Category: 2011 Deck

2011 Deck – Week 22

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography8 Comments

Although when I first started trying my hand at Photography (you know, snapshots that looked awesome, even though they were probably mediocre) I was never inclined to monochromatic images; the black and whites and the sepia-toned images, but as I learnt more about the art, and as I came to appreciate the works of others, there has always been scenes that seem to render better in monochrome than in vivid colour.

I have found recently that I like to work in “special” fields of photo processing, I like playing with Panoramas, HDR (High Dynamic Range) images, tone-mapped images (using the same HDR software but on a single image and not using bracketed images as in a true HDR), and monochromatic images, more towards black and white or sepia-toned images rather than cyanotypes and the other tones available.

At any given period of my photography, you’ll probably notice a certain “type” of image popping up, so don’t be surprised by today’s monochrome.  This was taken on the Georgetown Seawall towards the Kitty pump station, the building is Celina Atlantic Resort (I am not sure how the word resort got in the name, but its more a Restaurant and Bar)

Skies over Celina

2011 Deck – Week 21

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography14 Comments

If you’re going to do a project then you should at least make every effort to keep it up, right?  I seem to be lagging behind too much, something’s got to give!  Anyway, I found a few minutes and I decided to post my image for last week before it got too late.

Finding the time to post on the blog is one thing, but apparently things are getting to the point where finding the time to get the photograph itself is becoming a challenge, definitely not good.  Last week I took four photographs, yes four, F-O-U-R, 4!  and three of them were of the same scene, so that left me with a choice between two images. Bah!  I can’t let this happen again.

This is not a great image, it probably isn’t a good one, but it’s what I have and since I am sticking to the rules I made myself, I have to choose one of those images I took within the week, 🙂  I beg forgiveness in advance.

2011 Deck – Week 20

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography6 Comments

I thought to myself this week that maybe I should just put up as good a photo as I could get up to today before I let another week pass by and then I would be behind again in this project…  and since I went with Nikhil to the Kingston Promenade yesterday photo-hunting, I came back with a few decent shots, so here’s to the twentieth week of the year.

It was one of those uninspiring afternoons, nothing seemed to leap out at you, at least not photographically.  I did get a shot of a crab before he scampered back into his “hole” (is there a name for those?), but he isn’t super-sharp, I may yet post it up.  The beach was littered as usual, and the sun was shining so brightly I almost couldn’t look eastwards, and the glare off the water and sand wasn’t helping any either.

Fortunately I did manage to see through the glare enough to spot a youngster playing near the waves, as it turned out I got more than I thought  🙂

Silhouettes on the Seashore

2011 Deck – Week 19

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

City Hall.

I can’t seem to ever get enough photographs of this building, a heavy weight descends upon me when I go closer to it and see the effects of the neglect, the signs of disrepair, and the toll that the sun and rains take from this glorious wooden structure.

For last week I had not taken a single image for “artistic reasons”, I did do a snapshot of some newspapers for a Road Safety blog for The Alicea Foundation, but that’ wasn’t very artistic  🙂

Most of my HDR images usually use a fairly static scene, no moving elements, this week I decided to try one that included some movement, and try out the “ghost reduction” that Nik HDR Efex has built in, I think it worked very nicely.

Take a look at it larger in the gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 18

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

I’m still playing “catch-up”, still a week behind in the blog, and months behind in reading  🙂  Today marks one year since I actually registered as a WordPress user, although I didn’t start blogging until one week later, so I feel compelled to at least update the blog today, so I’ve managed to choose a photo from Week 18 of this year, processed it in one of my favourite ways, HDR, and even uploaded it 🙂

On the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo, Arrival Day, or whatever you want to call it, I went with Naseem and Nikhil for a drive and photo-jaunt between Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara and Rosignol at the mouth of the Berbice River (West Coast Berbice), needless to say we took a lot of photographs.

Our first stop was at the village of Enmore, we were going to go see the Enmore Martyr’s Monument, but the bridge we were planning on using was unusable, opposite that bridge there was a nice scene, so we took some time to “grok” it (as Nik would say) and even took some photos, I took a set of bracketed shots to use for an HDR rendition, and that’s what I present to you today.  All the original images came out dark and desaturated as I expected, since I was shooting into the sun, but since I planned on using them in an HDR, that was OK  🙂

Early Morn at Enmore

As an HDR, I really suggest you click on it to see it at the Gallery!

