Category Archives: In the News

The Mary Stanford Comes Home

Mary Stanford-1A little bit of history was made locally over last weekend when the illustrious Royal National Lifeboat, Mary Stanford, arrived in Midleton on its journey home to nearby Ballycotton.

The boat’s own website tells the story best:

“She was the Ballycotton Lifeboat from 1930 to 1959 and was called out on 41 ‘shouts’ saving 122 lives. The most famous rescue being The Daunt Lightship rescue on 11th February 1936, as a result of this heroic rescue she was the first and remains the only lifeboat in RNLI history to be awarded a gold medal for gallantry (boat as well as crew).”

“She now sadly languishes in a backwater of Dublin’s Grand Canal Dock almost certainly heading towards being scuttled unless she is rescued soon!”

“As this is a very important part of Ballycotton and RNLI history, members of the community including relatives of the heroic Mary Stanford Coxswain Patrick (Patsy) Sliney, are teaming up to endeavor to bring The Mary Stanford home.”

The good news is that the Mary Stanford has been lifted from its moorings in Dublin and is currently in Midleton. She will soon head home to Ballycotton where she will be placed on a plinth overlooking the seas on which she carved out her reputation. It is intended to restore her over the coming year and many fundraising activities will be held to support it. We look forward to seeing the images of the restoration project and no doubt the finished project will feature in many an image of Ballycotton from here on in.

Connect with The Mary Stanford Facebook page here

Irish Examiner Article on the Mary Stanford

R.N.L.I., Ballycotton

 

John Finn ARPS

johnfinnWe are delighted to hear that local  photographer, John Finn, a member of the neighbouring Cork Camera Group, was yesterday awarded an Associateship Distinction (ARPS) from the Royal Photographic Society in Birmingham, UK.

The panel John submitted consisted of 15 inverted reflections of Cork City. His statement of intent that accompanied the panel said, “I want to show in these inverted reflections how a river is like a multi-faceted artist, by turns – realist, impressionist and modernist, taking the mundane aspects of the city, its buildings, trees and bridges and transforming them into a variety of shimmering, evanescent images.”

Well done John – well deserved.

See the panel here.

 

Blackwater Photographic Society – Exhibition

047Blackwater Photographic Society are currently holding an exhibition from February 7th to March 7th at Cork County Library, Carrigrohane Rd, Cork.

The exhibition, entitled “Images Through The Lens”, is a selection of work by club members.

The Blackwater Photographic Society was founded in 2013 by a group of photography enthusiasts in the North Cork area and meet on Monday nights at 8:30pm in the Arches Bar, Mallow. Activities at the club include: Educational Evenings, Photography Skills, Printing & Presentation, Adobe Photoshop, Field Trips, Guest Speakers and Exhibitions.

Membership ranges from beginners to advanced and from those who use small compact cameras to those using the latest digital SLR. New members are always welcome.

Only a few days of this exhibition left so make sure you pay a visit.

Website www.blackwaterphotographicsociety.com

 

King and Queen of the Roads – Road Bowling

Wojciech Ryzinski Photography recently posted a slide show of images on YouTube from the 29th King and Queen of the Roads road bowling competitions held in nearby Ballincurrig, Co. Cork. Ballincurrig is synonymous with Road Bowling and huge crowds are drawn to the village every year to watch international competitors battle it out for the titles.

Russia in Colour, a Century Ago

russian_imagesA recent find, on The Big Picture section of the Boston.com website, by ECCG member, Anthony O’Connor, is a selection of colour images from Russia taken in the early 1900s, some of which look like they could have been taken in the early 2000s. The eyeopener is that each image is actually a combination of three b&w images taken quickly using red, green and blue filters in succession, for later projection in near true colour.

This is the blurb on the site:

“With images from southern and central Russia in the news lately due to extensive wildfires, I thought it would be interesting to look back in time with this extraordinary collection of color photographs taken between 1909 and 1912. In those years, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time – when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun. Collected here are a few of the hundreds of color images made available by the Library of Congress, which purchased the original glass plates back in 1948”.

Check out the images here.