red mum

EDIT: February 18th @10:50am:

Meeting place: Oak Pub, Oliver Plunkett Street and Caroline Street (map). (Thanks Donncha)

Time: noon in Cork City and 11.30am for those of us staying in the hotel to head into town

WE’VE done a bit of talking on Twitter about the photo meet before the Irish Blog Awards in Cork next weekend, February 21st and seeing as how the Ladies Tea Party begins at 4pm and some of the photowalkers are booked in for that, I would suggest that we finish up by 3ish so the lady lunchers can make it back to the Cork Airport Hotel.

So far we haven’t settled on what to do, but I believe there is a general consensus that we will make our way into Cork City and follow our noses. I imagine to give us a good shot at the afternoon that we should meet in Cork City at noon. For those of us staying in the Cork Airport Hotel, I’d say we should get taxis from 11.30ish into town.

I know a good gang have already said they are up for the photowalk so what about you? Any thoughts on what we should do, where we should go, what we absolutely cannot miss? Oh yeah where should we meet in town. As things are firmed up, I’ll update this post so do check back.

As always this event is open to absolutely anyone. If you cannot make the noon start, drop me an email with your mobile number and we can keep in touch over the afternoon.

You can find out about the other blog awards events on the awards blog. And thanks to Sabrina who made the photo walk graphic last year, hopefully she won’t mind that I recycled it.

If you have any thoughts let us know in the comments.

I’LL be at a loss this weekend following my last two Saturdays, the first nearly two weeks ago I met up with a number of women bloggers for a photoshoot and then a long lovely boozy lunch, then last Saturday I met up with a group from Pixie for a special tour of the Guinness Storehouse as part of their new monthly photographic competition.

I should have written about both of these things before now but I just haven’t had time to never mind the fact that I have to still go through pics from Scotland, so far I have just managed to work up to the point where we fixed our puncture. More on that when I get to finishing the pics.

But back to two Saturdays ago when myself, Grannymar, Annie (and her pal), Gaelick, Zeta and the girls from Beautie met up for a photoshoot for a future Irish Times article. Between the Grannymar’s clamberings all over a sofa, great girly craic over a long boozy lunch and then the biblical rain at the end of the day, I couldn’t think of a more fun way to spend a Saturday. Keep an eye out for the article in the next couple of weeks and many thanks to Beautie for organising the afternoon

Pic by Grannymar, sort of, well it was taken by a ‘toyboy’ waiter on her camera but still its hers…

Then last weekend a group of us from Pixie were lucky to be part of a special tour of the Guinness Storehouse before it opened to the public. The tour was organised as part of the Storehouse’s monthly photographic competition, more details available later in the post.

So on the first morning of my two-week holiday I was dragging myself out of bed at 7am to meet up with everyone else at 8am. Course I was a little late and found myself wandering around places in Guinness by myself. Lisa from the Guinness Storehouse was brilliant explaining the set up of the building, whats going on where before leaving us to our cameras and the empty building. The morning in the Storehouse was finished up with a wonderful breakfast before pints in the Gravity Bar. It was a really great day and seriously excellent to get such an exclusive tour of the place particularly given how busy it is once it opens.

I would have liked to have chatted more with some of the other people taking part whose names I only know through Pixie but I’m sure we’ll get more things organised in the future. You can read more about our day at the Guinness Storehouse on the Pixie blog where you can also find out details on how to enter as well as links to blog posts by others who took part.

So onto to the pics, here are some shots from the Guinness Storehouse, with more to come as soon as I get to them You’ll find more on Pixie.

So after those two excellent Saturday afternoons, I’ll be at a loss this weekend with nothing planned

WELL they were taken nearly two weeks ago at the last Toe Jam photomeet at the Dublin Maritime Festival and finally here are some of the images of the day. It was another great photomeet, with outrageously wonderful weather. Not only were there some Toe Jam regulars, our new name, some new snappers came along from boards.ie as well as someone who read about the meet on Dublin Blog.

I will come back and edit this with everyone’s links, but for now I’ll just post some pics to prove I have actually posted them at long last.

As ever it has been cool to see everyone else’s contribution from the day in our Flickr group. On the day itself there were hoards of people at the festival which made taking photographs rather tough but I suppose on the other hand it made you work harder for images.

There are more days out planned and if you fancy coming along check out the Facebook group, or our Flickr group as well as keeping an eye here and on Dublin Blog for details of the next one, which I imagine will be sooner rather than later.

So over to the images.

WELL I had a ball at the weekend’s photomeet, thanks so much to everyone that came along. At various points of the day Caitriona, John, Darren, 73 Man, Davy, Phil, Nathalie, Alexia, Debs, Will, Bob, Claire, and some other pals were there making the whole day great fun. You can check out lots of different pics in the Toe Jam pool.

We started out at the George Bernard Shaw pub Toe Jam carboot sale which was too cool for school with wonderful things to photograph, amazing colours and great backdrops. I think a lot of the people involved all knew each other so a gang of us with cameras turning up was above rather then below the radar. There were a few comments about the amount of cameras/snappers by the Toe Jammers. Some of us had more camera kit than others, you know who you are Davy, which later led to multiple camera-nerdy moments and impromptu portrait-taking with various lighting techniques using home-made and very effective flash equipment. I have to say that the more I take photographs the more I hate having my photograph taken.

Once our group was complete and everyone had their fill of Toe Jam and cakes we walked down to the Temple Bar Saturday market where once again we did a couple of circuits of the market, taking pics, buying beautiful fresh produce before retiring to the beer garden at the top of the Fitzsimmons Hotel.

The Young Wan did well out of the door with a couple of cool t-shirts, a cool bag, not to mention dinner picked up in Temple Bar courtesy of the Gallic Kitchen. I managed to get the pics up on Flickr and Pix.ie over the weekend so to finish it all off I’ll post some here.

There was talk as well of the next photomeet and a couple of things were mooted, we mentioned Cork as well as a North Coast run from Belfast up to the Giants Causeway taking in all the amazing sites/sights along the way. Thats one where we would need drivers but it is definitely something we should look at for the summer.

Anyways before I post some of my pics of Saturday I want to thank everyone for firstly turning up, I would have cut a lonely figure pottering around Toe Jam on my own and secondly for making it such a fun-filled and full day.

FOR all you who are coming to the photomeet tomorrow and think you may be a little late, drop me an email to redmumATgmailDOTcom and I’ll send you my mobile number. Looking forward to it.