Tree on the Avenue

On January 20, 2014January 20, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, Poetry4 Comments

I had taken this photograph of one of the many trees lining the Main Street Avenue, it struck me that I could look up at these canopies along the avenue and feel a sense of calm and even tranquility but when I look back down and around me I am surrounded by rushing people, rushing vehicles, horns blaring and exhausts fuming.

Whilst processing the image I couldn’t think of much to say about this to put on the blog here… and I thought I’d take up a suggestion someone once made about using a Haiku Poem to accompany it (for some reason the image gave me an Oriental vibe). I read up on Haiku and realised that anything I attempted would likely come out wrong… and probably be laughed at by anyone who knows about Haiku, so I decided to at least put in these two paragraphs to accompany the photo, and yes I will put the attempt at Haiku under the photo… If you don’t know about Haiku, then I’ll be fine, if you do know about Haiku… just don’t laugh out loud 😀

Fresh scents, a clear day
Trees adorned with other life
A busy street thrives.

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

2014 Deck – Week 02

On January 17, 2014January 17, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography3 Comments

I selected one of the images I took from the recent Guyana Photographers’ Photowalk to the Conservancy via Canal #2 for my Deck Photo for this week.

While I’ve never swum or plunged into the Conservancy, I do remember the many outings to creeks and diving off of a tree at the side, even after being warned that it was either shallow or may have stumps unseen under the water.

This shot reminded me of those days. Many other photographers on the walk captured this moment, one even at, what appeared to be, the same moment, but it still remains one of my favourite images from the walk. When I noticed what was occurring, I knew I didn’t have time to stop, bring the camera to my eye, compose and shoot, so I shot it from the hip 🙂

Canon 60D, Sigma 17-50mm | 17mm, ISO 100, 1/400s, f/9

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

A Walk on the Conservancy

On January 15, 2014January 15, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

We recently had a Photowalk for willing members of the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group, it was ostensibly called “Canal #2 Photowalk”, that just meant we met at the western end of Canal #2 on the West Bank of Demerara, right where it meets the Conservancy, from there we chose a direction to walk (by default we headed North). Each member is initially allowed three images to upload to the album on the group, and Fidal Bassier wanted us to put some emphasis on “Composition” for this PhotoWalk, so there was some discussion about it… and I chose these three photos for certain reasons.

First image: House – 14-1649

I was mentioning to someone at the beginning of the walk (or a few someones) that it is important to know what makes a good composition, read as much as you can on things like the Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines, and other compositional aids, rules and guides. Once you know these things it makes composing a decent image all the easier, but it also allows you to realize that some scenes will allow you to “break” those rules.

For this image I pretty much threw the Rule of Thirds away… the main compositional aid being a Leading Line – the bridge leading you to the house, but even this is muted a bit by the shadow across the early portion of the bridge.

Second image: Sit – 14-1654

Initially the impulse was to zoom in to avoid all the clutter in the photo to simplify the scene down to the man, the boat and the conservancy behind him; but I thought that including the rough woodwork and using the low sun as a backlight would make for a nice silhouette shot or at least a more inclusive rather than exclusive composition. The low-hanging branch also helped enclose that corner of the frame. Shooting into the sun naturally desaturates a scene, and I used this to advantage in the colouring of the image. I also again ignored the Rule of Thirds and relied on the leading lines of the wood and the bright sun to lead you to the subject.

Third image: Prelude to Sunset – 14-1698

It seemed that although a few of us wanted to stick around to see the sunset, others preferred to get going… so I took a Prelude to Sunset photo. When I first started taking photos, I would be happy with just a plain nice sunset, but as I began to appreciate some more the images that actually made me look twice at them, I came to realize that some Sunset images (and most landscape ones, come to think of it) needed a foreground object in the composition to hold your attention as well, so I tried to include a portion of a rusty pontoon. I exposed for the sky and had already decided that I would be doing some post-process fill-light to regain some detail in the pontoon.

I hope I didn’t bore anyone with all of that… overall, I think it was a good Photowalk. Click on the images above to see them in the Gallery along with other images in the “Out and About” album.

Singed

On January 11, 2014January 11, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, thoughts2 Comments

Have you ever latched onto a word with unusual fascination? When I first read or heard certain words, there was an undue fascination that I got for them, one of those was “singed”… No, it has nothing to do with singing, so no funny quips about that 🙂 Another one was “chaos”, that one was simply because I’d read it in a book and had formed this pronounciation in my head that turned out to be completely wrong.

So… back to “singed”

It was the first week of 2014, and I was walking the seawall looking for a few photographs when I came across the piece of singed wood… it was laying across another piece of wood forming a cruciform shape, the harsh midday sun cast a strong shadow and I decided that it might make a decent photograph 🙂

I also took the opportunity to try out LightZone to process it from start to end… I finally found how to straighten the horizon in it… using the crop tool just like in LightRoom (silly me couldn’t find it the first time I was processing an image in it). I must say, that while there are some things I miss from this piece of software, it is a very powerful application, and the integration of the changes into the saved file (JPG or TIF) makes it easy to go back and adjust the processing.

