Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera

The beauty about the process was that after the image developed there was a window of an hour or so to manipulate the emulsion under the Mylar surface. Beautiful images could be created  with No digital involvement!

Bench at Fountain Centre Belfast

All that you needed was a blunt instrument to push the emulsion around. Sadly they stopped manufacturing the film in 2006 so now it’s like trying to find hens teeth.

Harland & Wolff cranes Samson and Goliath

People love them, I have sold quite a few as Fine Art prints over the years!

After several years I’ve decided to re-brand my picture library, from now on it will be known as Salty Dog Picture Library or www.saltydogpictures.com

Why Salty dog? it’s the product of a thought shower (apparently it’s illegal to say brain storm in the uk, seriously google it) with my wife – that sounds so much more interesting than the reality. Numerous cups of coffee, long discussions and reasoning, we finally agreed on Salty Dog Picture Library. Of course we took others thoughts on board, but as animal lovers we were happy with Salty Dog Picture Library.

Salty Dog Picture Library lunch www.saltydogpictures.com

Once I had made sure that the domain name www.saltydogpictures.com was available it was full steam ahead. Next on the list was getting a logo designed. I approached Adrian from Power Advertising NI. I had worked with Adrain on a couple of projects in the past which he art directed and knew he could deliver what I wanted. After a quick conversation that went along the lines of I want something fun, fresh, funky and definitely not corporate it was down to Adrian’s creativity. Less than a week later I had a great Logo, simply clean and exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Adrian for a great job.

The Site is now up and running with all its galleries http://www.saltydogpictures.com/-/galleries and provides the ability for you to create light boxes of relevant images. If you can’t find what you’re looking for just drop me a line and I may be able to help.

David

RMS Titanic is probably the most famous ship in the world, everyone knows the story. What a lot of people don’t realise (Irish people know this, I hope!) is she was built in the industrial powerhouse that was Belfast, Northern Ireland. You think I’m joking? At the start of the 20th century Belfast was a world powerhouse in rope making – yep we had the largest rope factory in the world. As well as the biggest tobacco factory; the largest linen spinning mill in the world it was also home to the world’s biggest aerated water factory (I have no idea what that is, but it sounds impressive!) And not to forget, Belfast also made the largest ships in the world.

Apparently there are over 200 dedicated RMS Titanic museums all over the world, guess where there isn’t one? Correct – Belfast. Up until the last few years there was very little to indicate that RMS Titanic was designed and built here. Thankfully things have started to change.

Opening just in time for the 100 year anniversary is the spectacular new Titanic Visitor Experience. A ninety seven million pound building, built between the slipways where Titanic was lunched and the Drawing Offices where she was designed.

Travel further down Queens Road and you will come across the massive and impressive Thompson Graving Dock. After her launch RMS Titanic was floated around to the new dry dock where she was finished to the highest standards by the finest craftsmen of the day.

Like everything to do with Titanic the stats for the Dock are pretty impressive. It held 21.000.000 gallons of water, and could be emptied in about 1 hour 40 minutes with 3 huge 1,000 horsepower engines.

Nowadays there is a 30 foot full scale replica of the lower bow section of the RMS Titanic including rivets. The Thompson Dock Pump House is now a coffee shop sitting yards from the dry dock.

My next blog post should hopefully be in less than 100yrs!

To view more pictures from Titanic Quarter
To view more pictures of Belfast

It’s probably not a great idea to be photographing chocolate when your wife has you on a health kick! But I’m man enough to deal with the smell of melting chocolate. I had a few days when I wasn’t working for clients so I decided to shoot a few images for my picture library, or was it just a cunning ploy to get my paws on some dark luxurious chocolate…

Many people have been described as chocoholics, not me I can stop anytime I like. Honest!

Cocoa (the main ingredient in your chocolate bar) has been used for other things as well as your treat. The Mayan Indians used cocoa beans as form of currency (real chocolate money) and when the beans wore out they ground them and made a drink. That was over 2000 years ago. Today it’s one of the most traded commodities in the world, probably making investors millions of $$$.

Chocolate also has some pretty impressive health benefits as well. It’s a natural antidepressant, antioxidant, it’s rich in magnesium and iron. I guess I ‘ll have to keep taking it for medical reasons then, but only if I really have to.

If you’re wondering, yes I caved and had some but I was running low on magnesium at the time.

