2013 Deck – Week 27

On September 9, 2013September 9, 2013 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2013 Deck, Photography4 Comments

Getting the subtle colours out of a sky opposite the now setting sun isn’t easy…. but I think I caught this one at the right time…

In the distance is a Koker and boat offsetting the foreground rock, the rock shows some of the warm light of the setting sun coming through the clouds to the back of me.

I often think to myself that if I keep revisiting the same spots then I’ll not find new photos to add to my collection, but although I do come away with many similar photos that often never see the light of day, I do get one or two that are different and worth sharing 🙂

Canon 60D | Sigma 10-20mm | 10mm, 1/60s, f/5.6 | Lusignan, E.C.D, Guyana

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

Aye, Eye, I

On March 15, 2013March 15, 2013 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

I was passing along the seawall when I saw this piece of driftwood sticking up over the wall, and for some reason all I could see was some sort of animal, a giraffe, or a donkey with it’s neck stretched upwards, or a dragon. I know that anthropomorphism is the attribution of human-like features to other animals or objects, but what is attributing other animal-like qualities to other objects? I haven’t a clue!

Here’s the driftwood!

Click on the image to see in in the Odds and Ends Gallery, you may see other odds and ends that you may like 🙂

A walk on the beach

On January 28, 2013January 28, 2013 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography12 Comments

A few Fridays back, I joined a few other photographers on a walk down to the large jetty (pier/groin) that marks the end of the Kingston seashore and the beginning of the Demerara River mouth.

As with all walks with photographers you go hoping to come back with a good image, or even a great one, yet when I downloaded my haul I was very disappointed, maybe I was hoping for too much.

Does this mean that the walk was not a success? No. It was what it was… a walk on the beach. To be with friends, people with a similar pursuit, and enjoy the conversation, the breeze… that was enough.

All the photos were not horrible, but not jumped out at me, yet I decided to process at least one to make a show of reaping something from the toil of the harvest.

As I look at the image I processed, I wonder if this scene will get worse or better with the development of the new Hotel on the seashore.

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

Exposures on the Beach

On August 16, 2012August 16, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

Most times when I experiment with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, it is usually a static scene, with very little chance of movement between exposures, in as little of the scene as possible, like my recent Bamboo Grove image, this is to reduce ghosting and blurring in the final image, however, I do sometimes go for some scenes where there is movement, but these don’t always work out.

Last year I tried one and liked the results enough to use it for my Deck Project for the 19th Week, and whilst in Barbados I tried one down at the beach. At the beach there was more movement that I’d have liked, with “everyone” in the water moving about. As usual, I don’t try to be too ambitious, so I stuck with my usual three exposures for an HDR, each at about 2ev difference.

Using Nik HDR Efex Pro, I manipulated the ghost reduction feature until I had as little ghosting from the bobbing heads in the water that was possible 🙂 There’s really only one reason I chose this scene to try an HDR, the clouds! 🙂

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.

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https://www.facebook.com/TheMichaelLamCollection

South to North

On July 19, 2012July 23, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

Before departing from the Kingston Area to begin the Family Reunion in Ocho Rios, my dad thought that getting a photograph of everyone who were in the Kingston area would be a good idea, so after everyone had eaten some breakfast, packed their bags and were ready to go, we all got together for the group photo.

I was hoping to do some photography whilst on the drive over, but the high grasses after the recent rains and a few other adverse conditions made that a bit impractical 🙂 I did manage to snag a photo of a vendor’s stand with some of the fruits out front during a brief stop.

One of the areas we drove through was Fern Gulley, but photographs can’t tell that story, you have to take the drive through yourself, but I took one of the curving road and the enclosing ferns to give the general idea, this spot had a nice window in the canopy above for extra light, many other sections did not, the ferns would enclose the road and create a lovely rainforest feel.

Once at the hotel, we checked in, went for lunch, then to find our rooms, We had chosen the mountain view option rather than the ocean view rooms, just to save a few dollars 🙂 This is part of the view from our room, not too bad 🙂

After some afternoon swimming (or more like wading in the pool), we were taking a walk to see the Gazebo at the ocean’s edge and I snagged a few more photos, after that it was dinner and bed 🙂 Not a bad day overall.

2012 Deck – Week 5

On February 11, 2012February 11, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography10 Comments

There are some weeks when you have a number of photographs, many that are technically better than others, yet you keep going back to one in particular which, although not the best composed, or the best exposed, nor the best focused image, it seems to demand from you that extra bit of attention.

