Best Blogs...

Iced Coffee asked bloggers to award the following award :

• 
  Pick five blogs that you consider deserve the award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.


• Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.


• Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.


• The award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of the Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

So here goes:

1. Iced Coffee - I know you already got this award from Grannymar but really, has to be done! I love your shots and yours is a blog I look at almost everyday.
2. Darren Greene - I am so jealous, frankly. I think the animal shots recently have been extraordinary but your photos are always of such a high standard.
3. McaWilliams - I have loved this blog for ever, it's amazing - there have been some incredible shots that have really inspired me to try harder.
4. Inphotos.org another blog I look at almost every day - wonderful
5. Vivendie.ie - stunning images ! I love both the uban ones like Tate Modern and the sea scapes/landscapes.

I also wanted to add in Will Knott, but that makes six...but really it's an amazing blog, witty as well as image rich.

and they're all Irish ones, I've found some amazing ones from around the world....damn talented people mutter mutter mutter.

Views from the Circle

Views across the headland on Orkney from the Ring of Brogdar stone circle;




Close up of the stones - the sufaces are beautiful despite years of weathering.

Lightening Rod

Taken in April in Rome, it's another ominous story of the Vatican visit - I felt as if at any minute the lightening would strike the obelisk !

Over the hills and away!

Taken on the road from Galway to Portlaoise, over the Slieve Blooms.

Summer, how are you!

I can't help feeling the Mid Summer débacle in Galway was the harbinger of doom as far as our summer is concerned - it's such a dark grey day in Dublin I keep getting drawn back to those stormy pictures from the weekend.

And the weather forecast isn't much better. I'm off to sacrifice a chicken to the weather gods!

In the Garden: Variagated Ivy

Ivy covers our entire back wall and is threatening to climb the back of the house. not the dark green ivy I remember as a child but the variagated ivy climber, with cream hearts and shiny waxy green on the outer part of the leaf; on red vine. I love the colours even though the Mr. is planning ivyocide on the plant if it continues to creep any further.

Bleached Browns

Taken in the stormy weather in Galway and manipulating the camera settings to get a bleak but warmer shot. I like how the browns of the stones came out and even without the dark grey skies it looks bleak.

Pink Blush

ANother one taken from the garden - again it's the colour I am proud of :)

The Ferry Inn

The Ferry Inn, Portland, Lorrha, across from Portumna Bridge: last stop to or from Galway! The food is excellent - proper Sunday lunch pub grub and the service was excellent - we had a lovely stop there on the way home from Galway and considering the bleak and wooly day that was in it , The Ferry Inn took on all the appearance of an oasis in a desert of - and here's where the metaphor breaks down- freezing cold rain.....

In the Garden

The first of some shots I took on Monday practising with the camera - just mooching around the back garden, surprisingly there's a lot of beauty to be found in a very small space :)

I love this one, the colour came out extremely well, very faithfully and the composition was exactly as I wanted.

"Se Rime Ceald Sae"

Galway was under water on Sunday night; as we arrived, we navigated several small ponds especially outside the G hotel and by the docks. Early Sunday morning there was another storm and the sea scape was extremely bleak even by mid morning. Hard to believe this was our mid summer!

Religious Facade

The wonderful black and white facade that dominates Il Duomo square in Florence; it is a hallmark not just of Florence but is found on treasured Tuscan buildings from Pisa to Pistoia.

The black and white is offset but a pinkish streak - even on a dull April afternoon the overall effect is quite startling.

Fairy Garden

Rusty Red

Times Square, New York

Times Square New York, after a little Photoshop; I like the grainy "negative" result.

Across the Sound

Rosscarbery West Cork

Welcome to Scenes of Ireland

Well this is my first attempt at a photo blog; many of the pictures featured are available on products from Irish Pictures.