{"id":201942,"date":"2025-12-20T13:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/201942\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T13:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:20:12","slug":"author-michael-harding-the-camera-was-showing-me-something-new-how-sad-and-lonely-people-can-be-behind-the-mask-of-christmas-cheer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/201942\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Michael Harding: \u2018The camera was showing me something new; how sad and lonely people can be behind the mask of Christmas cheer\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nThe writer took to the streets of Dublin with a camera he picked up on Done Deal to capture images of festive joy and mirth \u2013 what he came back with was a portrait of sadness and isolation\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Michael Harding with his camera. Photo: Steve Humphreys\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/MICHAEL HARDING 1SH.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Michael Harding with his camera. Photo: Steve Humphreys<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">I wanted it for Christmas. A little camera to take snaps of the family. I could make a little booklet as a souvenir of Christmas 2025. The camera was a Lumix LX3, a tiny bundle of elegance with a Leica lens that I saw on Done Deal for just over \u20ac100.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">I went to Mullingar to meet the seller, a man in his 50s from Eastern Europe, shy and solitary in a battered anorak, with a passion for old cameras. I could sense the memory of snow lingering on his clothes and on his fingers. The tiny camera in his hands resonating with all the days he may have spent on the streets of a far-off city, capturing images of his loved ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The writer took to the streets of Dublin with a camera he picked up on Done Deal to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[9484,307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-201942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-christmas","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}