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There had been rumours that this year would be better than the previous two, and with the addition of intros, music and a few words from George Bush it was. Once again, but very deservedly, Twenty Major won the award for best blog, coinciding with the recent release of his book the two prizes go hand in hand. Maybe it’s time to give someone else a chance next year.
Highlights of the night include Robin Blandford’s mum collecting his prize on his behalf, Kieran Murphy of Ice Cream Ireland’s dress sense, Nialler9 winning once again, Grannymar and Grandad sharing the same stage.
The award for best photoblog this year went to Claire of Gingerpixel and with her blog being filled with so many brilliant photographs, especially her great portraits of people she has stopped in the street she definitely deserved this prize.
He tried, he failed, he left. But he won a prize finally. Jett Loe was honoured with a special prize this year for being “shafted” in previous years, and truly shafted once more being 3899 miles away in Nashville, Tennessee. However I retrieved his prize and have brought it back to Belfast - not before taking it on a journey around Dublin first.
Jett, I’d be happy to bring it to you…
For me the award ceremony was better than previous years, especially with the super-enjoyable photo meet beforehand, and meeting more people than before. Unfortunately I regret meeting less people than I would have liked, and for leaving too early due to Andy telling me that he had gone to another bar, but in the end turning out to have changed the plan and ending up going back to the hostel, while everyone else was still drinking back at the Alexander.
Before leaving I did get plenty of photographs of random people hanging around - many of whom I don’t know. If you know their names, add tags on flickr
However, as usual the whole weekend was one big motivator to organise my blog better, to figure out a real agenda and better acquaint myself with more bloggers.
I also hope to get down to Dublin, and maybe other cities in the South of Ireland before the next Bloggies.
Finally, congrats again to all the great bloggers who won, to everyone who was there and made the weekend so good, and of course to Damien and everyone who helped put together another great awards ceremony.
For more photos of Jett’s ‘Shafted’ award click here
For more photos of the Irish Blog Awards 2008 click here
We awoke early on saturday morning, in true tourist style. I took my first photograph of the day by 9.20am, of Andy eating his very tasty croissant in a small café down by the quay. After breakfast we began taking photos for real. Heading to Temple Bar, Grafton Street and St. Stephen’s Green.
Walking really is tiring, so we found a nice bar called Sinnotts underneath the St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. Sat down, found free wireless and used their facilities whilst contemplating what we were going to select from the menu, not realising that it was 11:45 and we had to be at the Spire in 15mins for the photo meet.
We left the bar, grabbed an Abrakebabra on Temple Bar which tasted terrible, then met Red Mum, Ellybabes, John, Owen, Ryan, Gingerpixel, and Keith. We headed towards Trinity then off to St Stephen’s Green, via Grafton Street. I had never been on a photo meet-up before and really enjoyed it. Quite simply amazing. So many factors involved which I loved. Being with some great people, taking photographs in the street, talking blogs and general nerdiness - it doesn’t get much better.
It was all finished off with a few pints before myself and Andy headed to Wagamama on South King Street - he’s been going on about it for a few weeks, so we had to do it. It was indeed very nice, though next time I won’t go for the very spicy noodle soup with far too much liquid in a huge bowl.
The rest goes of in a bit of a drink fuelled tangent… the story will be continued later.
(Plenty more photos on my flickr stream)
It’s 2am and I’m on Andy’s lovely laptop in the hostel. Having spent almost 4hrs on the bus from Belfast we were pretty tired and in desperate need of restroom facilities, so grateful of the fact that we had to get a separate bus from the airport to the city centre.
Once we arrived we headed to a small pub by Trinity college called Bowes Pub where we met Niall and Aoife for a few drinks, before heading to the hostel, then to an Italian restaurant on Temple Bar for Pizza and wine.
After the meal we got back to the hostel where I continued to read Twenty Major’s book book which arrived in the post only this morning.
So far I’m enjoying reading it. There are some great one-liners.
The plan for tomorrow is to head to the Spire for a photo meet-up, get lunch/dinner in Wagamama then head to the blog awards.
I’m looking forward to seeing again the people I have met before. Not so much looking forward to constantly saying that I wish I had kept in touch better since the last time we met, and promising to do it this time. However, this time I really will try to keep in contact with anyone and every one I meet.
If anyone is up for getting drinks after, or before, provided I don’t drink to much at the event/it ends early-ish (not that I want that), myself and Andy are very up for that.
