Captain's Log: Day 5 - Short Day

Today was a very short day in which everyone got a chance to sleep in a little bit. The extra sleep was very welcome after several early mornings in a row.

At 2pm we got on our bus and made the familiar trip over to DCU to meet with Prof. Roddy Flynn where he gave us a lecture on the Internet's impact on Ireland. He told us of the very little effect the Internet was having on Irish media and life in general in Ireland. While researching for my paper, I came across a number that said 30% of Ireland has broadband Internet access and he had a very similar number in his presentation. That number is unfathomable to me because the United States has something like 90% broadband access.

It is very surprising that a very modern country has no interest in the Internet and the advantages it can give to a country willing to utilize it.

After the lecture, we went to a photo agency called Photocall that was run by a man named Eamon. Eamon was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the photo business in Ireland and the changes it has experienced as technology and Ireland has changed. The photographers at Photocall supply 30+ publications with photos on a daily basis and they also do PR work for advertising agencies and companies.

Their business has changed over time and with the large amount of photographers and the difficulty to be at the site of news first makes it difficult to sustain their business on editorial photos alone as they had done in the past. They have had to take on PR work to sustain their business and Eamon believes that very soon the PR work will overtake the editorial side of the business in revenue and he is unsure whether he likes that or not.

After that, the photo students went to meet with a free lance photographer that does both documentary and commercial work. I did not go to the meeting but the photo students said it was very interesting and the guy was an amazing person to talk to.

That evening we had dinner in Abbey, Chelsea, Frankie, and Kristen's room and it was disgusting. We were so exhausted we didn't want to go out to eat anywhere so for some reason we thought it was a good idea to order Chinese food. Nobody ate more than 3-4 bites of our food and we ended up throwing it all away because it was inedible.

I am now going to be very early because I have an early train to Belfast in the morning.