I am doing a once-off limited edition print of the following photographs. All prints are signed, numbered and certified. Printed professionally using the best museum quality archival papers and inks.
Shipping worldwide.
These images have not been offered before. If interested, please contact me.
Photographic Punctuation
Perpetual Endeavour
The Unbeckoned
The pip-pop life span of worries
My Tokyo
My Tokyo
My little girl was always asking me when the prize would arrive. So when it came I thought it was only right to take a photo of her with it.
Here she is with the prize I won for the Best in Show at The FIPA – Florence International Photography Awards.
Little moments like these are what make the memories.
Big thanks to Andrea Bigiarini and other organisers of FIPA. You made me, and a little girl, very happy.
You can read the background to the story here.
Florence International Photography Awards
This year has been a year of surprises. Things I could never have imagined have happened. Seeing a photograph I shot with my iPhone going up on monstrous billboards around the world, winning competitions, being invited to speak at events like Mojocon and Apple’s Meet the iPhone Photographer. To say it has been a magical ride is a bit of an understatement. I have loved every minute of it.
On Friday, just after I had gotten home from work there was a ring at the door and my neighbour was standing there with a package that she had taken from the courier for me. Puzzled as to what it could be I thanked her for it and took it inside. It was heavy. I quickly opened it and was struck by the brilliant white of the box. I ripped the transparent wrapping off. Saw a pair of white gloves and got even more puzzled. Then I saw the text: World Gallery 2015. Apple! Shot on iPhone 6! Wow! What was this? I opened it up and saw inside two beautiful, pristine white books; one for the photographs and one for the gallery of images posted around the world.
Naturally, I looked for my own photo, but seeing those of the friends I’ve made over this campaign added to the surprise and thrill of it all. I called my wife to tell her. ‘Apple have sent two books.” I said. “They’re beautiful! And there’s a pair of white gloves with them too!” “White gloves?” she said. Why?”
It really is a beautiful way to round off this wonderful experience. These books will be treasured. I have always been conscious of the fact that I would not really be able to appreciate the scale and impact of the Shot on iPhone 6 campaign until it had passed. Having these books as mementos is a perfect way to relive the experience again. Seeing the excitement of my mother leaf through the books wanting to see every page and learn about every photograph was a precious memory. Telling her who the photographers are and how I know them reminded me of the connections I have made through the year with people like Jen and Cielo from the U.S, Satoshi from Japan, Teppo from Finland, Fabo from Singapore, Karla from the Phillipines, Flavió from Switzerland, WB Novak from Poland, Ahmed from Saudi Arabia, Freek from The Netherlands, and Debbie from Dubai. We shared such excitement together. Who knows what more is to come.
My little girl Sumi-Anna was very busy with school and parties on Friday that I hadn’t the time to show her the books until Saturday morning. She put on the white gloves and with great care looked through the books until she found her daddy’s photograph. “Wow!” she said. That’s your photo, Daddy. It is everywhere!” Treasured moments.
On Friday evening, I was contacted by Cult of Mac who wanted to run a feature on the books. I gave them a short interview and a few of the images I had posted on Facebook. Very soon thousands of people had read the interview. Over the weekend, a number of publications have contacted me about publishing more of these photographs. I have suggested as part of this agreement they will make a donation to the Irish Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Children. A very worthy cause.
It really has been so special. I realise how fortunate I have been and am so very grateful to all the kind people I have met on this journey. Big thanks to all. Kiss the future…
Giving photographs titles is a bit like what Bob Dylan said about songwriting: If it rhymes, it rhymes, if it don’t, it don’t. If it comes, it comes, if it won’t, it won’t. Sometimes, I just look at the image and the title comes so easily; other times I just have to title the shot with the location it was taken in because no title comes and it is better to have none than a title that will make me cringe later on.
Today, I posted a pair of images to Flickr with the title ‘rehearsing for a date’. I have many little photographic projects on the go and this is one of them. These images show people on their own in places commonly popular for dating couples. Sometimes, titles can add to images, but very often the old adage addition is dilution is true. Hope it is not the case here.
Rehearsing for a date (Porto)
Rehearsing for a date (Tokyo)
I am really delighted to have this website up and running and to have one place to showcase my photography. I have organised images into the the various projects I have been working on over the past few years and imagine as time goes on I will add to these and also create new galleries with new photography projects. That is the exciting thing; thinking about the new photographs I will get that will fill these pages here. I have tried not to separate the photographs in terms of those I shoot with the Apple iPhone 6 and the photographs with either the Nikon D7000 or the Fuji X100T. The reason being that I do not see a difference in terms of what I want to create. The iPhone camera or the other cameras ultimately all perform the same job.
So welcome! I hope you will continue to follow and support me here on my new website. I will be doing all blog posts from here and over time will leave photographicpunctuation.com. Thanks for the support; thanks for the inspiration!
