I had finished work and I was making my way into town. This man was chasing two eastern European girls in miniskirts (I assume they were Polish) outside a shop. I went to raise my camera, he immediately spotted me and straight away engaged in conversation. Luckily for those girls, they were forgotten instantly.
Ah jaysus I see you have a real camera there, not one of those shite plastic jobs. I reply back I'm too old to play with plastic toys. He then said him and his brother used to do a lot of photography. Generally when I have a conversation with one of those keen amateurs about photography, I find out pretty quickly they don't know shit.
But his case he did know some shit. He kept telling me through his drunken slur, that him and his brother had a Rolleiflex 6x6, and were on a personal project to document old (sorry ould) Dublin before it disapears. But his brother emigrated, and then it was left up to him to finish the project, but drink took over his life. And the Rolleiflex was sold for booze.
He then began to tell me about this great book he's reading, "The great number tens" I generally have no interest in rugby, so I asked for a photo. He said on condition he take mine as well.
The negs look pretty good, delta 100 dev in xtol. I only wish I had taken a close up of his face with the colour camera, as each eye was a different colour. Brown and Blue.
The two Polish girls passed by again, and he started to chase them. I ran after them as well asking them to pose for a picture with him. They started screaming noooooo, and tried to run even faster in high heels and miniskirt's. I took colour photos of that with the f90x, but I'm not going to be able to develop the negs for a while. I think I got anything anyway.
Later on Moore street I passed by this graffiti, and thought about what he said to me. That old Dublin is disappearing. More than just our buildings. But is our history and culture as well. Does the new economically wealthy Dublin give a shit about 1916. Or anything that happened pre Celtic tiger. The whole city is a construction site. We knock down more monuments then any other country in Europe. I then thought maybe not all he said was the ramblings of a drunken madman.
