2010 Deck – The Michael Lam Collection's Blog

The Deck – Week 52

2010 Deck, Photography

This week, I complete my Project for the year, the 2010 Deck, 52 Photographs, one for each week of the year. There were times when I thought I would have to upload a photograph of my shoes, that was when a week was tough, and other times I had difficulty choosing from the ones I had taken, so taking too many is just as bad as taking too few photographs.

I am not sure that I have grown as a photographer over this year, but I do have a better appreciation of the photography of others as my blogging has introduced me to many other wonderful photographers, many of them with superior talents and images, and others learning as I am, as we take our photographs whether daily or weekly.

Although the sun sets on this year’s project, I look forward to renewing the project next year and hopefully finding a new perspective on photography through the inspiration I gain from the works of others and the encouragement of my family and friends, online photographers being a new and integral part of my new friends.

I hope 2010 was filled with as many learning experiences as you could handle, and I wish that for 2011, you see the world with fresh eyes (or lenses) and appreciate each passing moment for what it is, whether it can be captured digitally, on film, or just in your heart.

The Deck – Week 51

2010 Deck, Photography

This week’s photograph is not the best I’ve taken for the week, it is, however, somewhat representative of Christmas in Guyana. The Masquerade bands come out during the Christmas Season and then at Mashramani, although I didn’t see the “Mother Sally” and the “Bull” at this gathering, these gentlemen were out in the hot midday sun, entertaining the public and raising some funds for their future endeavours.

Merry Christmas to all who stop by to read this, busy though most of us are 🙂

The Deck – Week 50

2010 Deck, Photography

After three successive monochrome postings for the Deck project, I decided this week, that regardless of what the weather was like I wanted a coloured image,and I finally got something in keeping with the season, Demerara Mutual Insurance company lit up their building very nicely, and I took a few images at night to try and capture the spirit 🙂

Here’s the resulting image. Demerara Mutual has it’s main office on Avenue of the Republic in Central Georgetown, to the right of the photo, you can even see a portion of City Hall.

The Deck – Week 49

2010 Deck, Photography

This week sees a continuation of the monochromatic trend of late, but instead of just a straight BW, I went for a sepia with a vignette. It was on one of those walks with Nikhil, while looking for his Photo for his 365, and even though these waterways have been done, and over-done, I thought I’d give it a try, with the over-cast sky and perpetuating gloom of the afternoon this was pre-destined to be a monochromatic photograph.

After minimal processing in Lightroom, I did the monochromatic rendition in Nik Silver Efex, it came out rather nicely.

The Deck – Week 48

2010 Deck, Photography

I am pretty much disappointed with this week’s photographs, I have one of my wife that I thought was a great shot and was very tempted to put as the photo for this week’s Deck entry, but she would never forgive me if I did, so I had to settle for this one.

I intentionally took multiple exposures most of this week because I intended to do some more HDR attempts, but this one didn’t come out as expected. For some reason my alignment was all wrong and there’s quite a bit of haloing as a result. I did intend a BW HDR, so this I used as much to my advantage as possible.

I did the HDR merging in Nik HDR Efex Pro, and also added a vignette to it there. The final touches were added in Lightroom using a BW POP preset I got from Eric Kim, who does really great Street Photography, I hope he doesn’t mind that I used it for something other that Street Photography 🙂

I rather liked the lone tree and it’s reflection, so that’s why this was my choice this week.

The Deck – Week 47

2010 Deck, Photography

As has been the norm of late, my week was busy, I only got to take photographs on three days, but I did manage to get a very nice photograph that was actually enhanced by the crazy cloudy weather we’ve been having recently.

This week I give you a scene from the Botanical Gardens, I was in the central area of the Seven Ponds, where some of the Nation’s revered men have been laid to rest; including the first Guyanese Governor General, Sir David Rose, the First President of Guyana, Arthur Chung and the great Guyanese poet Martin Carter.

Facing the ponds is The Mausoleum where the body of the second president of Guyana, Forbes Burnham, is entombed. Linden Forbes Samson Burnham was the first Executive President of Guyana, and was called the Founder Leader during his tenure as president.

The Mausoleum is a recent addition to the Gardens being built in 1986, it has numerous sculptures on the interior walls done by Ivor Thom.

The reflection in the pond was what drew me to this scene, I hope you like it.

The Deck – Week 46

2010 Deck, Photography

It’s been another crazy week, somehow not finding the time to do certain things, like check out other photography blogs and process some of my photos. I took photographs on only three days this week, so one of them had to work for this week’s Deck Photo.

It has been a while since I tried out my Macrography (or Macro Photography), and since I came upon a moth recently in the house, I was quick to grab the opportunity to try some out. Since I don’t have a nice Canon Macro Lens, I went the old route, I grabbed my 18-55 Kit lens and my Raynox M250 Macro Lens, snapped them on together on the camera and experimented with the subject.

I didn’t have a lighting option available to me, neither softbox nor macro flash, so I was relying on natural sunlight, with it being an overcast day, that wasn’t too helpful either, but I think I got a good shot none-the-less.

I have the Raynox lenses from when I shot with the Canon PowerShot S5, and I love them both, the 250 is a larger magnification, so since I was only using a maximum of 55mm on the kit lens, I went for that one, how they work is that you screw in the Raynox lens onto an adapter and snap it onto the front of the camera lens.

Here’s a portion of the moth’s wing: