Chess

Nikon D70s, f1.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 200, 75mm equivalent

Ever since he unearthed and dusted off an old book of mine called “The beginner’s guide to Chess” a couple of weeks ago, our 4½ year old has been on and on at me to teach him how to play. I tried to distract him at first by saying that I would teach him Draughts and this worked for a day or two but then the pestering continued. Eventually I went upstairs, dug around a bit and found our old chess set. It’s a rather curious mass-produced set made out of marble, the kind of thing that you might see in a gift shop window while on holiday in Greece and think what a nice thing it would be to have on display back home (hang on, now that I remember, that’s exactly how and why we got it). It’s not easy, especially when his younger brother keeps taking pieces off the board and putting them in his mouth to see how they taste, but we are slowly getting the hang of it. What fascinates him the most is the Knight and how it can jump over the other pieces. He keeps asking why there is no rider on the back of the horse and who lives in the Castles in the corner of the board? This morning we learnt about the Queen and how she is the most powerful piece in the game (better get used to it son, women are in charge even if they might let you occasionally think otherwise ;-)

There are so many things I am looking forward to teaching our sons. We’ve been learning rugby and cricket now for some time and at last the rugby ball is being caught and the cricket ball (a soft one) is being hit. There’s so much more to come and I am excited about every bit of it because I know that the time will pass by all too quickly …

Red in tooth and claw

Camera: Olympus OM-1, Lens: G.Zuiko 50mm f1.4, Film: Fujicolor Reala 100

“Nature, red in tooth and claw.” I don’t know how I feel when our cat does this sort of thing. I wish he would just kill the mouse quickly and eat it, the whole playing with it first and teasing it and then letting it escape to run after it some more is to me a little too cruel…

But then that’s life and that’s nature in this fallen world in which we live. The Bible shows us that this was neither how it was in the beginning nor how it will be at the end:

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah 11:6-9)

Yes there’s probably a healthy dose of metaphor in those words but the clearer meaning is the most obvious one i.e. that when God makes a ‘new heaven and earth’ there will be a return to how things were meant to be before the fall….

A stroll around the garden

Camera: Olympus OM-1, Lens: G.Zuiko 50mm f1.4, Film: Fujifilm Reala 100

Camera: Olympus OM-1, Lens: G.Zuiko 50mm f1.4, Film: Fujifilm Reala 100

Camera: Olympus OM-1, Lens: G.Zuiko 50mm f1.4, Film: Fujifilm Reala 100

Through a glass, darkly

Nikon D70s, 1/400 sec, f10, ISO 200, EV +1.3, 105mm equivalent

I suppose that because it’s Trinity Sunday in two days time I’ve been thinking a lot about trying to understand God’s nature and character. Let’s face it there are aspects of God that I can never understand much like in a similar way that my son’s goldfish will never be able to grasp (in anything other than a superficial way) who or what is looking at him swimming around his goldfish bowl. Of course God gives us glimpses of His glory and His love, this comes through each of the three Persons of the Trinity as shown to us in the Bible and in our experience in trying to live in a relationship with God and with each other. Even though we now only “see though a glass darkly”, we occasionally get glimpses of something very special in nature that show us further glimpses of the amazing God who is there. This might be in a breathtaking view from the hard-earned summit of a mountain, it may be in seeing the first light in the eyes of our new-born child or it may be something else entirely. Yesterday I had a taste of something of God in watching a school of Dolphins playing near the entrance to Cork Harbour, off Roches Point. A wonderful moment – (and very difficult to photograph too)…

A Fête (not) worse than death

Camera: Olympus OM-1, Lens: G.Zuiko 50mm f1.4, Film Fujifilm Reala 100

Camera: Olympus OM-1, Lens: G.Zuiko 50mm f1.4, Film Fujifilm Reala 100

Camera: Olympus OM-1, Lens: G.Zuiko 50mm f1.4, Film Fujifilm Reala 100

We enjoyed great weather for our Parish Fete in Glanmire recently. It's really good to see everyone from different parts of the Parish coming together to get this thing organised every year. Even though it's a real slog and people get fed up, by the time it's all over we are agreed that it wasn't the "Fête worse than death" that we had all feared!

The above photos were all taken on my old Olympus OM-1 film camera and the negatives scanned using an Epson 4490 flatbed scanner. If you are interested you can see more photos on our Parish web site.

A long tiring day...

Nikon D70s, 1/20 sec, f3.5, ISO 1600, 27mm equivalent

Yesterday was a long, happy and Sunny day for our two boys. For the youngest chap though it proved all too much - all that climbing on the climbing frame, digging in the sandpit, helping Mummy with the compost, bouncing on the trampoline and running after the cat took their toll. When it finally came to bedtime the stairs seemed a step too far and so he fell asleep before he even got halfway!

I think we all have tiring days sometimes but I have not yet fallen asleep on the stairs...

I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:8

Not bad for a mobile phone

Sony Ericsson K800i (Mobile phone), 5 pictures @ f2.8, 1/1250 sec, ISO 80

St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, taken two days ago using five pictures from a Sony Ericsson K800i mobile phone, stitched together on the computer using Photoshop Elements 6.

One of the great myths about digital photography, particularly with small pocket cameras and especially with mobile phones is the idea that the more megapixels the better. The problem is that the sensor is tiny (smaller than a fingernail) so the more photosites you cram on to it the harder each one has to work to get an image. In good light this is fine but in dimmer light when the ISO has to increase to over, say 200 this leads to excessive "noise", i.e. coloured blotches and loss of detail in the picture. That's why you can look at a low-light photo taken with a five or six megapixel camera bought a few years ago and it will look a lot better than today's latest twelve megapixel monster - the sensor is the same size - but having to work twice as hard!

Anyway, I got a new mobile phone recently (well actually second-hand off eBay for £60). It has a camera on it that's not bad, though not as good as the pictures from a 'proper' camera, such as a digtal SLR or a film camera, like my Olympus OM-1 from 1973 (I'll put up some pictures from the latter in due course).