2015 Deck – Week 15

On July 14, 2015July 14, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography1 Comment

Other than being in the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group, I’m also a member of a few other Facebook photography groups… one of them is the Guyana Mobile Photographers, which focuses on photographs taken with mobile devices, such as my phone. There was a suggestion of there being “challenges” for the members to push themselves, I had just walked out of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on a Sunday morning when Avinash suggested to the group to use “worship” as the theme, I quickly ran back inside with the phone in hand to see what I could snap… I couldn’t believe my luck at this scene.

From the time I uploaded it I knew that I’d be using it as the Deck Photo for that week…

Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos | Instagram

Click the image to see it in the Gallery, you can also check out how my experiment with mobile photography is going over on Instagram.

2015 Deck – Week 14

On July 10, 2015July 10, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography3 Comments

I never really liked the whole Kite-flying thing… don’t get me wrong, the idea always appealed, but the fascination wore off minutes after the kite was actually airborne. As Easter approached each year (when I was somewhat younger, anyway) I would look forward to the whole idea of visiting relatives, flying kites, picnicking and so forth, but in hindsight, it was the totality of the experiences that made Easter special, not just kite-flying.

One of the fun parts for us as kids was helping to decorate the kite, finding magazines to cut things out of, or gift paper, or any printed matter with an image on it, that was to add to whatever fancy snow-flake pattern a parent, aunt or uncle had already cut out of coloured paper to stick as the centre-piece.

I thought of that as I saw this kite-vendor choosing pre-printed stickers to apply to his kites, was the child who got the kite going to think that he /she missed an opportunity to decorate their own kite, or would they be happy that they got one already prettied up and ready to fly?

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF40mm f2.8 STM | 1/250s, f/8.0, ISO 200

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

2015 Deck – Week 13

On July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography3 Comments

As strange as it may sound, sometimes when I can’t find a paragraph or two to express what I want to say, the words come out as a poem…

HOME

The call of the Kiskadee
on a rain-kissed afternoon
The sung sweet melody
of an old Tradewinds tune,
The shout of a passing man,
“Creketeh! get yuh Crawbeah!”
And the woman just behind
singing “Broom ay, broom ay”
Sundays- dressed, in church,
And the Saturday movie night,
A show for the family,
or maybe one with a bit of fright,
The sweet salty scent
of the breeze on the seawalls
A tasty mouthful
of pholourie or egg-ball,
Walking the water’s edge,
feeling sand, feeling the foam,
It’s where I belong,
this is Guyana, this is home.

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images from this year’s Deck Project.

2015 Deck – Week 12

On July 4, 2015July 4, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography, Poetry2 Comments

Sometimes we become entangled in the minutiae of our daily lives and forget or overlook the things that are truly important, I’m no philosopher but sometimes introspection leads to thoughts about things that I often figure are best left to wiser men to figure out – like, why does the toilet paper always seem to run out when you really need it and can’t reach a new one easily? 😀

I saw this cloth tied to a bamboo pole on the seawall, not sure if it was part of a Hindu ritual, a flayed and battered Jhanda (Jhandi flag) or just a piece of cloth tied to a pole… It intrigued me enough that I took quite a few photos of it, trying to catch it and freeze it’s motion with a fast shutter speed… and when I was processing the photo, only then noticed the bit of seaweed tangled in some of the threads… this might have been a bit of that Sargasso Seaweed that recently washed up on our shores.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF24-105mm | 105mm, 1/500s, f/8, ISO 200

A cruel world, tears and flays
The skin and nerves apart
Love and life, soothes and calms
This tender fragile heart

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

2015 Deck – Week 11

On June 13, 2015June 13, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography2 Comments

The seawall is a frequent haunt of mine, well, as frequent as it is possible. It is a place of solitude, tranquility, inspiration and sometimes perspiration.

I sometimes see things that I want to photograph; a few years ago I’d just shoot it and not worry too much, now I see it and can often not “see” the photograph I want, or not be able to execute it as I wish.

Over the years my view of what I want to capture has changed, maybe evolved, some might say devolved, but it’s no longer just about shooting wildly, unless it’s a situation where the excitement overrides my senses. Each scene takes some amount of consideration, whether it’s milliseconds or minutes.

Even though I may try and try to get a particular subject in as expressive a manner as I want, it does not always work out, I took about 17 exposures of one single perspective/angle of this one, and even when I chose the one that appealed to me the most, I still think I missed “the shot”

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other pieces from this year’s Deck Project.