This image is one such image for me, I had a few that were better, nicer, prettier, more appealing generally, but this one I liked more. The focus was not on the “obvious” subject, and for that reason I almost decided not to use it, but it appeals to me, it is an image that says something more than the others that I took this week.

If it speaks to you, then I am happy, if it doesn’t, then I fully understand 🙂

2012 Deck – Week 1

On January 9, 2012January 9, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography14 Comments

After two years of doing this, I think that this is what keeps me intrigued in photography, the weekly search for a photograph. While Nikhil has embarked upon his Daily Photography project this year (I hope he goes the full 366) I know my limitations, I won’t be trying that anytime soon.

I think that this image is somewhat appropriate to the year, the crazy Armageddon stories and to my photography. If you believe the Mayan Calendar theorists and many of the other Doomsday predictions regarding the year 2012, then you’re probably hoping, like myself, that I get some really good photographs this year! 🙂

This was taken on New Year’s Day, because of my interests in HDR, I thought that I would try another Black and White HDR, this one was taken at midday, I think the originals were 2ev apart.

It was a breezy day (forgot my tripod again, so this was hand-held for all three exposures), and very overcast, lots of clouds as you can see.

Intentional Under-Exposure

On January 4, 2012January 4, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn One Way to Do it, Photography2 Comments

There was a challenge recently in the Guyana Photographer’s FaceBook page, it was about silhouettes, while there seemed to be various interpretations on the theme, I noticed that not everyone had the same idea of a silhouette.

Although many dictionaries seem to have similar definitions, they usually go back to the original meaning, referring to “cut-outs”, the explanation that I like the best I came across on Wikipedia (yes, I know, not always the most reliable of sources, but its accurate here), “A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black”. I think this explanation covers the idea of a silhouette regardless of the medium used to illustrate it.

This image I intentionally under-exposed when I took it to capture more detail in the sky and less in the foreground and objects between myself and the horizon, although I did under-expose I apparently didn’t do so enough since I still had to adjust the black levels to get what I wanted 🙂

Although the tree-line takes prominence in this image, the real interest is the child on the wall walking into the sunset. Intentionally under-exposing the photograph is one way I know of getting the silhouettes that we try for in images like this. Getting the right exposure is important, goodness knows I’m still trying with that, but learning when to over-expose the photograph and when to under-expose it can create those moments that are more memorable than an average exposure 🙂

For a better look, click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 51

On December 29, 2011December 29, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography4 Comments

I had shortlisted four images for this blog-post, two of them were too much in keeping with the general theme of the last few weeks, so I discarded those (for later publication) and one was somehow reminiscent of photos I’ve seen from Nikhil and some other local photogs, so I ended up with this one.

I titled it “Ritual at Dawn” because I had inadvertently caught some people in the frame, I think they may have been Hindus out to perform a seaside ritual (I think I should enquire more about this)

I was a bit dissatisfied with the original capture, but was taken enough by the scene to try to “salvage” the image. I tried a single image HDR tone-mapping, but that didn’t work out as I expected. I then decided to go for a pseudo-HDR, since I hadn’t actually taken multiple exposures, I created the multiple exposures in Lightroom (using a 1.5ev on the original image) In the image with the +1.5ev I wanted to get more detail from the rocks on the shore, so I used a gradient to adjust the exposure in that area. Using the three new exposures I did an HDR process in Nik HDR Efex Pro, and although the full-coloured resulting image was OK, I thought that in this instance I would get a better image using a black and white HDR rendering.

2011 Deck – Week 38

On December 12, 2011December 12, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

On this week, I only went out to take photos on one occasion, and on that occasion I took 45 photos, and I was way odd that afternoon, most were very underexposed. It wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling in the mood, I was fairly enthusiastic, I was enjoying the fresh air, the brief walk, and the scenery, but I never once looked down at the screen to check my photos, no chimping.

I was fairly disappointed but one of them had to work 🙂 I chose one that appealed to me in a general sense and felt that it would work well in monochrome, after playing with the processing for a while I found I wasn’t getting what I felt the scene needed, so I took the file into Nik’s HDR Efex to try a single image BW tone-mapping, and amazingly got what I thought was a good final processed image. I would never consider this a true HDR, since I only used one image, but the tone-mapping of the HDR software helped bring out the details that I wanted in this image.