Ireland 2024

A blue day along the Ring of Kerry, County Kerry, Republic of Ireland.

CLICK HERE to open my Ireland 2024 Gallery

My wife and I visited Northern Ireland this summer after being away for too long. My family roots are in Northern Ireland. I still have a lot of dearly loved uncles, aunts, and cousins living there. Reconnecting is always wonderful, with the added bonus that the reconnections happen in an absolutely beautiful country.

Sometime I’d like to bring my photo gear with me to Northern Ireland, but I haven’t so far. This summer I stuck with my iPhone. I can’t do photography the way I want to when I’m with other people or when I’m being a tourist. Doing photography means being focused on the world around me in a way that leaves out the people I’m with; at the very least it means asking them to be patient as I run off to get a better angle or better light. I also hate lugging along a bunch of equipment that I may or may not use. So, the pics you see in my Ireland 2024 Gallery are taken my recently deceased iPhone 13 (another story) and edited in Adobe Lightroom. I enjoy these photographs for what they are - holiday snapshots by a photographer without his Nikon.

Dad’s Old ‘52

My project to digitize a lifetime of slides and negatives continues. I’m not in a rush. I scan a batch and spend a couple of weeks working to make them presentable. Sometimes there are surprises. Last week I was scanning a batch of unfiled negatives and was excited to see pictures of my Dad’s old ’52 Chevrolet pickup appearing on the screen. I hadn’t seen it for 30 years and found myself getting a little emotional.

There are always a lot of emotions and memories connected to old farm trucks. You associate them with the person who drove them. Dad’s old ’52 was a “gift” from my grandfather. Dad drove it to date my mom and used it on the farm until ’68 when he bought a new Chevy to replace it.

I was born just before he retired the ’52, so my early memories of the truck involve Dad taking me on rides to check the crops or to get the mail on a Saturday. My memories of the truck are connected to my memories of Dad’s dog, Missy. Missy was a jet-black cocker spaniel who would appear whenever she heard the whine of the ‘52’s old starter. Where the truck went, Missy went. I was conflicted about this because Missy was a rescue dog and had been abused by kids. Being a kid, she didn’t let me close to her so sharing the limited space in the cab was always dicey.

Photographically, I don’t have much to tell you. I don’t remember what kind of film I was shooting – some kind of color negative film. I do remember the camera, which was a Minolta Maxxum 7i with a 28-85 Minolta lens. I was working at a camera store at the time and the company rep lent me a bag of equipment to “test out”. I remember being impressed with the camera.

Dad’s Rubber Boots

I just checked the date on my last post and it was September 2 - so it’s been a while! My autumn has been the normal level of busy, but a knee injury put a lot of things on hold in favour of recovery. Time to get back at it.

One of my recent projects has been organizing pictures of my dad - Bill Enns. It is a cliche, but once-ordinary photographs become a lot more important after a person has passed away. Pictures that once seemed like boring, everyday scenes become special because that’s where we spent most of our time with the people we love - doing normal, everyday things. Dad hated rubber boots. They were hot and uncomfortable. But for a farmer, they were a seasonal necessity.

This photograph must have been taken in November, after the first light snowfall. The contrast between the black rubber and the newly fallen snow creates visual interest, as does the texture of the snow. Speaking of snow, I’m pleased with the way I handled the exposure of this photograph. Snow is difficult to expose well. Capturing the texture of snow requires finding the right balance between preserving texture and, at the same time, making sure that the snow is represented as white and not a muddy grey.

Since he passed away in 2008, every photograph of my dad has become special. Rubber boots may not be fine art, but they do trigger a lot of memories of working on the farm on muddy days or when we were cleaning the barn. In the picture his boots were “parked” for winter. Now, wherever they are, they are parked permanently.

Note: If you are one of my “Peeps” from Northern Ireland, feel-free to substitute “wellies” for “rubber boots.”

Nikon FE2 w. Nikkor 105 f/2.5 on Ilford XP2