2018 Blog Awards Ireland – ShaneMcDonald.me Wins the Silver Blog Award
In Septeber this year I was delighted to find out that my photoblog, shanemcdonald.me has reached the finals of The 2018 Blog Awards Ireland. I have been shortlisted a few times in the Blog Awards Ireland, but reaching the finals is a huge bonus.
About ShaneMcDonald.me
I have always had an interest in photography. I purchased a very basic Olympus back in 2001 and this only had 1.3 megapixels. I used this camera when traveling around the world in 2003. I upgraded to a Fuji S7000 in 2005, upgraded to a Canon 450D in 2009 and then on to a very sturdy Canon 7D in 2015.
I created and setup the Shane McDonald Photography website in 2010. The aim of the website was to have a channel for my photography. Since then I have being optimising and adding more photos to the site as much as possible. I spent the first 8 months of 2018 rebuilding the design and layout of the site and it seems to have paid off.
The plans for the rest of 2018 and into 2019, are more photo tips and also a few ‘how to…’ photo videos.
The Blog Awards Ireland
The Blog Awards Ireland are open to any blogger based on the Island of Ireland. Every year there are about 2,000 nominations. These are placed into a longest, then shortlisted and finally a few are nominated for the finals.
The photography section is the area where I was a finalist. The photography blog awards are nominated under any blog which blogs about architectural, contemporary, fashion & beauty, landscape, open art & creativity, portrait, press & editorial, or wildlife photography. I would certainly fall under architectural, landscape, portrait, press and wildlife photography. My plans for the remaing months of 2018 are to do a lot more set-up or organised photo shoots and so some editorial might be a bookend to the year also.
The Blog Awards Ireland ceremony took place in Tramline in Dublin on Thursday 25th of October 2018 with a theme of ‘Day of the Dead’.
I was delighted to win the Silver Blog Award for Photography with Fox Glove Lane pipping from the the top spot.
About Shane McDonald Photography
I always appreciate comments and feedback from my website and blog visitors. Please feel free to leave a comment on any post or contact me directly. The work is all non-commercial, I’m not in this for the money, I just enjoy taking and sharing photos.
I am very active on Twitter and Instagram, just search for @shanesphoto on both channels. You can also follow, if you wish, my personal account @mrshanemcdonald which is more of a general feed. Finally if you want to know more, my personal website is at www.shanemcdonald.ie.
I am on BlogLovin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and I love hearing back from followers, so please get in touch if you want to say hi!
Congratulations on your award nomination.
I have admired and followed your site for a while now. I love the way you give insights into photo tips as I am only a beginner. I know nothing but I am learning from your site.
Can you do some posts on how to do that blurry background when taking photos but the person you are taking the photo of is sharp? I don’t know what that is?
Many Thanks Ryan for your comment, I really appreciate it.
In relation to your question on the blurry background, the photographic term for that is ‘Bokeh’ created by a shallow depth of field. If you set your aperture to around f/1.8 and focus on a subject in the foreground, with the correct ISO and Shutter speed settings to ensure a good exposure, the background will automatically be out of focus.
I have touched on this in the past on the blog post at https://www.shanemcdonald.me/082011-how-to-blur-backgrounds-using-the-aperture/ which might be a help to you.
If you have any other photography questions please let me know.