from the professional press field of the Camera Journal Press Club.
At the time of its release, the Sony Alpha NEX-7 had the best image quality among any mirrorless interchangeable-lens compact camera which had been tested by DxO Labs and also the best APS-C Sensor camera from Sony. Sony α65, Sony α77 and NEX-7 have similar sensors and received DxOMark Overall Scores of 74, 78, and 81, respectively. The image quality of NEX-7 can be comparable with Nikon D7000 (score 80) and Pentax K-5 (score 82)
A QUICK VISIT TO DUBLIN CASTLE – SHOT USING HEIF FORMAT
I normally shoot in RAW but I am currently experimenting with an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max and I used [by accident] HEIF and Lightroom Classic did not like the format and crashed a few times which has not happened for at least a year.
Sometimes colours [especially yellow] and skies can look a bit odd.
High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for individual images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video. A HEIF image using High Efficiency Video Coding, HEVC, requires only about half the storage space as the equivalent quality JPEG.
HEIF also supports animation, and is capable of storing more information than an animated GIF or APNG at a small fraction of the size.
HEIF files are a special case of the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF, ISO/IEC 14496-12), first defined in 2001 as a shared part of MP4 and JPEG 2000. Introduced in 2015, it was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and is defined as Part 12 within the MPEG-H media suite (ISO/IEC 23008-12).
HEIF was adopted by Apple in 2017 with the introduction of iOS 11, and support on other platforms is growing