Click here to view more chocolate images

Click here to view all food and drink chocolate images

The last time a golfer from Northern Ireland won a golfing major was Fred Daly in 1947. Now we have three of them,

Graeme McDowell US Open Champion 2010

Rory McIlroy US Open Champion 2011

Darren Clarke British Open Champion 2011

As a small country we are intensely proud of what these guys have achieved and for propelling Northern Ireland on to the world map for all the right reasons!

Royal County Down Golf Club

Now I have tried golf in the past, but it was more like cross country hockey than golf and I knew my living was to be made elsewhere! But, these are the things that inspire people to push themselves and fulfil their potential. If you go to any golf club in Northern Ireland at the weekends you will find them packed with young golfers trying to emulate our new champions! More new champions in the making… Maybe.

Royal County Down Golf Club

People are asking why has Northern Ireland become such a force in world golf, personally I have no idea! It may be that all the planets are in a line, a once in a lifetime phenomenon. The reason that knowledgeable people are giving is the quality and variety of our golf courses. We have two of the worlds best links courses Royal County Down golf club and Royal Portrush golf club. In fact Darren Clarke has moved to Portrush to be closer to his family and spent the last year practising on Royal Portrush golf club! He must be doing something right.

Royal Portrush Golf Club

Because of the efforts of the three Musketeers there is much talk and rumour that the powers that be are looking at Royal Portrush golf club as a potential venue for an open championship. What a spectacular place to host any round of golf never mind an Open Championship, fingers crossed it happens.

Whiterocks beach beside Royal Portrush Golf Club

After a very smooooth landing we collected our car… eventually. Now it’s been a few years since I last drove on the wrong side of the road, but it comes back to you pretty quick. Many people had warned me about driving in Italy, why are you hiring a car? Well, we had plans to go to Maranello (home of Ferrari), Venice and the Dolomites. All of which you can get to by coaches and bus, but I like to do things at my pace and stop where and when I decide!

After hitting the road those plans lasted about as long as snow in Florida. Apparently in Italy on a normal two-lane road you can use either side… or so some drivers / riders think. It wasn’t unusual on a blind corner to meet a motorbike overtaking on your side of the road, just nuts. I was just happy to reach Limone and our hotel in one piece to be honest.

As well as an area of outstanding natural beauty, Italy is known all over the world for its leather goods. On a boat trip, which is probably the best way to get around the lake (note to self, I will listen the next time I’m given advice about when to hire a car) we found what must be the handbag capital of the world, Malcesine. Seriously, in the old town every other shop is a handbag shop, the rest are made up of mainly coffee shops and ice cream emporiums. If you want a handbag can pay anything from £30 all the way up to, well… A kidney! We both left Malcesine happy that day, Julie got two handbags and I kept both kidneys.

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The other thing Italy is famous for is its cuisine. It has been a few years since I was last in Italy, Venice to be exact. I don’t remember leaving there and raving about the food! However this time I am completely sold. Sitting in a little backstreet cafe, I ordered a bruschetta classica. Wow, how can something so simple taste so amazing? It was so good that I have even ventured into the kitchen to make it my life’s ambition to recreate! Those of you that know me, know that boiling water without burning it is a stretch.

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We did venture into the mountains around Lake Garda on one occasion, on the way back we ran into stopped traffic. Like everyone else we decided to get out and have a look to see what was going on and there on a hairpin bend was helicopter. After further investigation we discovered that a motorcyclist had died after losing control on one of the hairpin bends.

The hotel that we were staying in was built into the side of the mountain and somewhere in behind there was the tunnel that traffic used to navigate around the lake. Every so often, when there was less traffic on roads you would hear what sounded like a very large fire breathing dragon being throttled. Turns out it wasn’t a dragon, it was the sound of someone ringing the neck of a Ferrari in the tunnels. Just the most incredible sound, at least to a petrol head like myself.

Risking life and limb seems to be a favourite pastime of Italians. Running while trailing a parachute behind you and throwing yourself off a perfectly good mountain seems to be run of the mill to some. While they seem to be launching themselves from anywhere there was an area with four or five paragliders with what looked to be their fan club and onlookers. Though I have to admit it does look to be a great way to get off the mountain if you are in a hurry. I wasn’t in any hurry, so using the cable car is quick and scary enough for me, thanks.

Almost as Scary as the drive back to the airport.