LightZone also professes to be able to work as a plugin to LightRoom, so if you just want some of the neat features in LZ, you can try it as a plugin. For an OpenSource (read that as FREE) software, it is powerful and user-friendly, this is not a stripped down software, but a full fledged product for RAW image processing.

Now… to the image. It probably won’t rank as a great photograph, but I liked it and it gave me a good opportunity to try out LightZone

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm | 1/160s, f/9, 10mm, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images in the Black and White collection

Bob

On January 10, 2014January 10, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

I was walking along the seawall last year when I spotted these three birds on the rocks near the waterline, I was fortunate enough to get off one photo of them together before they separated further (in no small part to my approach)

Whenever I see three birds together I always think of Brother Bob, Bob Marley, simply because of those words in the song… “Three little birds, Pitch by my doorstep”

The song was actually called “Three Little Birds”, but most everyone I know refers to it as “Don’t Worry” or “Every Little thing’s Gonna be alright”

So these aren’t exactly little birds, and they certainly weren’t singing sweet songs, but they still reminded me of the song.

Hope you like it:

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-55mm | 1/500s, f/8, 50mm, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other Bird photos

2014 Deck – Week 01

On January 9, 2014January 9, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography4 Comments

Welcome back to my Deck Project, a photography project of one photo for every week of the year, giving me 52 photos for the year. (and there are 52 cards in a Deck of normal standard cards, not counting Jokers, hence the name Deck Project)

I start the year at a very familiar place, the seawalls, living on the coastland of Guyana gives us easy access to the sea and the extensive shoreline.

Recently there was a discussion about how Guyanese (among many others) prefer to use pirated software instead of paying. This has primarily to do with a difference in income levels and the cost of many software can easily exceed the salaries of the average or even above-average Guyanese. The cost of such popular photo-processing software as Adobe Lightroom and Corel AfterShot Pro has declined in recent years making it more affordable, but the habit of acquiring pirated copies persists. After this discussion I remembered Nikhil posting about an Open Source photo-processing software called LightZone, and I decided to give it a good try (even though I do own and use Adobe Lightroom)

This photo for the first week of the 2014 Deck Project was processed primarily in LightZone (but since I use Lightroom to interface with my website, I used Lightroom to tag/keyword and upload the image) LightZone is surprisingly versatile and powerful, I think I’ll be using it a bit more to experiment with some features as well as to encourage those who can’t afford Lightroom or AfterShot to try something that’s Free but also pretty powerful.

Canon 60D, Sigma 10-20mm | 1/125s, f/8, ISO100, 10mm

Seawalls near Thomaslands, Georgetown

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

Pier

On January 7, 2014January 7, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, Poetry4 Comments

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with many others in the Black and White Collection

Standing posts, by day’s light
Beaten by the waves
bleached by the relentless sun
Dwelt upon by snails

By moonlight, a ghostly pier
Appears ‘neath the moon
A vision that’s never seen
In day’s high noon

Stretching out into the deep
Walked upon by wraiths
boats with ancient passengers,
On the pier he waits…

Eyeing all who step ashore
Some will never leave,
Captain of his merchant ship,
Lord of the seas

Each night he walks the pier
Beneath the moon’s light
Each night the slaves come again
Reliving ghostly plight

The wraiths leave with the dawn
At peace once more
Until the rising moon
Brings them back to shore.

Mother and Child

On January 4, 2014January 4, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography5 Comments

This photo has been a favoured one since I took it, but I’ve never shared it because I had always thought that the focus was soft and might be detracting to some viewers, but the composition, the light and the processing were all just right for me.

This was taken on Chinese New Year’s day 2013, it is my sister-in-law, Romina, and her son (my nephew) Nathan.

I don’t normally do portraits, but I usually make exceptions for family, this, on the other hand, was more of a candid photo rather than a posed portrait.

Black Flag

On January 3, 2014January 3, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

When I saw this flag, I knew I wanted a good photo of it, but never really processed it until now. This was taken on a photowalk that the Guyana Photographer’s Facebook group did in January of 2013.

I think I agree with Nikhil that my definitive photograph involving Jhandi flags was this one from last year’s Deck Project, but if you’re going to photograph along the coastlands of Guyana, you most likely will end up with Jhandi flags in some images.

I don’t see the Black ones as often as I see the Red, Yellow and White ones.

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm | 1/200s, f/10, 10mm, ISO100

Click on the image to see it in the Collection, along with others from the “Out and About” album

Fly

On January 2, 2014January 2, 2014 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

Something from last year 🙂 2013 was a good year, but then I think upon reflection, every year is a good year, there are always rough patches, but we live, we learn, we love, we laugh, we lose some hair, we leave behind the things we prefer not to follow us into the new year.

Where my photographs are concerned, I think I got a few good ones, a few great ones, but overall, I think I just got less time to go out and get photos from farther afield. But I think that I did a fair job of the Deck Project.

For the new year, I encourage anyone reading this to “Fly”, spread your wings and soar above the troubles of the world and find peace within yourself, I will be trying to do this myself.