“Toytown Bray”

Photography Exhibition by Aoife Hester

Monday 4th July – Sunday 17th July 2016

Signal Arts Centre is pleased to present this upcoming photography exhibition by local Bray artist Aoife Hester. The exhibition will run from Monday 4th – 17th July 2016.
“Toytown Bray” aims to recreate Bray town as a miniature/model toy-like town through the use of “tilt-shift”
photography. Tilt-shift photography is an effect which involves using selective focus to create miniature-like scenes. The effect is demonstrated in this Bray Beach Toytown video (www.vimeo.com/aoifehester/braybeachtoytown).

Aoife Hester is a Bray-based photographer who specialises in landscapes, time-lapse photography and photo manipulation. Aoife started to experiment with tilt-shift photography in the summer of 2014, taking advantage and making use of the vibrant, busy scenes on the seafront as the Bray Summer Festival was in full swing. Tilt-Shift photography, works very well when used to capture busy scenes with lots of people, colour and movement. The busy, colourful carnival rides, market stalls, marquee tents, cars and people helped to create the photographs which led on to inspire this exhibition. In the summer of 2014, Aoife’s “Bray Beach Toytown” video received a lot of recognition online via social media. As well as being nominated in the Nikon Film Festival, it was also featured in the International Motion Festival in Cyprus.

When not working at her day job as a graphic designer, she likes to get out and shoot as often as she can. Aoife started out with a particular interest in landscape photography and spent a lot of time shooting scenes locally around the Wicklow Mountains. While studying in college, she got a part-time job working in a photo lab where she was introduced to the world of Photoshop. When the shop was quiet, she would spend her time working on photo re-touching and restorations, which she quickly began to develop a keen interest for. As her fascination with Photoshop grew, Aoife started to experiment with photo manipulations – creating quirky, surreal and fun scenes. Inspired by photographer Erik Johansson’s photo manipulation work, she aims to make scenes that are impossibly real, yet seamlessly done causing the viewers to really struggle to see what is fake and what is in fact legitimate.

In July 2015, Aoife won Bronze in the Open category of the Irish Times Amateur Photographer of The Year awards. She was honoured to be involved with such a huge competition again, having also won first place in the Travel category in 2012.

See more at http://www.aoifehesterphotography.com

Gallery Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday: 10am -1pm/2pm – 5pm
Saturday/Sunday: 10am – 5pm

Aoife Hester Photography — https://vimeo.com/aoifehester/toytownpromo
15 hrs
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I would like to officially invite you to the opening of my first ever solo exhibition on Thursday 7 July from 7-9pm at Signal Arts Centre, Bray. “Toytown Bray” takes place from 4-17 July at Signal Arts Centre. I would be delighted to have as many people down to the opening night as possible. Hopefully see you there! Below is the official press release.

—Official Press Release—

‘Toytown Bray’

Exhibition of works by Aoife Hester.

Monday 4th July – Sunday 17th July 2016

Signal Arts Centre is delighted to be exhibiting works by the photographer Aoife Hester.

“Toytown Bray” aims to recreate Bray town as a miniature/model toy-like town through the use of “tilt-shift” photography. Tilt-shift photography is an effect which involves using selective focus to create miniature-like scenes.

The effect is demonstrated in my video “Bray Beach Toytown” (https://vimeo.com/aoifehester/braybeachtoytown).

Bray Beach Toytown
vimeo.com
A short timelapse video created using a tiltshift (miniature model) effect. Camera used: Canon 450D Edited with Adobe After Effects CC 2014 Music: Toy Piano…

Aoife Hester is a Bray-based photographer who specialises in landscapes, time-lapse photography and photo manipulation. Aoife started to experiment with tilt-shift photography in the summer of 2014, taking advantage and making use of the vibrant, busy scenes on the seafront as the Summer Festival was in full swing. Tilt-Shift photography, works very well when used to capture busy scenes with lots of people, colour and movement. The busy, colourful carnival rides, market stalls, marquee tents, cars and people helped to create the photographs which lead on to inspire this exhibition. In the summer of 2014, Aoife’s “Bray Beach Toytown” video received a lot of recognition online via social media. As well as being nominated in the Nikon Film Festival, it was also featured in the International Motion Festival in Cyprus.

When not working at her day job as a graphic designer, she likes to get out and shoot as often as she can. Aoife started out with a particular interest in landscape photography and spent a lot of time shooting scenes locally around the Wicklow Mountains.

While studying in college, she got a part-time job working in a photo lab where she was introduced to the world of Photoshop. When the shop was quiet, she would spend her time working on photo retouching and restorations, which she quickly began to develop a keen interest for. As her fascination with Photoshop grew, Aoife started to experiment with photo manipulations – creating quirky, surreal and fun scenes. Inspired by photographer Erik Johansson’s photo manipulation work, she aims to make scenes that are impossibly real, yet seamlessly done causing the viewers to really struggle to see what is fake and what is in fact legitimate.

