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 Raymond Whitehead is a photographer with a varied career having been a restaurant and night club owner ,an athlete ,a teacher of Transcendental Meditation and the Science of Creative Intelligence, an interior designer and an Antique dealer.
Raymond has a strong interest in politics, conservation , organic food, historic architecture, bee-keeping, plays the Bodhran with traditional Irish bands from time to time and likes to travel.
In 2010 Raymond founded Direct Democracy Ireland with the acclaimed objective of providing the citizens of Ireland with a mechanism to call referendums and recall errand political representatives.
As an athlete Raymond was late to the sport but within 3 years from the age of 20 he won the Leinster Championships over 1,500 Meters and ranked 4th in the National Championships over 800 meters and 4th in the National Intermediate Cross Country Championships. He won, a silver medal in the national relay Championships over 800m and ran the winning leg of the Trinity relays in the 800m along with wining some other quality races. Despite being rather old at the age of 23, he was offered an Athletic Scholarship to an American University because of his rapid progress and the fact that he achieved the qualifying times in such a short period of time.
“My enlightened Coach had everyone in the club (Guinness AC) learn Transcendental Meditation as an aid to speeding up our progress in training and recovery from what was a gruelling training program ”Raymond continues....
“ I was so determined to get that scholarship that I took it on myself one winter to add an extra 15 miles a day in the morning before the evening session with the club, to try to gain extra strength. It was a tough 7 day a week regime.”
“I was very sceptical as to what sitting with my eyes closed and a simple mental technique would do for such a hard physically and mentally demanding sport. In the beginning I would sit there with the recurring thought that “ could have done a 4/5 mile run while I was sitting here doing nothing.”
“ However after a few short months I was truly amazed at the transformation. My running became smoother and felt easier was recovering more quickly from daily training sessions and even during sessions between sets of reps. I was more relaxed going into tough training sessions and truly enjoying my athletics for the first time. I was so amazed by this transformation that I decided this was a worthwhile thing to bring to the general public and I went off to Switzerland to study Eastern Philosophy And become a teacher of Transcendental Meditation and the Science of Creative Intelligence.”
On returning to Ireland Raymond set up a T.M. Centre in Limerick in the west of the country teaching more than a thousand people in a short 2 and a half years before starting up on his own in the restaurant business.
“In later years I wondered how far I might have gone in Athletics if I had continued and started back training for the Masters Athletics for Athletes in the over 40's category. I went from being National Champion for almost 8 years in a row indoors and outdoors, and breaking the indoor 400m record to 12th in the world in my first outing to 9th and then eventually 6th in the world and 4th in the European Championships before breaking my foot on uneven ground just weeks before the next European Championships. That year I watched in frustration as the winning time in the European Championships was slightly slower than the time I was capable of running”.
“ My interest in photography started in my early teens. I brought my pride and Joy's in for appraisal in to a local camera club where the Geeks took them apart, pointing out every fault they could find which made me put away the camera for many years. Quite a few years later I gained enough confidence to buy a decent camera and decided to take photographs that ' I liked' with little thought for commercial gain or others approval.” Raymond continues “ However people seem to like them and have been buying them So I decided to put this web site together to make them available to a wider audience. I like honest photographs , I take what I see with as little manipulation as possible and seldom set up a shot ”
As a restaurant owner in Temple bar at a time when Temple Bar was due for demolition to make way for ' Progress 'and a huge modern office complex, Raymond campaigned for it's preservation by pamphleting the residents and business owners in the area, forming the 'Temple Bar Residents Association', inviting in the press to cover the event and writing a poem around that time in 1986 about the destruction of Dublin's architectural heritage which was published by the 'Irish Times' Temple Bar 'was' eventually saved from the bulldozer and went on to become a huge commercial success and attraction for tourists and young people. Raymond says “Temple Bar is a bit hectic today but I believe it will mellow over time ...but at least its basic integrity has been preserved for many years to come and for the enjoyment of the people of Dublin and its visitors.”Click here to read.
This idea of what constitutes 'PROGRESS' Came up again some years later in 1997 when Raymond went to visit an athletic friend who was also a top pediatrician in Lithuania . He wrote a poem which outlined his thoughts on the subject and sent it to his friend along with a copy to Gay Byrne, a Famous T.V and Radio presenter in Ireland, along with a cover letter of explanation .
“ My hope was that he would read it out on air and that it might give some people cause to think about what we are doing to the planet and ourselves in this headlong drive towards unending expansion ,(in every area of our lives), on a planet with limited resources. I see it everywhere in increasing negativity.... Crime, Greed, Suicide, Pollution, Obesity,Cancer etc we are producing the first generation of children who will have a shorter lifespan than their parents.”
Click here to read
“Though I wrote these poems quite a few years ago nothing much seems to have changed. The News at XMAS ' a poem I wrote when an RTE newscaster at the height of the recession of the 80's tried to put a positive spin on news of the record profits made by Aer Rianta coming up to Christmas. Again not much has changed and I fear that next year will see record profits for them once more.”Click here to read the 'News At Xmas
“Photographers are like people who fish,” Raymond says, “They all have a story about ' The One That Got Away .'
“My own is one that haunts me to this day...'literally' . I was walking along a Victorian street near the city centre, one side of which had been demolished to build Modern office blocks and apartments .”
“The office blocks were almost finished apart from a small gap where the last 2 floors of a 4 or 5 story Victorian building still stood . They were dwarfed by the large new buildings on both sides. As I looked up I saw a labourer swinging a sledge hammer breaking down what remained of the 3rd floor, he stood on the ceiling of the 2nd floor. Behind him a large crane with a heavy weight swinging from its cable was breaking down the larger sections of the wall away from the building. It was a dramatic scene with lots of dust and activity and the wonderful contrast between the labourer, the large crane, the end of an era and the new”.
“As a Dubliner who grew up in the centre of the city, I felt a great sense of sadness and as I looked down from the frenetic activity of the Labourer and Crane, to the floor beneath, I couldn't believe my eyes .....Standing in the window just feet below all of this activity was an old man staring blankly down at the street below through a gap in old net curtains..... as timeless an image as I have seen, he never moved and seemed to be looking with a sense of longing at a life removed.” .”Unbelievably I had my camera bag with me, I dropped it to the ground only to discover there was no film in it or anywhere in my bag and there was nowhere I could buy some quickly nearby. I stood and looked at the scene in disbelief for some time , the old man just gazed motionless at the street below. Eventually I had to walk away with the image burnt into my brain. I have often wondered if what I saw was real , If what I actually saw was a ghost. Certainly it was the most incongruous image I have ever seen . Today, and I would think then, even though it was about 20 years ago, Health and safety regulations would surely prevent such activity in such close proximity to a member of the public. The proof of what I saw, I often thought, would have been if I had got the image on film”.
I was reminded of one of my favourite poems by an author I don't remember ( if anyone knows the author please let me know, I have a vague recollection that it may have been THE IRISH POET A.E....George Russell.
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