Brendan
Brendan
Today a dash of Ireland. The first image is from Ladies’ View in Killarney. A view made famous by Queen Victoria, and her ladies-in-waiting, who, by all accounts, loved the view. She was a regular visitor to Ireland during her reign. I was lucky while there that a foxy-headed, young lad was bobbing around while I was there and added to create an even more Irish scene.
A boy at ladies’ view
The wonderful thing about Irish villages is the colour and pride people take in their houses. Passing through Irish villages on a sunny day, you get to see beautifully painted houses with lovely flowers in all the windows. We love the sun in Ireland, but the sun….
Keep Walking, Sunshine!
Things on my mind today:
How love changes like a song heard in the wind; sometimes faint, sometimes strong, but always heard;
Believe – achieve! Kiss this future…
Committed to the future
Trees need to cheer the fuck up
More images shot in Milan. This first one created with the Fuji x100t (which is sick and recovering in the Fuji hospital in the UK – wishing it a speedy recovery) in a underground station in Milan. We had a marvellous time while we were there, but one of things I wish I had was more time to create photographs. The woman blurred out in the image is my good and patient wife whose holiday was punctuated with my photographing. Had she not been with me, I would stayed and worked these locations much more, but I had to work quickly here. Now, don’t get me wrong. I would not have changed anything about the two days we had in Milan. But of course, I do see photographic opportunities lost. 🙂
Punctuating Patience
In Milan, I was struck by the strong characters I encountered. The men had such expressive features. This iPhone image is one of those. I saw this man in a stopped tram staring at me. As I approached with the camera, his gaze intensified.
Milan
A week has passed since I last posted an update to this wonderful story. In this time, I have seen or been sent by friends images of my photograph on display on billboards or posters from cities all over the world: Santiago, San Francisco, Yokohama, Bógota, Bangkok, Berlin, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Berlin, Boston, Philadelphia, Hamburg – the list goes on. And I can say that it still is the most amazing thrill. Nothing I could ever have dreamed up. My photo on billboards and posters all over the world! And now the print campaign is starting too.
Seeing the image pop up in cities across the world and being sent photos of friends standing next to it has been so cool, but I had to see it for myself to believe it; I had to see it with my own eyes. A few days into the campaign my wife encouraged me to travel to get to see it. The options in Europe were Berlin, Hamburg or Milan. I had previously been to Berlin and Hamburg, so Milan it was. Checking airlines, I saw that Ryanair had an early morning flight out of Dublin into Milan on Saturday 14th and a late evening one back the following day. I booked it there and then. The only downside to this would be that I was travelling on my own. We have two small kids and no babysitter at the moment. So it looked like I would have to travel on my own. Luckily, my sister who lives in Dublin got on to us and offered to mind the two kids for the weekend so as to allow myself and my wife to go together. We were delighted.
Cork is about a two and half hour journey to Dublin. We left around 7 in the evening, arriving in Dublin at about 9.30. The kids slept most of the way up, but woke with excitement when we arrived in my sister’s house. After some time getting them to settle, we went to bed too. After getting very little sleep we were back on the road heading to the airport at 3.30 in the morning on our way to Milan to see my photograph on a billboard.
A little after 12 p.m, we arrived at our apartment. Our host gave us a map of Milan and my wife, who can read these things, worked out our route to where the billboard was. We would need to take the metro and change at one station and then exit at Moscova station on Corso Garibaldi in the centre of Milan. We were getting closer. The trip there took about twenty minutes and when we exited the metro station on to Corso Garibaldi we were unsure whether to take a left or right turn. Fabio, a guy I had met on Twitter had previously sent me an image from there, so we had some idea of where to look for it, but take the wrong one and we could be traipsing this long street that runs through the centre of Milan for ages. We could not believe our luck when we turned right and within a matter of seconds we saw it. There it was. My photograph – huge on a billboard! We both looked at each other in amazement. I reached for the camera and began to click.
Corso Garibaldi, Milan
The billboard was located in a little area with a newsagent’s kiosk and some benches for people to sit – and admire my photo :-). We got down there and surveyed the area, walking all around, trying to see it from different angles. It was very cool to observe people passing by looking up at the image as it got their attention. I had in mind before coming to get a shot of myself standing in front of the billboard with my iPhone in hand showing the original image on the iPhone next to the billboard, to convey the idea of ‘from a screen of four inches to a billboard in a major world city’.
Now, like many ideas this is all very well in concept, but to convert this to reality can prove tricky. My wife is a very patient woman. For the longest time, she tried. What I wanted was to have the iPhone to the right of the billboard, showing the original image and the scale. But to get them both in focus was difficult and to avoid a glare from the iPhone was also not so easy. One I particularly like is the one below. I think she managed a fine job in getting this one of the scene.
Milan
Nowadays, selfies are obligatory and while I may not be the biggest fan of them, I think I am entitled to get one on an occasion like this.