Click here to view more images of Italy

Click here to view more images of food

Anyway, three weeks before the wedding I went and purchased a suit. I rarely, if ever, wear suits, I wasn’t even sure where to find my old suit, so a treat was in order. At least it will be worn twice this year as I have two weddings to go to! My wife was organised and knew what she was wearing for a change.

The wedding ceremony and reception were taking place in a marquee in my uncle’s garden about 90 min drive from where we live. The ceremony was due to start at 3 PM. My wife had planned everything like a military operation, we were due to be at our hotel to check in and change for 1:30 PM. leaving the hotel at approximately 2:15 PM and arriving for about 2:30 PM. However on the way we decided to grab a quick bite to eat as we weren’t sure what time we would be eating again.

So at about 1:15 PM we found a place to have a quick bite and be on our way.
Happily munching away I suddenly realised we may have an issue, turning to Julie (my wife) I muttered those immortal words ‘we have a problem’, She instantly knew what I meant, neither of us had to say it. We had calmly walked out of the house an hour and half ago without our clothes for the wedding!

Realising that we were separated from our clothes by over 70 miles we knew we couldn’t go back as the return journey would take three hours and the ceremony which was due to take place in only 90 min. We quickly ruled out going in what we were dressed in, scruffy jeans in my case. Could we hire, I may have got a suit in that time but we decided there was no way Julie was getting a dress. We were quickly running out of options!

Then Julie, ever practical, simply said let’s go buy new clothes, great idea – but where do we get them? By now we were out of my area of expertise, luckily this is an area were Julie excels! She took control of my iPhone, found the most likely place where we were we would both get what we needed which was a large department store. Only problems was it was across the other side of the city.

Bridesmaids

Luckily it’s a city I know well after having done a lot of photography for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. We managed to negotiate traffic lights, bridges, roundabouts and found the department store in pretty short order. Once inside Julie barked some orders at me about the size of jacket, trousers, and shirt that I required and off I went.

Once I found where they keep the men’s suits I managed to gather all I needed in about 10 min, queued and paid for my items. Then I set about looking for Julie, this I feared would be our downfall. I refuse to go clothes shopping with Julie as buying a T-shirt can take forever, in fact wars have been won in less time, never mind choosing a dress for a wedding.

Just married

What I hadn’t factored in was Julie’s powers of delegation. Somehow she had managed to enlist an army of helpers. She had people from the store running getting her shoes, members of the public getting jackets and dresses and everyone was having a great time. So, by the time I found her she was paying for everything and thanking everyone, we were in and out in about 15 min.

We still managed to arrive at the wedding in plenty of time and stress free, though we did have a rye smile on our faces. A great day was had by all and we eventually climbed into bed exhausted at 3:00 AM.

John and Gayle signing the register and having a great time

Congratulations to Gayle and John

Images will dynamically enlarge or reduce to fill your browser all without the need for flash! I wanted to avoid flash to help with the sites SEO. Time will tell how well that worked.

Northern Ireland photographer David Cordners new website

Click here to view www.davidcordner.com

Selection of sea bream on ice at St Georges indoor food market

For me as a photographer, it’s a joy to visit with all its colour and vibrancy. Stallholders couldn’t be more helpful and friendly, I think I have even managed to blag my way onto a fishing boat for a days shoot! With my past record it will have to be a flat calm!

Fresh carrots at St George's farmers market Belfast Northern Ireland

I was sitting having a cup of coffee and a pastry watching the world go by when it dawned on me! This is more of a lifestyle choice than it is about getting the groceries in. It’s as much about socialising and interacting with other people as it is about buying your fresh produce for the week.

Yes – you can get your food from your large multinational store but it’s more of a chore to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Click here to view more market images

Click here to view more food images

I’m embarrassed to say it’s something approaching 170 days since my last blog update, but there is a good reason….okay it’s not a great reason.   I have been migrating The Stock Library to a new hosting company – yep that’s all I’ve got!

Outwardly the site has been given a makeover with a cleaner, fresher look and has better and faster navigation capabilities. It’s beginning to sound like an advert for washing powder!  I just need a way of including the word ‘ultra’!  Also, Flash has been removed so it will work happily on an  iPad.

There are now even more images, better light lightbox options and additional payment methods to purchase your images and as the saying goes…. a picture is worth 1000 words!   So pop over to The Stock Library and have a look for yourself!