Neil Danton

…long dark hair and lovely legs.

Now I know you were immediately thinking of me, but no, I’m referring to Mairead:

A bit late with a blog, but I’m mad busy so it’s going to be short and sweet.

Shot recently on the streets of Cork for, erm, well there’s a small clue if you look hard enough.

TTFN

…Hollywood Icon, Legend. So many descriptive words, but that’s enough about me.

What I’m really leading up to, is that I was privileged to photograph Hollywood icon Miss Maureen O’Hara recently:

Star of over 60 movies she is now 90 years young and was launching the Maureen O’Hara Classic Film Festival in Glengarriff, Co Cork where she now lives for most of the time.

Unsurprisingly no direction needed to get the result I wanted. She has that “screen presence” even when meeting her face-to-face.

Still a classy, feisty lady. An absolute pleasure for me to meet her

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…a man in a Tux. Apparently.

Always nice when people get the idea that boring ideas and images aren’t going to be noticed and that it’s going to take some effort to produce something that might catch the eye. Even a fairly simple concept can be jazzed up with a bit of effort:

So with Debs & Grads Balls in the offing, a nicely written press-release with an original story concept, and a quirky or fun image to go with it might work for a Mens Outfitters? How about, instead of a couple of people in Ball clothing, or looking at clothing, make them look like mannequins?

Of course sometimes you need to risk life & limb to create an image by standing in the middle of the road to make the shot:

Then again, less likely it was my safety and more having an “assistant” with nice legs behind me that held up the traffic

TTFN

There are few things more pleasing to photograph as a commercial photographer than food or booze. One I like to eat, and two… erm “some people” enjoy a wee drop of alcohol now and then. Allegedly. Actually that’s not really me. An occasional beer is all I take really, but we photographers do have a reputation to maintain.

Even more pleasing than creating images of food or drink though is being commissioned to create images by a start-up company. I’ve huge admiration for anyone who has the balls to launch a new venture in this economic climate so I was delighted when I was booked by Drombeg Irish Spirit to create some publicity images for them.

The Drombeg name comes from an ancient stone circle near the production facility so we couldn’t resist traipsing all the gear down there to get the flavour of the place (see what I did there? ):

The guys were kind enough to give me a bottle upon departure, purely so I could talk about the product with a little background knowledge *obviously* and I can tell you it’s absolutely delicious *hic*

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…Imelda May!

Had a great laugh recently at a PR shoot for the Clarion Hotel in Cork. The hotel is closest to the venue for the Live at the Marquee concerts, which among many others will this year feature Elton John, Christy Moore and Imelda May, so what better than having the mad staff at the hotel dress up as the stars and check in:

“Imelda”, actually Kasia, was fairly sure I was joking when I asked her to lay on top of the piano. Oh how little you know me:

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No, not Richard Wagner the composer. He died in 1883.

This Wagner is the one from X Factor who was in Cork recently:

Having arranged that I was going to shoot him the minute he arrived from the airport and decided where I was going to place him, he arrived. Never mind that I hadn’t tested my light and had just figured that a 135mm was too long and I’d change to an 85mm. I knew I’d only have a few minutes with him, no time to change a lens. The light, well when you shoot in manual, sometimes it takes a few tries to get it just right. Taking a punt on the light to subject distance and the time of day, I set the Quadra to less than a 1/4 power. I have the Quadra set to display in watt-seconds as I’m more comfortable with those numbers, so the range is 0-400. Well not 0, the lowest power is 25 I think(?!?). I went for 87.

Perfect first time. I’m either very good or very lucky, and they say it’s better to be lucky than good.

TTFN

p.s. Here’s a little choon for you from the other Wagner, the Richard one. It’s The Ride of the Valkyries, probably best known for its use in the film Apocalypse Now:

…not the mythical ones that breathe fire, but the ones that have (different) TV series in the UK & Ireland – Dragon’s Den

If you’re not familiar, the shows feature people with an idea or concept that try to get funding from a panel of “Dragons”, venture capital for an equity share in the business

I got to create some publicity images for Diarmaid Twomey from Cork whose company Expresso Ads was the last to receive backing from two of the Dragons in the last programme of the Irish series

The big coffee cup prop was made by Made in Hollywood. It’s nice to have a great prop for a shoot

Curious onlookers at the early morning part of the shoot:

The first part of the shoot featured one of the Dragons who backed the idea – Bobby Kerr, who is the Chairman of the Insomnia coffee chain:

Well done to Diarmaid on getting his funding, and best of luck for the future:

TTFN

I don’t do a post every time I document a new arrival at Fota Wildlife Park, honest, but it’s not every time I do it that I get the front page of the Irish Times with one of the images!

Time is tight at the moment as I’m in headless-chicken mode with so many shoots on, so this is just a slammer post as I’m a day (or even two) late with posting here.

This is the latest arrival – an as yet unnamed baby male giraffe with his mother Sapphire:

That was the Irish Times splash, and here’s another of him having a rather awkward looking run-around:

You lookin’ at me?:

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They’re either a bunch of grubby layabouts, or nerdy geeks, right?

Obviously the graduate of the year (female) from a major university is going to be a mousey, nerdy geek. Would that be a reasonable assumption?

Wrong:

Not content with graduating in Law, she then graduated in Medicine as well. Or the other way around. It hurts my brain just thinking about it.

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OK, so that post title might be meaningless for non UK/Ireland residents, you might have to use the big G to search for Compare the Meerkats to get the connection

Always delighted to go and shoot the new residents at Fota Wildlife Park. The only problem with the location of their home is that it’s only possible to shoot them through either perspex or a chain-link fence. I chose the fence. All things considered then, I’m not too unhappy with the results.

It’s fascinating to watch meerkats for a good period of time. It was quite a time too. Ideally I wanted two of them together to relate to the story, but they don’t stay in one spot for very long, apart from the one on guard-duty. It stays in one spot on the look-out for predators, while the others get on with their business.

I was there just before Valentine’s Day. On that basis the rest of this post will de-generate somewhat.

“I’m expecting a card. Where’s the postman?”:

“He’ll be along any minute now. Is that him?”:

“Maybe he’s delivering to the tradesmen’s entrance. That’s over there isn’t it?:

“What about airmail. D’ya think it might be arriving by airmail?”:

“You keep an eye out that way, and I’ll look…”:

“Here he comes, HERE HE COMES, this is definitely him”:

“Wayhay! I got a card”:

“Aww, thanks for my card, you’re the best”:

TTFN