FIRST FOCUS » Photography

Fine Art Print Collection

Rick — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:21:19 +0000

First Focus Photography is now offering you the very best of Rick Taylor’s Fine Art & Landscape Collection available to purchase as Large scale Prints, Photo Block Mounts and Canvas Prints.

All work is Limited Edition with a very small print run on selected images and would be perfect in any home or office.

Please take a look through any of our Gallery’s to select any image that you would like to purchase and drop us a line .

We are happy to take requests to produce made to measure images that we can create for you. Please contact us for more details.

Direct Print purchasing gallery will be available soon for you to buy directly from the site.

Happy New Year 2010!

Rick — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:29:59 +0000

What a year 2009 has been for First Focus Photography!…..I firstly just want to thank all my clients, friends and associates for all your support this year. I have so many great highlights!, Truly the year of Burlesque, I have photographed many great events for the Dublin Burlesque Ball & the Burlesque and Cabaret Social club throughout the year and have many more to look forward to in 2010. I also had the pleasure of spending my birthday shooting Chrys Columbine and Melissa Nelson for “Honey Trap” in July and “Britain’s Next Top Model event in September. My favourite shoot of the year would have to be the “Tank Girl” photo shoot that took place in October, it was so fun, lively and colourful! Thanks to Emily and Natalie for making it so entertaining and fun. To round the year off I had my first photo exhibition in conjunction with the Dublin Burlesque Ball at the Morrison Hotel, which was a great success and the IMTV music awards in November…..cool. Happy 2010 everyone and roll on the good times!

Dean Road & Manor Road Cemetery

Rick — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:46:43 +0000

My latest photographic jaunt around my hometown of Scarborough N.Yorks resulted in a journey through the old Victorian Cemetery on Dean Road & Manor Road. I explored the area upon the suggestion of my Dad, so we headed out in mixed weather sunshine and showers to greet us, after stopping for a fish n Chip supper in a cafe stuck in a 1993 time-warp we headed into the graveyard. The old part was set out more like a nature trail with vandalized gravestones laying in overgrown sections of small pathways leading under a Victorian footbridge.

Access to which was gained through a tunnel running under the road. The older gravestones and memorials were of the most interest as they were intricate carvings of doves in ivy, marine style anchors, roses and some strange crests and symbols. We stumbled across the entrance to what I have since found out is a Victorian “Secret Garden”, long since derelict and abandoned, at the time we did not venture very far into it as it basically freaked the both of us out!

My Dad also told me that a woman’s body was found hanging above the entrance to the tunnel going between the old and new Cemetery ( the first photo of my set) just a few years ago……..just knowing that piece of information makes the first photo all the more unsettling……and adds to my own sense of morbid curiosity and creative self expression.

The full shoot can be found in my gallery

South Bay Pool – Scarborough

Rick — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:37:27 +0000

The idea of a specific time reserved for leisure originated in the1930’s. Contemporary medical theories believing in the benefits of fresh air and sunlight encouraged the pursuit of open-air pursuits and led to the establishment of a number of outdoor pools with amenities. The more elaborate examples were called Lidos, a term borrowed from the famous bathing resort at Venice. The South Bay Pool at Scarborough was designed by Harry W. Smith, Borough Engineer (1893-1930). It was the largest outdoor pool in Europe, construction was begun in 1914 and completed the following year. The changing rooms with their pillars, tiles and circular windows, the pool fountains and various associated bungalows were added in the 1930’s.

The pool reached it’s heyday in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. School swimming Galas were still held there in the 1970’s.

The pool was finally closed in 1989. It lay derelict, festooned in barbed wire throughout the 1990’s, an obsolete reminder of a different way of life.

Hand developed black and white photographs taken during the summers of 1997-2000 show the pool and it’s surrounding buildings in the last throws of disintegration. Festooned with barbed wire and Keep Off notices the water is black and oily.

I took photographs at the Scarborough South Bay pool whilst it lay derelict in 1997, in fact they were amongst some of the first photographs I had ever taken with an SLR, which at the time was a Pentax K1000 and shot on Ilford HP5 black & white film, hand processed and printed, the photographs here have been created with digital scans from those negatives.

The site had been closed off to the public and upon my visit there was a large amount of graffiti and the roof of the old locker room had been partially ripped off exposing the lockers you see in my shots in the main gallery, also the old cafe door had been broken into by vandals and was left open for exploration.

I could also gain access to the changing room which led to a staircase going down to the entrance of the main pool, which is the photograph of the metal gate seen below. The place had a very eerie feel to it as it was yet another place that used to be full of life and laughter from my childhood and my parents childhood that now lay in ruin’s.

As a child I remember spending the best part of the summer swimming there, the water was always highly chlorine filled because of all the sea water that flooded the pool and I will always remember cutting my feet in the paddling pool from all the broken tiles at the bottom.

Listing for the South Bay Pool was turned down in the summer of 2002, and the pool filled with rubble and sand in the summer of 2003.

This is how the area looks Today.

Marvel’s “Dark” Amusement Park

Rick — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:55:07 +0000

Over the last 10 years or so I have had a fascination with the crumbling ruin’s of my old seaside hometown of Scarborough, North Yorkshire. I have many great childhood memories of the beach, swimming pools and outdoor theme parks, there was the South Bay Pool, Water splash world, Kinder land and Marvel’s Amusement Park all in their hay-day in the late 1980’s , but by the late 1990’s all had eventually become run down , disused, overgrown or abandoned. I don’t know about you but to me there is nothing more creepy or unsettling as an abandoned theme park or swimming pool. A place that should be full of life, laughter and families enjoying a day out reduced to empty hollow shells of their former glory. What makes it more poignant is that they were all my childhood places, and as I revisited them from 1996 to now 2009 I found that my memories have traveled with me. I want to present to you now a series of photographs of my own childhood playgrounds as they disappear forever.

Flyer’s for Marvel’s circa 1996

Marvel’s Amusement Park 1996 – Closed Down

Marvel’s Roller Coaster 1996

Marvel’s 1996

I then returned to the same site in 2008 to see how it had developed

Marvel’s 2008 – This is where the T-Rex stood

The remains of the chair lift

Marvels “Dark” Ride

I walked around the site for about an hour, nobody disturbed me, nobody was there and that’s what freaked me out the most I created the digital piece above based on my emotions from the day

The full set of shots can be seen in my Gallery

Also I have created a digital piece that see’s the return of the Dinosaurs.

I will tell you how I created this image in my Technique section!

OM1 in a snowstorm

Wedge — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:28:58 +0000

Waking up to a blanket of snow earlier this month is always a delight for any Photographer, I packed my gear and headed out to the local park. I decided to go with my trusty Olympus OM1 SLR, a David Bailey favourite from 1973. This is truly a great little camera that puts back the creativity into photography, I bought this camera as a student back in 1996 and it was the only camera I owned throughout my Degree, In fact I only went Digital in 2003! I chose to shoot on Fuji Reala, a good fine grain film, then scanned the negs at a high-res to bring into Adobe Lightroom. At one stage during my ramblings a snowstorm hit and I managed to shoot off a few shots into it before my lens got covered in snow , which is fine for the OM as the only battery it uses is for the centre weighted light metre. This I would not recommended with a Digital SLR. Here are some of my favourite shots from the day.

Hello and welcome

Wedge — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:48:26 +0000

I’m Rick, and this is First Focus Photography.

I have been professionally involved with photography for the last ten years and I’m available in Dublin and around Ireland for your events. I specialise in Weddings , PR events, Family Portraits and Portfolio shoots.

You’re welcome to contact me at any time.