A Clear Eye

One problem I’ve always had with taking photos in Dublin is that it’s too normal, too ordinary, it’s home and home generally isn’t all that exciting. Drop me in the middle of nowhere or anywhere else and I’ll be reaching for my camera within seconds. Merely because it’s different. Different light, different colours, different everything.

It’s hard to be inspired to take photos in a place that doesn’t inspire you but after the recent exhibition, I wanted to try and look at Dublin in a new way, and last Saturday the weather was right, the light was just the way I like it. With camera slung over my shoulder I ventured out.

An idea had been germinating over the couple of weeks, one that I have called “Pieces of Dublin”. Instead of taking a photo of a building, monument or landmark, I could take a photo of a piece of it, the smallest piece possible that would still be recognisable as part of the landmark.

With my eye open to new possibilities, the road from Fairview through North Strand was no longer a drag grey urban eyesore; instead it was exciting and exotic, a melding of the modern and the past, old brick schools and the glass edifices of commerce, leading me to the waters of Anna Livia.