2015 Deck – Week 10

On June 5, 2015June 5, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography2 Comments

In Guyana, when you’re hungry and you want some “fast food” (that’s a relative term, as anyone who has been to a fast food restaurant knows only too well) the place to go is the nearest Chinese Restaurant, or maybe not the nearest, but one you know and trust… ok, trust is a strong word; the one that hasn’t given you “belly-wuk” as yet.

As you can imagine, it’s unlikely that I’d be in a Chinese Restaurant with the camera in hand, but these days the built-in cameras on our cellphones (mobile phones for you northerners) are pretty decent, a year ago I’d probably never have tried to take this photo, but with different gear comes a different attitude.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos | Instagram

I’ve been in that chair, probably with the same expression, a few times before… 🙂

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery, for other images from my mobile phone photography experimentation, check my feed on Instagram.

2015 Deck – Week 09

On May 23, 2015May 23, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography2 Comments

This blog is now 5 years old…. it doesn’t feel like it. Today I am feeling somewhat introspective….

I am not my parents…

I am not my ancestors…

I am not a representation of one particular political party or the other, of one race or the other, of one ideology or the other…

I am the debris upon our coast, that which is a product of the actions of others, whether deliberate or accidental.

I have been cast upon the shore, faithfully placed or carelessly thrown.

I have been left on my own, to survive or perish.

I may be strong or I may be weak, but mother nature will still prevail.

I may be solitary, or in the company of others…

I am the debris upon our coast.

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery

2015 Deck – Week 08

On April 17, 2015April 17, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Each week it is hard to make a choice of a photo for the Deck Project, mostly because its hard to separate the emotion involved with the image at the time of it’s being taken and the merits of the image itself, but for Week 8 of 2015, I think it’s mostly because I think to myself that I came away from that week, which was mostly Mashramani images, with what I thought of as very uninspiring and “average” images.

Seven weeks later and I was finally able to look at them and chose one that I felt was different, or maybe just not the “usual” of the crop.

Am I happy with it? Yes. There are quite a few that I’m happy with, but it seems to me that I now want a little “more” from my images than just the “pretty picture”. I’m not there yet, but I’ll keep trying.

Context: this reveler was very close up behind the truck, it was 3 in the afternoon, although the sky was partially overcast, the sun was shining nicely down on the parade at this point.

Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF24-105mm f/4L

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

2015 Deck – Week 07

On February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography1 Comment

Each year I normally do a post on the Children’s Parade, then follow up with one that I’d choose for the Deck, this year, call it laziness, or expediency, or simply a desire to show the one that I was excited about, I will do it all in one post.

This year’s parade was marred by some rain, and when I say marred, I mean for me and my equipment, most of the children seemed to quite enjoy themselves in the changing weather 🙂

I got a few good photos, more than a few “eh” photos and maybe one or two better than average ones…

The one I chose for the Deck may not have the same impact on the viewer as it had on me as I am still fresh with the emotion and excitement of the moment… the rain was still falling, my sister Mary was trying to hover near me with an umbrella (she knows how expensive camera gear is) and the young man who was pulling the main float of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs had seen me and was dancing and heading straight for me performing all the way.

I don’t normally chimp, but soon after he had passed and there was a short lull in the parade I scrolled back to see if I got anything that was usable, and even on the on-camera screen I could tell, it was about 85% good. 🙂

Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, 2015

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with the other images for this year’s Deck Project.

The other images I have from the Children’s Parade are in the Mashramani 2015 – Children’s Parade Gallery, click on the image below to see them all in the Gallery

2015 Deck – Week 06

On February 12, 2015February 12, 2015 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography1 Comment

I almost regret using the photo “Removing the Lines” for the Four Days, Four Photos challenge that James Broscombe had set for Nikhil and I… It is a photo that had something to say… and would have allowed me to have something to say too 🙂

That left me going through the rest of my week’s haul looking for something that stood out 🙂

Although I go out with hopes of getting nice landscapes or seascapes, I am usually also looking for anything else that might be useful to my own vision of my photography, and recently, I’ve been shooting some unusual scenes (for me, anyway)

This is one I think that is more Nikhil’s subject type, but not necessarily his style, There was something about the way the shadow fell that caught my attention, and then the way the shadow changed as the surface upon which it fell changed made me look again.

In this light (no pun intended) I was drawing a comparison to the way our actions and our attitudes to others often elicit different reactions and responses from each person, while we cannot control or even predict how others react to what we say or do, we should be observant of that reaction, so that we may learn from it, and be aware of it for future reference.

All shadows are not equal, and each shadow changes with the surface upon which it is cast, sometimes the shadow is sharp, and defined, at other times it can be diffused or even murky.