Me and my photo
While we were there a few people stopped to take shots of the photo and normally, I would not be the most boastful of people, but I could not help myself in asking if they liked the photo and to tell them that I was the photographer. ‘No!?’ they replied. ‘Yes!’, I replied, showing them the original. One guy, Marco, even took a photo of me under the image.
After that, we set about seeing as much of Milan as we could in the short time we were there. Travelling with a photographer must be like having a dog on a long lead. You think they are next to you and then turn around and see they are miles back, perhaps not sniffing a lampost like a dog, but there they are, camera in hand trying to get that shot. How she puts up with me I do not know. I know I would not be as patient. We got to see sights, Duoma, Galleria Vitoria Emanuele, La Scala theatre, Sforsa Castle and we spent the evening in Navigli, which is a really cool area, before heading back to see the main attraction in Milan; this time to see it lit up at night.
We only realised it would be illuminated when my wife saw another ‘shot on iPhone’ photo near our apartment all lit up. With great excitement we got back to Corso Garibaldi and seeing it in the dark of night brightly lit up was something I will always remember. We found a cafe with window seats that allowed us to look out directly at the billboard. It was very cool when the waitress seeing me with three cameras set up facing the billboard asked if I liked it. She was so surprised when I told her it was mine. She called the other waiter to tell him also. I got many shots and little videos while there. This was the easily the highlight of the trip, sitting with my best friend and love of my life and sharing this magical experience.
All lit up in Milan
The next day, we returned to say goodbye to the billboard. We continued with our tour of Milan, having a wonderful lunch by the canal in Navigli and later strolling along the banks of the canal. We arrived back in Dublin at about 11 at night. Drove to my sister’s house, collected our kids and drove home to Cork. Got snapped by a police car patrolling for speeding on the way (the wrong kind of photo), but got home safely. Milan will always have a special place in my heart.
The image being on display around the world is so cool, but the things I will remember will be the delight of family and friends in sharing this with me. There have been so many little incidents along the way of this story which I will never forget. So many examples. Here’s one. I get a comment on a blog post from Christelle who tells me she has seen the photograph on the back of a French photography magazine, Polka. I make contact with her and she offers to send me the magazine by post. I tell her I will pay for post and packaging, but she declines the offer. Fábio, one of the 77 photographers selected by Apple, sees it on a Swiss national newspaper and tells me he will send it by post to me, also free of charge.
Then there is Marta, from Colombia, who was on the lookout for my image. She sent me an email with lots of photos of my shot on a poster at a bus stop in her hometown. I had asked her to see if she could find it in Bogotá, bus she is from Medellin. In the email, she tells me that she was on a bus passing this bus stop when she saw the image. Paré!! (Stop!) she shouted at the driver! Got off and took this photo to send to me.
¡PARÉ!
Please click here to see more of Marta’s work.
From Chicago, my friend Michael sent me this shot taken opposite the image in one of the main train stations in the city. I like the human element in this. Please click here to see more of Michael’s work.
Chicago
Then there have been ones from total strangers who have been kind enough to make contact with me and send me images. This one from Sydney, taken by Norman Ma, is a particularly cool one.
Sydney
And this one from Santiago, Chile is my favourite. Chile, for so long, has been one of my dream destinations. I would so love to visit and to get there now to see this would be a dream come true. Anyone want to send me there!? A huge thanks to Roberto for sending me this. How big is it!?
Santiago, Chile
One other really exciting thing was to see that the world famous Saatchi Gallery posted my photograph on their Instagram page to represent Apple’s Shot on iPhone campaign. I was really pleased with this. To catch the eye of this gallery is something cool. Maybe someday it will be hanging in one of their galleries.
Saatchi Gallery
On Thursday, a newspaper article in the Irish Independent appeared with the photograph of my two ex-students sitting in front of the photo in Shibuya. They will be delighted when I send them a print copy of the newspaper, and a little surprise also when I get to see them next month.
Again, I would like to thank everyone for their kindness and support. It has made this so special.
You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
First of all, a very big thanks to all who passed on their good wishes to me yesterday in relation to my photo appearing in the Apple iPhone World Gallery. I really appreciate it. Thanks!
If any of you are in any of these cities, you might get to see my shot. If you do, please send me a photo of it. I’m told it is on display in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Charlotte Lousiana, Bogota Colombia, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan and Kuala Lumpur. I still cannot believe it, to be honest.
Back to my daily posts to Flickr. Here is a shot I got in Dublin the weekend before last. I am still learning with the Fuji, but I do like its colours. With this shot, the strong shadows and the vivid colours of the shop display caught my attention. It wasn’t the easiest of shots to get because it is on one of the main streets heading into the city centre in Dublin and the traffic, as you can imagine was very heavy. I like the shadow of the little boy who had just run across the street.
Dublin
This iPhone image is another in my series of reflections. I have been to this location in Cork a lot and still am not fully happy with the shots I get. But isn’t that what it is all about?
River Lee Reflections