Hope to see plenty of friendly faces
The shortlists for the blog awards were released yesterday. A lot of fine blogs about. I have been shortlisted for best photoblog. This year there are a few others from Northern Ireland to be shortlisted:
Goodonpaper (Best Designed Blog)
No Clarity (Best Arts and Culture Blog)
Stuart Bailie (Best Music Blog)
Alan in Belfast (Best News/Current Affairs Blog)
Well Done Fillet (Best Food and Drink Blog)
Slugger O’Toole (Best Political Blog)
Unfortunately Gavin Mullan (headphoneland.com), winner of the best Photo Blog category last year, was not shortlisted.
Hopefully we can get a win somewhere. These are excellent blogs in the running.
Good luck.
So the long list of nominees has been officially released, just behind those “leaks” that spread across the web in the last couple of days. This year I find myself nominated for: Best Designed Blog, Best Photography Blog and Best Blog. I am very pleased about this, though I doubt I will win due to the great competition I am up against in each category, but to be standing alongside these great bloggers I feel honoured.
Not surprisingly, the number of blogs has increased significantly since last year let alone how much of an increase there has been from two years ago, with just far too many to count (at the minute at least).
I have my work cut out for me for the next month, the little free time that I will have will be spent catching up on the blogs I know and all those that I don’t.
The date is January 4th 2006, nominations have just opened for the very first Irish Blog awards to be held in Dublin on March 11th at the Alexander Hotel.
I was very excited, I had lots of visitors to my photoblog at the time. I was in with a chance. I didn’t expect to win, but I knew I had a chance.
The day before the ‘ceremony’, Friday 10th March 2006, my camera arrived in the post. My first digital SLR. After ripping the box open, I headed to Dublin City, having barely any idea what I was doing with the camera, sticking to ‘auto’ much of the time, I snapped away through the busy streets.
The next day I met Gavin and we both snapped all around us, he having received an SLR for Christmas a few months prior. Some of these photographs I still like today.
We arrived at the Alexander Hotel, a little unsure what to expect. I was nominated and short Listed the title of ‘best photoblog’. The prize went to Donncha O Caoimh for his In Photos blog - well deserved. I was quite relieved, anyway as I didn’t want to have to say anything in front of all those people.
The following year, however, I did. Gavin Mullan won the ‘best photoblog’ for Headphoneland. There was no way I could win it this year as I hadn’t updated mine in over 6 months. Unfortunately, Gavin was ill and couldn’t make it, so I accepted the trophy on his behalf.
Having very much enjoyed the last two Blog awards and met many great people, I will definitely be going to again this year. Unfortunately the photoblog is still no longer active (still on the to-do list), I do have this blog of course. So if you feel that this blog fits into any of the categories, have a go at nominating me.
Some would say this isn’t a photoblog, I don’t even consider it a ‘proper’ photoblog, though there are lots of photos. It could also go under the category of ‘personal’ blog, ‘arts and culture’ blog or ‘music’ blog, your choice. There is ‘best overall blog’ too! Each blog can only be nominated for Best Blog and one other category.
Nominations close at 9pm on Friday January the 18th. Click here for the nominations page
The blog awards this year are being held this year on Saturday, March 1st, 7.30pm at the Alexander Hotel. Time to book the hostel I think.
I woke up with a very sore head on Sunday morning…
The Blog Awards were a great success once again. More so even than last year and I reckon it will only continue to get bigger and better.
I arrived at the Alexander with my cousin, Ronan, shortly after 6pm. Not sure were to go we walked towards the ‘Winners Bar’. As we walked through the lobby I noticed some people sitting at the first table. I recognised Tom Raftery among them, but they looked like they were talking hardcore computery stuff so I didn’t bother embarrassing myself, instead we sat at the back of the lobby and watched everyone make their way in, not seeing anyone I knew. After finishing drink number one we made our way to the hall and towards the free bar.
Many well deserved awards were given out [winners here], even if Jett Loe left empty handed (again) - there’s always next year.
Of course I didn’t talk to as many people as I would like to, though I put this down to not knowing who most people are, what they look like, and, most importantly, what on earth they blog about. Though I have glanced at many blogs (hard to say most), certainly the shortlisted blogs, I can’t say I have read all of them enough to embarrass myself by attempting to talk to them, even though I know I should have.
I did however get the opportunity to chat to Niall, Red Mum, Tom, Jett, Twenty, Connor, Caitriona, John, his wife Paula and brother Dave, Ken and the Killkenny Music crew, Ronan, Rick, Robin, Gavin and many more.
The highlight however, was being presented with an award. Unfortunately, it was not for me. Gavin of Headphoneland could not make it on the night so I accepted the award for best Photo Blog on his behalf and quoted his own words from the text message he sent me when I suggested the idea a few hours prior: “…say I said thanks to everyone who voted and to Damien etc. Have a good night!”
