Dublin, when the light dims

These are the fruits of a project I have been working on for the last six months to photograph my hometown of Dublin during the twilight "blue hour". I had initially intended just to document many of the new buildings that have been added to the city over the past 10-15 years but I have since expanded my horizons to include many of the iconic older buildings of the city.

Most pictures taken with the OM-D EM-5 with one or two shot with a Nikon D90.

This is an initial batch, with more to follow as I upload them.

1. To start off, the view over the city from the hills to the north on the Howth peninsula:

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Lighting-up Time by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

2. O'Connell Street, Dublin's Main Street:

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O'Connell Street by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

Four iconic Dublin buildings:

3. The Custom House:

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Custom House by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

4. The former parliament building, now the Bank of Ireland:

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Bank of Ireland, College Green by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

5. The Four Courts, where the Civil War of 1922-23 began:
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Four Courts by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

6. The General Post Office, where the 1916 Rising began:

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GPO by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

 

Thanks for the kind words folks. I hope to have a second batch up in the next few days.

They're all at the sale at Clery's! :smile:

More seriously, while most of the pics are taken in the evening (hence the name I've chosen for the thread title), #2 is one of the few taken in the early hours of the morning, literally just a few minutes before rush hour started up - barely two minutes after I took the last shot (the image is a pano BTW) the street was full of traffic and people.

I've been very impressed with the sharpness of the Panny zooms so far and, when it comes to this type of photography, I'm very fastidious about technique - always use a tripod, IBIS off, anti-shock on, shutter triggered with a cable release - and find this does make a significant difference in the sharpness of the end result.

 

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your kind words. I hope you enjoy your trip; September's a pretty good time to come over here – sometimes even the weather cooperates!

If you want to do a bit of a general photowalk, you usually can't go wrong with taking a stroll along the River Liffey. Dublin city centre is fairly compact and so you can cover a lot of ground quite easily.

All of my images are geotagged, so if you see anywhere in my set that looks interesting, you can easily check the location. The coordinates given resolve to the location of the camera, not necessarily the subject; e.g. some pictures are taken from the opposite bank to the river to the building being photographed. Link to map here.

Speaking of the River Liffey, here are four Dublin bridges:

7. The Ha'penny Bridge:

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Ha'penny Bridge by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

8. James Joyce Bridge:
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James Joyce Bridge by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

9. Sean O'Casey Bridge:
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Sean O'Casey Bridge by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

10. Samuel Beckett Bridge:

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Samuel Beckett Bridge by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

 

Thanks. I have plans to eventually collect these in a Blurb book for my own amusement but I still have a number of places I want to get shots of and a few I want to go back and improve on.

All single exposure. I fell into and dug myself out of The HDR Hole a few years ago. There is a sweet spot of about 5 minutes during the blue hour where the natural light and the artificial light are in almost perfect balance and it's possible to capture an apparently wide dynamic range in a single shot. I usually set my exposure compensation to +0.7 to get the necessary shadow detail and then recover the highlights in Lightroom.

 

Three from Trinity College:

11. Library Square:

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Library Square by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

12. Berkeley Library:

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Berkeley Library, Trinity College by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr

13. Long Room Hub:

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Long Room Hub, Trinity College by picturesbyJOE, on Flickr