2011 Deck – Week 16

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

In keeping with the season of Easter (and just being lazy) I used a photo from Palm Sunday for this week’s Deck photo, I “reserved” two from that day just in case I didn’t get anything else I liked for the week, as it is I haven’t even downloaded what little else I did take, so it’s a good thing I did keep back two.

This one is more in keeping with the period, and is somewhat symbolic.  The photograph was taken early in the proceedings, the lay-ministers had just brought up all the ciboria before the altar, and I took a few snaps of them, this one happened to use as the central ciborium the one from the Sacred Heart parish.  The Church of the Sacred Heart was destroyed by fire on Christmas day in 2004, the building was then 135 years old.  The parishioners long to see the church rebuilt and like Christ, rise to new glory.

Happy Easter folks.

Ciboria

2011 Deck – Week 15

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography16 Comments

I had a set of photos from Sunday that I had placed confidence in to choose a Deck photo from, I had already “decided” what the post would look like and that the image would be in colour…  then I went to accompany Nikhil on a photo-walk yesterday and came away with a photograph I just couldn’t put aside.

At the time that I took it, I was not wholly satisfied, I saw too many things in the scene that I thought would be distracting or intrusive in the shot, but then I downloaded them all and started sorting through them, and although I probably gave Nikhil the idea that I wasn’t getting what I felt I should from the scene (which at the time was true), I think I got what the scene offered rather than what I wanted.

There are still elements in the photograph that annoy me (but only if I look at it very large, if I ever have to print it large I may have to “edit” further.)

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

This is a view of a portion of the Seven Ponds monument in the Botanical Gardens, as seen from the Mausoleum.  Laziness played a large part in the choice of lens, I had the “kit lens” on the camera at the time, 18-55mm Canon lens, which most “professionals” would shudder at the thought of using, but I was too lazy to dive into the bag and use anything else 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 14

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

It seems that there is seldom enough hours in a day, either that or I’m getting lazy 🙂  Saturday was a little rough, and I didn’t get around to posting my regular Deck blog-post, so it was left for today.  SO, I’m squeezing in a few minutes to write this and post it.

In between being busy and being lazy, there are times when I just want to sit and stare at a scene that makes me feel at peace. to forget that there is war in the middle east, tragedy in Japan, injustices in Africa, crazy weather in North America, every country in the world has its problems, and we have impending elections here in Guyana; disasters every one of these thoughts.

This might help explain my choice for this week’s Deck photo 🙂

Sit back, relax, clear your mind, and just stare towards the setting sun…

 

Down to Dusk

2011 Deck – Week 13

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography22 Comments

Another tough week, one day of actual photography, and even that was “forced”.  Yesterday, another blogger whom I follow, Bob Zeller, posted a blog along the lines of an award for “Versatile Bloggers”.  While I don’t see myself that way I was very honoured to be included in the company of he other bloggers in Bob’s List, if you get a chance check that out, quite impressive.  I will follow this up in my next post;  hopefully, I can be as magnanimous as Bob was  🙂

This week’s Deck photo was originally to be of my Alma Mater, Saint Stanislaus College (a High School actually), but I was more taken by my images of the church that I attend.  They are both on the same street, Brickdam, and Nikhil and I walked it looking for things to photograph.

This is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, seat of the Bishop of Georgetown, His Lordship Francis Alleyne OSB, and is commonly referred to as Brickdam Cathedral.  It is the central church of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Guyana and my parish for all of my life, although I now live outside the geographical area of the parish, we still attend mass there.  It is bordered by Brickdam, Hadfield Street, Camp Street and Pollard Place, the current concrete structure replaced the original wooden structure that was destroyed by fire decades ago.  Although it is not photographed as often as the St George’s Cathedral, it has its own appeal and beauty.

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception

Some people may notice, while others may not, this image, while not a true HDR image (I only used one exposure) was processed in Nik’s HDR Efex to get the most out of both the clouds and the building, I tried to be as subtle as I could without losing the detail that I wanted.