Belfast City Hall

After my relatively provocative post the other day, I've decided I'm not going to comment on other people's methods on my blog posts anymore. I still stick by what I said but I know as well that what will be will be. If other photographers want to raise their profiles by whatever means, then I shouldn't really judge them but my post was mainly about the divide between success and art and what each individual person is motivated by.

Today's picture is one I took last September while visiting Belfast. Belfast City Hall is probably the most famous building in Belfast and was completed in 1906. There are many statues adorning the building but the most prominent one at the front is of Queen Victoria. It's an HDR from 3 exposures and I also used Topaz Adjust to bring out more details of the hall. I used Lightroom 4 extensively as well, as always.

Belfast City Hall

I was very lucky last year to visit 3 countries I had never been to before - Italy, Czech Republic and finally Northern Ireland. I don't think I have been to The Netherlands before either, but driving through it doesn't really count as having visited it. I still work full time in customer services for a pharmaceutical company and one of the perks of that job is that sometimes we do have company outings to other countries. On this occasion I was helping out our sales rep in Belfast and was delighted to get the opportunity to wonder round Belfast for a couple of hours, before catching a flight home.

I managed to fit quite a lot into that couple of hours, walking all the way up to the Titanic Dock amongst other places to get some pictures, but my journey that day began here in the city centre. Belfast City Hall is over 100 years old now and is a fantastic piece of architecture. It's very much still a working building, being the base of Belfast City Council, but is obviously very popular with tourists as well and apparently office workers relaxing at lunchtimes.

Spent most of yesterday in and around The New Forest, trying the new sigma lens and also my new tripod. Had a fantastic day, I actually felt like a real landscape photographer for the first time - lugging around a massive tripod, while carefully planning and taking shots. Haven't processed any yet, but hope to have some good ones from it!