In July 2015, Aoife won Bronze in the Open category of the Irish Times Amateur Photographer of The Year awards. She was honoured to be involved with such a huge competition again, having also won first place in the Travel category in 2012.

See more at http://www.aoifehesterphotography.com

Opening Reception: Thursday 7th July 7 – 9 pm

Bray Arts Show

June 13th at the Martello Hotel

8pm at the Martello Bray

Info : Julie-Rose McCormick 087-2486751

Remember Dublin’s Theatre Royal through music, stories, pictures, rare newsreel footage and song

The Theatre Royal

Dublin’s Theatre Royal was a magnificent art-deco building that stood on Hawkins Street until 1962.

The fourth Theatre Royal opened on 23 September 1935. It was the biggest theatre and had the largest stage in Europe. “The Royal”, as it was affectionately known, was regularly filled to its capacity of four thousand patrons.

It was mainly a Cine-Variety venue with a show, film, sing song and finally another show on offer each day. The theatre had a resident 25 piece orchestra, the Jimmy Campbell orchestra, and a fantastic troupe of dancers, the Royalettes. The world’s greatest stars of stage and screen, such as George Formby, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Bill Haley and the Comets, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Gigi, Sean Connery and many more famous performers played the Royal.

The outbreak of “The Emergency”, or as the rest of the World called it, World War II, provided an opportunity for Irish acts, who were to provide the mainstay of the Royal’s output during this period. These included such household names as Jimmy O’Dea, Jack Cruise, Frank Blowers, Noel Purcell, Eddie Byrne, Peggy Dell, Mike Nolan, Maureen Potter, Dick Forbes and many others who served their time and honed their stage craft in this amazing venue.

With the introduction of television and the “emigration” of Dubliners to better housing in the suburbs, the Royal like many other variety theatres across Ireland and the UK, finally succumbed to what was called “progress” and closed its doors on 30 June 1962.

The Royal, even to this day is held in great affection and is still sadly missed by Dubliners, not just here in Ireland but across the globe.

Finally, to misquote the famous Pete St. John song..

“ Ring a ring a rosie as the lights decline we remember Dublin City and the rare oul times..The Pillar and the Met have gone, the Royal long since pulled down… the Royal was part of what was Dublin, in the Rare Oul Times.”

Conor Doyle

Theatre Royal Historian

Come dressed in 40s and 50s gear

Conor Doyle Presents a night to remember tales of the Theatre Royal with rare film footage of performances , with a touch of history and architecture thrown in , have you got your own stories photos or memories of the theatre to contribute to Conors collection .

Mairin O’ Donovan star of the Royal sings tonight .

Dance to the old time tunes with Retrofix

bray arts june

Theatre royal poster-2

June 13th Brayarts night

THEATRE ROYAL REMEMBERED

Venue; Martello Hotel Bray , Co. Wicklow

8.00PM

Remember Dublin’s Theatre Royal through music, stories, pictures, rare newsreel footage and song

The Theatre Royal

Dublin’s Theatre Royal was a magnificent art-deco building that stood on Hawkins Street until 1962.

The fourth Theatre Royal opened on 23 September 1935. It was the biggest theatre and had the largest stage in Europe. “The Royal”, as it was affectionately known, was regularly filled to its capacity of four thousand patrons.

It was mainly a Cine-Variety venue with a show, film, sing song and finally another show on offer each day. The theatre had a resident 25 piece orchestra, the Jimmy Campbell orchestra, and a fantastic troupe of dancers, the Royalettes. The world’s greatest stars of stage and screen, such as George Formby, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Bill Haley and the Comets, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Gigi, Sean Connery and many more famous performers played the Royal.

The outbreak of “The Emergency”, or as the rest of the World called it, World War II, provided an opportunity for Irish acts, who were to provide the mainstay of the Royal’s output during this period. These included such household names as Jimmy O’Dea, Jack Cruise, Frank Blowers, Noel Purcell, Eddie Byrne, Peggy Dell, Mike Nolan, Maureen Potter, Dick Forbes and many others who served their time and honed their stage craft in this amazing venue.

With the introduction of television and the “emigration” of Dubliners to better housing in the suburbs, the Royal like many other variety theatres across Ireland and the UK, finally succumbed to what was called “progress” and closed its doors on 30 June 1962.

The Royal, even to this day is held in great affection and is still sadly missed by Dubliners, not just here in Ireland but across the globe.

Finally, to misquote the famous Pete St. John song..

“ Ring a ring a rosie as the lights decline we remember Dublin City and the rare oul times..The Pillar and the Met have gone, the Royal long since pulled down… the Royal was part of what was Dublin, in the Rare Oul Times.”

Conor Doyle

Theatre Royal Historian