More analogue photography

I took some more pictures with my wonky Holga camera. Some of them are of cats, feral and domesticated.







Others were of things seen on the streets of Dublin.





As is traditional with cheap film cameras, I accidentally exposed one frame twice.



And I clipped the top of an object I was photographing.



More

An inuit panda production

When Museums Expand

The Portobello area in Dublin was once the centre of the city's Jewish community. With the passage of time, that community has moved away from the area, leaving two relics of its presence behind. One is the Bretzel bakery, which continued to obtain kosher accreditation for its products long after it came into non-Jewish ownership. The other is the Irish Jewish Museum, located on Walworth Road, a quiet residential street.

There are plans afoot to expand the Jewish Museum. They seem to be meeting opposition from some people in Portobello. Walking around the area, one can see posters opposing the expansion stuck to trees and lampposts. They are also visible in the windows of many houses, including houses beside and across from the museum on Walworth Road itself.

It is hard to know what to make of all this. On the one hand, the posters do suggest a certain petty-minded nimbyism. Yet they are right to say that Portobello is a quiet neighbourhood, and having lived next door to a building site myself once I know how disrupting a large construction project can be. But there is still something a bit disturbing about the posters. Ireland is a country with planning rules and procedures, so if people have legitimate concerns about the expansion project there are channels through which they can contest the process. The anonymous posters seem a bit creepy. They call to mind the less enlightened past when members of the Jewish community had to endure persecution and hostility from their non-Jewish neighbours. In this conext, I wonder if it is significant that the various posters keep referring to the "Walworth Road Museum", never mentioning its Jewish character.

For all that, I am myself ambivalent about the expansion of the museum. As it stands, the museum is one of Dublin's little gems and my fear would be that any expansion would remove its appealing character. From one report in the media, it seems that the original synagogue inside the museum is to be demolished and reconstructed, which arguably would affect the site's authenticity. I would also have concerns that the general expansion could sterilise a museum that currently is a direct relic of the community that once lived around it. But I have not studied the expansion plans and so cannot say whether these concerns are justified. In any case, if there is to an Irish Jewish Museum anywhere, expanded or not, Portobello is the place for it.

Links:

Residents appeal against redevelopment of Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin (Irish Times)

Proposed expansion to Irish Jewish Museum (from the Come Here To Me blog about Dublin life and culture)

In Dublin’s Little Jerusalem, Museum Begins Expansion (Irish America)

Irish Jewish Museum website

An inuit panda production

I went to Cork

Cork is Ireland's second largest city. It has everything Dublin has, and more. I went there and took some pictures.


Someone found a dog. It is being well looked after.

I also went up Shandon Hill. This is a mysterious old neighbourhood to the north of the city centre.


I saw a plaque to Mother Jones, the American labour activist. She was born in Cork.


Shandon is famous for the church at the top of the hill, over which there is a weathervane in the shape of a fish. I have long suspected that the church serves a congregation of Deep One hybrids.


There were loads of flags flying from ropes connected to the church.


Loads of flags.


I did not photograph anywhere else in Cork.

More

An inuit panda production

I rediscover analogue photography

Some time ago I read about this photography movement called Lomography. It takes its name from an old camera called the Lomo that originated in the Soviet Union. Lomography is a reaction to the slickness of digital photography and the faux retro of photography websites like Instagram. Instead of taking pictures on a digital camera and using software to make the results look old and interesting, Lomography enthusiasts try for similar results by using old-fashioned and characterful film cameras. They have branched out from the Lomo to other brands of cheap and cheerful cameras, including such brands as Holga and Diana (both originally from Hong Kong).

For all that the world has largely embraced digital cameras, Lomography enthusiasts are not the only people still using analogue cameras. What distinguishes Lomography people from other users of analogue cameras is the embrace of cheap and quirky cameras that are unpredictable in their results.

I am interested in photography, albeit in a very amateurish kind of way, and I was interested in Lomography as soon as I read about it. So I bought a Holga 120FN from a Dublin camera shop (mainly because it was least complicated Lomography camera they had). This is a plastic camera of great simplicity, completely lacking in electronics. Everything has to be done manually, from focussing to winding on the film. That means it does not use batteries, unless you want to use the built-in flash. It is extremely light (being made of cheap plastic) but it is also surprisingly bulky, which means I have not been carrying it around with me as much as I should and took quite a while to fill a roll of film. But I did eventually. The photographs here are ones I took with it. The rest of my first roll is visible in a set on Flickr.

I was pleasantly surprised by the pictures from the first roll - no double exposures, none that were ridiculously out of focus, or anything like that. This had made me interested in further exploring what the Holga can do. More fun beckons.

Links:

The pictures of my Holga's first roll of film

Lomography

Did the Lomo camera save film photography? (BBC; probably where I first heard about this Lomography business)

John Gunn camera shop (where I bought my Holga)

An inuit panda production

More pictures

Timetable of Rock.



Swan Patrol.



Waiting patiently.



Sunburst.



Suspicious character.



Illegal posters.



Cat lost.



Beetle.



Wake up, sheeple!



INLA Childcare

More

My life in photos

Beware the World Wide Peadophile Army.



Penguin says smile.



Dereliction.



We are hungry.



The Asylum.



Vole ladders.



Abstraction.



Famine.



Popular swans.

More