Image of the Month - Bill Albernethy

This is one of my favourite recent images for a number of reasons, mainly because it was not initially meant to be taken, but since capturing it, it has brought me great success in competition. Most recently it achieved 2nd overall in The Societies of Photographers Architectural Photographer of the Year Awards at their Convention in January 2017.

They say, ‘every picture tells a story’, and this one is no exception. I had initially approached a UK wide heritage organisation for permission to take photographs of one of their properties in Northern Ireland. It was to form part of a portfolio of images for a Masterclass at The Societies Convention. Despite the fact that they would receive full digital copies free of charge, and I would not use the images for commercial purposes, their official and bureaucratic stance meant that it was not going to happen.

 Plan B - ‘I think I will go to Dublin’. I had always wanted to photograph ‘The Long Room’ at Trinity College. I contacted them, with the same information, and their reply was positive - ‘come on down’, no questions asked. So, I headed to Dublin, and enjoyed a successful time photographing ‘the Long Room’. The next night I stayed with a friend in Dublin.

It was wet and miserable, but despite this he offered to take me to some interesting architectural sites in the city, and off we went. I ran past the building in the photograph you see,and headed for cover out of the rain in another structure of interest. The rain stopped, and when heading back to his car I looked up and knew I just had to capture an image of the building I saw - Google HQ in Dublin. I just loved the verticals the curves and reflections on the glass, not to mention the dash of colour. And of course, the overcast sky just added to the drama of the image. I captured it from so many angles, but finally settled on this one for competition entry.

 So, the moral of this story is - if plan A does not work out, there is always a plan B, and it could well be even better than plan A. And speaking from an architectural perspective - ‘if one door is slammed in your face, there is always another open door around the corner. I hope you like my image and see why I got so much pleasure from it.