I brought my Canon 7D converted to infrared to Donegal and Northern Ireland hoping to make a few unique images. Unfortunately the sun was absent for most of the trip, so it did not come out of the camera bag until we were leaving the Antrim Coast headed for Belfast. As we started this last leg of our journey, I kept a watchful eye for promising IR subjects. While having coffee at a tiny seaside village, an interesting bridge surrounded by pine trees became my first subject of the day. Later as we were driving along the coast I spied the unmarked ruins of an abandoned church on the side of the road. As luck would have it, there were several interesting gravestones in the overgrown church yard that I knew would make compelling images. Finally, I took the IR camera on a walkabout in Belfast and was treated to some great architecture (The Lanyon Building at the Queens University) sitting under a fantastic wispy sky. We were lucky enough to see this magnificent building soon after the completion of a two year restoration project (click here to learn more and see photos of the extensive renovation work).
Highway bridge over the River Dun and Glendun in the small coastal village of Cushendun.
The ruins of an abandoned churchyard on the Antrim Coast.
A forgotten gravestone dating back to 1807, surrounded by overgrown weeds. The black and white conversion turns the ground cover white, which really accentuates the gravestone in the image.
Ethereal feel of another forgotten gravestone.
Sheep grazing next to the churchyard. The white foliage really stands out against the ocean in the background.
Entrance gate to the Belfast Botanical Gardens. The gold foliage after a false color swap really allows the iron work to stand out.
Statue to Belfast-born physicist Lord Kelvin at the entrance to the botanic gardens.
An amazing sky drifts over the Lanyan Building at Queens University in Belfast (QUB). A black and white conversion of an infrared image can really accentuate beautiful clouds in a sky.
The Lanyon Building, which opened in 1849, is named after its architect Sir Charles Lanyon. The building is an outstanding example of Tudor-Gothic architecture and of early Victorian architectural achievement in Ulster. Victorian architects often used historical associations to create authority and presence. Lanyon used the Tudor-Gothic style to reflect the medieval foundations of ancient universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in order to make a statement about QUB's high educational ambitions.
QUB War Memorial, outside the main entrance to the Lanyon Building. It features a bronze statue of the winged goddess Victory sustaining a fallen soldier. This memorial commemorates the employees and students of Queen’s University who were killed or missing in World War I and World War II.
The Lanyon Building underwent an extensive restoration from 2017 to 2019. These photos were taken shortly after the completion of the project in July 2019.