Irish Selfie
Weekly Photo Challenge: Selfie: “For this challenge, snap a selfie with your camera phone or camera.” Photo was taken in 2004, on Inish Mór, one of the Aran Islands, Ireland. A selfie, one of the few I take really. ©Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2013. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
9/11 Heroes
The word “hero” is often misused, declaring celebrities as the one we have all been waiting for. We attribute them a talent or other star-like characteristics that might not exist once they close the front door behind them. Real heroes are at work every day: rescue workers like firefighters policemen and women, doctors and nurses in overcrowded hospitals, or in war zones. Oftentimes heroes are just like you and me, saving a child from being run over by a car or caring for animals who were abandoned by their owners. When I think of heroes, I think of firemen, especially those that made incredible sacrifices on 9/11. When they ran up 70 flights of staircases with heavy tools strapped to their backs, they knew there was a real chance they…
Irish skies
WordPress Daily Prompt: Release Me Tell us about the blog post you were most nervous to publish — and what it was like to set it free. Photographers, artists, poets: show us FREE. For me, flying is being released from life, on earth and in my mind. Wonder about how people are able to create machines to take you abroad in no time takes over. Freedom is life. I would rather be free and ill than being stuck in a bad relationship and healthy. Flying and seeing Ireland beneath me time after time is proof that dreams do come true. Seeing Ireland below me is release enough for me to be happy for the rest of my life. “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your…
The Thinker & Me
The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin, “represented Dante, author of the Divine Comedy which had inspired The Gates, leaning forward to observe the circles of Hell, while meditating on his work. The Thinker was therefore initially both a being with a tortured body, almost a damned soul, and a free-thinking man, determined to transcend his torment through poetry. The pose of this figure owes much to Carpeaux’s Ugolino (1861) and to the seated portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici carved by Michelangelo (1526-31).” (from http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/thinker)
Dingle, the golden hour
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Golden Hour by Cheri Lucas Rowlands on July 12, 2013: The Golden Hour. In photography, the “golden hour” is the first and last hour of sunlight of the day. Photographers venture out on sunrise hikes or sunset treks to capture a magical shot, due to the quality of the light during that time of day. An Daingean When I go to the Irish countryside for a short trip, I try to get a cab just before sunrise to drive me to quiet places to get the golden hour in a photograph. The two pictures below were taken on Ryan’s Daughter‘s beach on the Dingle Peninsula, south-west Ireland, where the famous film of David Lean was shot in 1970. The island pictured in the first photo is called…
Famine
Ever since Dublin became my hometown, the Irish Famine sculptures by artist Rowan Gillespie on Custom House Quay haunt me. The statues are ‘walking’ on towards emigration ships like the Jeannie Johnston and they describe so well the hunger Irish people went through during the Great Famine, called Gorta Mór in Irish (Great Hunger), between 1845 and 1852, caused by blight. There were, however, two other famine periods in Ireland: the Irish Famine from 1740 to 1741 called Bliain an Áir, meaning the Year of Slaughter. Another one was in 1879, called An Gorta Beag, meaning the ‘mini-famine’. The Act of Union caused Ireland to be governed directly by the United Kingdom, which meant that Ireland had been prohibited living the life they were so used to, leading to “a starving population, an…
Back to Ireland
So many things represent us, shows our character, our inner feelings, our life. I chose this picture because the world through my eyes is always moving. Forward most of all, sometimes backwards. My world however also consists of simple, pure stillness. But even when the world is spinning quietly, stillness is waiting to explode into forward motion or motion is waiting to return to sheer tranquility. Living in Ireland for over ten years now, my world has become one of airports, packing bags and looking forward to step onto that Aer Lingus plane once again. My love for movement is therefore always represented by airplanes, and nothing excites me more than taking off and landing. Flying to and from Ireland is a joy that cannot be replaced. WordPress Weekly Photo…
