I know it’s kind of a cliché, but I really do love the whole fake tilt-shift miniature thing. It’s even better with a time-lapse, but it works great on stills too. However, to get the best out of the trick, you really need photos taken from the right angle and elevation. In other words, from a tall building (or plane or drone). Luckily, I was recently in such a position, thanks to an impromptu trip up the Shard in London. I was just processing these normally, and then I thought to make a few as miniatures too.

We were recently heading to Belfast for a meeting, and because the road from Dublin to Belfast can be a bit boring and monotonous (it’s just one long motorway), my wife and I decided to take the coastal route instead. So, we turned off at Newry and first stopped at Warrenpoint for Lunch, before heading on to Newcastle. I had never taken this route before, and I was quite impressed by the scenery. But it was coming into Newcastle that really blew me away.

After a rather bleak and dull start to the year, it’s always nice when the grey world of winter springs to life. And while Spring has its own charms, things really explode into vividness once summer hits. I have always been fascinated by flowers and plants, not necessarily from a “nature” point of view, but by the wonderful colours and textures of the natural world. I guess the designer and artist in me just won’t quit.

This has been a weird year for me. Photographically speaking. It’s nearly the middle of June, and yet, I’ve taken far fewer photographs than I normally do. Months of relentless weather and the mental fog that comes with living through an anxious, uncertain world have all taken their toll. In this post, I look at how distractions, self-doubt, and even a frustrating gear issue gradually chipped away at the simple urge to go out and shoot. Along the way, I get distracted by broader cultural issues, including the uneasy role AI is playing for many of us, but I do bring it back to photography and why it matters now more than ever. It’s quite philosophical, honest. Oh, and there are some photos too!

The start of this year has been a bit weird for me, photographically speaking. I haven’t taken a large number of photographs for various reasons. The terrible weather being one of them. However, over the first six months, I have taken a few street photos, and while there aren’t many, I thought I would share them here.

As I was sitting down to write a happy new year post, I realised that it was already a week old. Mind you, if you watch or read the news at all, it feels more like six months old. Anyway, my wife and I spent the first few days on a little break in one of our favourite places in Co. Wexford, which is about two hours south of us here in Dublin. We stayed in our favourite hotel, which has amazing views out over the estuary of the river Slaney.

Way back at the end of March of this year (2025) I was in Berlin for a couple of weeks. I blogged about this before and promised to post the second part of that, and then promptly forgot all about it. Well, better late than never! So here is part two of that trip.

I was recently in the wonderful city of Edinburgh for a few days, and while I was there I was taking some photos of the cityscape from the viewpoint of the castle. Now, I’ll have a bigger photo essay on my Scotland trip in the future, but when I got back home I was looking at these thinking that they would make great faux miniature shots.

Back at the end of April I was in London for a few days, so as always I took the opportunity to get a few photos and some video while I was there. I didn’t really go very far from our hotel in Southwark, pretty much staying to the south bank, but even here there is plenty to see just walking up and down the Thames.