Another highlight was calling Tom Raftery a “nerd”, unfortunately I missed his dancing.
Much time was spend outdoors admiring the wonders of nature in the form of the lunar eclipse. I just couldn’t keep John’s camera still enough to get a decent photo, though he got a good one, as did Gavin back in Belfast.
At the end of the night there was much talk of going on somewhere else, though with no one sure where everyone else had gone, and me being sure I would get lost along the way I decided to call it a night and got a taxi back to the hotel with John and Paula - thank you!
I had a thoroughly enjoyable night and look forward to next year! Thanks to Damien for putting this all together so brilliantly once again and congratulations to all the winners.
Having achieved very few of my goals partly due to alcohol consumption(?). I am ensuring that I know plenty more people by this time next year (and going off drink for a while)!
I’m fed up with all the crap maps of the Alexander Hotel that have been doing the rounds. Especially the official one and I’m not sure whats going on here. Has no one heard of Google? For those who have Google Earth (for those who don’t - get it) download a placemarker which will guide you directly to the hotel. If you get lost, well just play around and you will have no bother finding your way.
Click here to download Google Earth Placemarker
(click for larger image)
Failing that - Google Maps
With the Irish Blog Awards getting closer I have been thinking about what I want to achieve by attending. I mean, I’m not going to win anything this year? So what better time than now to clarify why I even blog in the first place.
As mentioned before I started blogging out of a love of photography. The photoblog was started soon after discovering what a blog is - then I uncovered the vast nature of blogs, both photographic and written.
This blog was started in March 2006, originally as a place to voice my thoughts on my photography and gigs. Unfortunately didn’t get off to a great start as photography was taking up most of my time, ironically. Now that I have no camera, I have been using this space to write about whatever comes to mind.
I’ve been enjoying being a part of this small community of Irish Bloggers and try to read as many as I can. Reading blogs makes Ireland seem much more interesting than I ever thought it was.
I did meet a few bloggers last year and had a great time discovering that they are normal people, though this time I want to meet more - and learn more. Still being quite the novice, I know I have a lot to learn from all the techie folk.
I do have some thoughts on what I want to do with this blog; trying out various writing techniques and learning to write better is on the top of my to-do list. Getting away from personal rants is on the list too.
Saying that I have things I want to ‘achieve’ from attending probably sounds a bit odd. Surely I’m not just thinking about what I can gain from all this am I? Well, in a way, but not really. All day I read about all this crazy stuff going on in this great community of people who all seem to know each other. So if I don’t know at least 2 more people by the end of the night I will be quite disappointed.
Time flies doesn’t it, as it always does when something that was once way in the future isn’t anymore, and so its about time I got organised. Like last year I am making a weekend out of it. Quite last minute and in quite a panic of resorting to sleeping under a bridge, I managed to get a room Jurys Montrose Hotel I’ve never stayed in a hotel in Dublin before, normally hostels, so even that will be exciting. I have also persuaded a good friend to come along too (with the hope that he will catch on to blogging - I might need some of your help for that too).
Each time I visit Dublin I try to do something different. There won’t be too much drinking this year as Ronan is off alcohol for Lent. I don’t think I’ve ever been to any museums in Dublin, we might do that. Anyone have some good suggestions?
Meeting up beforehand would be cool (I hear mention of food - always a good idea before drinks). As for the After Party - with a DJ! I hope Rick O’Shea plays good music and takes requests, and with all the iPods that are bound to be floating around - iPod decks, anyone? I caught the last hour of his show tonight for the first time. I shall listen again tomorrow if I remember.
One essential service I will need - Internet! Last year I was surprised at the number of Internet Cafés. The first one I found last year was Global Internet Café, it was a good find with decent PCs (firefox!) and nice coffee. Though is it the cheapest? What about public libraries, do they offer free internet?
Oh yes - I need my iPod repaired! Is there an Apple store in Dublin? Not exactly sure if it will be much use to me, and I still haven’t tried the DIY method, though I’m a little scared. If anyone wants to bring along a screwdriver and give it a shot you’re more than welcome!
Look forward to seeing y’all there! Anyway - I have a jar of Nutella waiting for me.
All ya gotta do is leave a comment on this post; 3 commenters will be picked at random.
The prize? Some very cool Feedburner merch, courtesy of Paul Browne.
- 1st Prize : A long sleeved FeedBurner Jersey, and assorted stickers and badges.
- 2nd Prize : A T-Shirt with the FeedBurner logo, and assorted stickers and badges.
- 3rd Prize : Just the T-Shirt with the FeedBurner Logo.
He even took a picture to prove that its not just shameless marketing scam.
[Update - This competition is now over]
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