Photography; I shoot what I like, and sometimes people like what I shoot. All photos are copyright to Michael C. Lam unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Author: themichaellamcollection
I work as a Computer Graphic Artist at a Sign company, I have a passion for Photography, I once called myself a Photo Hobbyist, but I am an artist, often expressing it through Photography
I’m a bit under the weather, so just a quick one to tide me over.
In almost every village area in Guyana, you either have walking, riding or driving vendors crying out their “wares”, I think some of the famous ones are “Broom Here!!!”, “Papers! Papers!, Kaieteur, Chronicle, Stabroek, Times! Papers!” and of course “Chips! Chips! Chips!, fresh chips!”
Maybe I’ll get the others another time, but for now here’s one of the Chips salesmen 🙂
Chips!
Click on the image to see it larger on the site, and of course, browse the sight at will 🙂
This was the photograph I had in mind for last week’s Deck Photo, but then the horse-cart took over 🙂
I still find it amazing that in a crowded room or a public place full of people, I can be next to my wife, and feel as if we’re alone, just the two of us. It was one of those things you read about in poems and novels but didn’t quite get until it happened to you. For more than half of my life, that has been us, I can look into her eyes and we’d be alone wherever we were. I look forward to many more years like that.
Well, I took this photograph, so it’s not of us, but you get the idea 🙂 Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Strange enough I had a totally different image in mind for this week’s Deck Photo, I hadn’t processed the images as yet, but I had sorted out in my mind the images I had taken and had somewhat settled on a particular image. On importing the photos into Lightroom, I saw one that I had dismissed mentally, it was taken hastily and I did not think that I had captured what I wanted. As I looked at it I realised that it had some merit, and as I processed the image it grew on me to the point that I haven’t bothered to process the rest until I finish this blog post 🙂
It was a nice lazy afternoon at Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara, and I was probably on my fourth Cuba Libre, and I saw them coming down the street, barely time to put down my glass (carefully), go for my camera bag, take out the camera, frame up and shoot. There was no second take, just the one shot.
I was about to title this post “The Monkey and The Camera”, because Nikhil might have been right about that day at La Bonne Intention, a monkey with a camera may well have managed to take a good photograph.
In hindsight, I really should have switch to my ultra-wide lens earlier that day, but even with the Tamron 18-270 mounted on the camera, I still got wide enough to capture the truly “awesome” sky that was prevalent at the time.
I’ll let this photo speak for itself. (Click to see larger)
Having a photo buddy is good, being in the company of other photographers is even better, you pick up things, learn a few tricks and see things from different points of view. Often enough, whenever Nikhil and I are out on a photo-walk, I will see him suddenly divert and take aim at something, and out of my mouth would pop a phrase like “the bike and the tree, eh?” or “the pattern of leaves”, or “the red block and the white blocks caught your eye”.
I am usually right, and I admit that I saw what caught his eye (either before or at the time), I see what it is, I see that there’s a photographic opportunity, but most times, I don’t see the composition that he sees. I’ve come to the conclusion that , at least for now, it’s just not really my thing. He does a marvelous job on those patterns and juxtapositions, on odd combinations of subjects, I don’t “see it” as he does, and that’s fine, if we all saw things the same way, there’s be nothing special in any of our photographs. I think that photographers understand to a good extent what I mean, but the regular Joe, or photo-tekker-outer, or snapshot artist, may not. It’s like Street Photography, there’s an art to it that not everybody gets, certainly not me, and I’ve tried some before and may try more in the future. A good photograph can tell a story in just one scene, the problem I see these days is that not everyone can read 🙂 and even less of us are good story-tellers.
This one is a good example, I saw it, I noticed things like the contrast in colours, the symmetry/non-symmetry, the textures, the geometry, but I wasn’t inspired to take it, I just wanted to do it to see what I could come up with if I pushed myself. I know that in some circle it has merit, but I just can’t bring myself to say it’s a good shot. 🙂
The sky that day was a photographer’s dream, nice variety of clouds, a slowly setting sun, as Nikhil mentioned once “even a monkey could have gotten good photos that day”. I’m not entirely sure about the monkey, but I know we came away with some good ones.
For me, I liked this one because of the clouds, and then there’s the lone man walking along the wall, and the lone bird soaring in the sky.
Although Nikhil is no longer pressured on a daily basis for a photograph since he completed his first 365 project, we still manage to go for a photo-walk every now and again. One of those walks took us into Campbelville, and although it was mostly for him to get some Nas-inspried photographs, I came away with a few goodies 🙂
One was also somewhat inspired by an image I once saw from a controversial photographer called Ken, although my photographs may never become as “professional” as Ken’s I learnt a lot from reading his blogs and rants 🙂 So, I titled this one “Ken”, it was taken at the corner of DeAbrue and Duncan Streets (north-west corner)
Ken
The second one, I wish I had spent more time on, the scene reminded me of a photograph I once saw from Errol Ross Brewster, and I am ashamed I let the rain chase me away from this spot without getting more out of it, but there you go, the Canon T1i isn’t weather-sealed. This is at the corner of William and Middleton Streets (north-east corner), it is a single image, but I used HDR Efex Pro to recover some detail in the clouds, in the shot it was totally blown out.
Although the “Deck week” ends on Friday, I usually try to post by the Friday, but this week I held off, hoping to get some more photographs, but that didn’t work out 🙂 The main activity this week was the Festive Lantern Display that I blogged about for the eve of Chinese New Year.
I actually have another photograph from that evening that I favour, so that’s going to be the photo for the Deck this week. The Khom Fei is like other chinese (oriental) lanterns in that they are made of paper, it is lightweight, stretched on a frame and carries a cross-piece at the base for the heat source.
In this photo, a few people help to hold the Lantern while the lantern fills with the hot air, eventually it will get hot enough to rise on its own, much like a hot-air balloon.
Happy New Year! Today is Chinese New Year, the year of the Rabbit! To anyone of the Elmer Fudd persuasion, leave the Wabbits alone, go Duck hunting 🙂
Last night there was a display of Festive Lanterns, or Khom Fai, to mark the occasion in Guyana, and it was a very nice display, if you got there in time. And when I say in time I mean before the time that was originally advertised. Originally billed for a 7pm start (even one of the organisers Facebook page has it that way still) there was apparently a change during the day and it was moved up, anyone reaching for 7pm would have missed it (almost entirely), I arrived 15 minutes before seven and almost missed it 🙂 Maybe next year I’ll camp out an hour before hand. It was held at the Parade Ground, Georgetown.
It’s not a great photo, but it gives you the idea of what went on!
While other parts of the world are attempting to record every bit of information for Historical reference, and digging up (sometimes literally) any old records and references to people and places long dead and almost forgotten, I find that in Guyana, there are few records of places and people from our historical past (at least easily accessible records), whether of the recent past or a few generations back.
With the current alarming rate at which the older buildings, some with lots of history and character, are disappearing, I fear that a lot of the history and folklore that may be attached to those buildings will also disappear.
Much of what I know of Georgetown, was “told” to me by family and friends or teachers or just people who had something to say.
I was born after the trains disappeared from our shores, but I was told that this building was the Terminal (of course, there’s not much of a building left, so all I took was the side of it that has nice palm trees along the trench). It also served as the Bus Terminal after the train no longer ran. I vaguely remember the “Big Buses” that once were “the public transportation” of Georgetown, or as we grew up calling them; the Tata Buses.
This building also either houses or housed a foreign mission office, I remember seeing a crest or coat-of-arms on the High Street side some years ago.
Lamaha Street, looking down from the High Street end.
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