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.
I’ve uploaded my image for the 2010 Deck collection on the site. It seems I’ve been in a monochrome rut for the last few weeks. It’s actually interesting this time, since I usually only make monochromatic shots for a few reasons;
I initially look at the scene and believe from the start that it will look good as either black and white or sepia
The sky was blanket grey and made an otherwise lovely scene look drab – I’m a sucker for a blue sky.
The post process intention was to give the image an older look
In this image, I actually got a lovely blue sky with those white clouds encroaching, something about the decaying building bothered me and I decided after some contemplation to render this in monochrome. I am mostly a fan of “whole buildings” but occasionally I like the partials 🙂
For the post-processing details, I did a bit of distortion correction and then did the monochrome editing in Nik Silver Effects.
This post is also going to be the first post where I do a bit of social commentary, in this case, specifically brought about by my photos of City Hall yesterday.
It is shameful that such a beautiful building, with so much history can be allowed to deteriorate like this, pieces are literally falling off. I don’t know about anyone else, but I pay my taxes, and I would expect certain things in return. I expect them to clean the drains REGULARLY, I’ve only seen them in our area once since I moved in more than two years ago, I even expect them to maintain the parapets, you know, weeding etc., again, never saw them, and I expect them to maintain City Hall! even if it was a crappy building, they should do it, but because it is such beautiful architecture, it is not only a good idea to keep the building that houses the governing body of the city in good repair, it is also their social responsibility to ensure that this piece of history is maintained and not become a part of history, relegated to photographs and memories.
Sadly, it may come to the point that restoration may not be an option and the building will probably be replaced by some concrete box with little or no character. From a photography standpoint, that would be disastrous 🙂
I have found that over the years of playing with cameras, I really love the vibrant colours that the default settings of a Canon camera have always had, and most times it shows in my photographs.
Over the years I have come to love doing select monochromes, specifically the black and whites and sepias that you can always find wherever I post my images. These two types of monochromes lend a different atmosphere to an image, sometimes even an image that has little appeal in it’s original colour state.
Many people take photographs and then decide later on that this particular one or that particular one would look nice in monochrome, while it has happened to me before (and likely to happen again) I usually take a photograph with this particular type of end-product in mind, these two images I recently posted from the trip to Bamboo Landing are very representative of that, they are the only one taken with monochrome in mind and each one was taken with the particular type of monochrome processing in mind that you see evinced in them.
The Black and White Image, was taken just after noon sometime, the heavy clouds and the shadows from the foliage made me think of this as a BW image, the lone tree (actually has some brush around it) cave a nice focal point to an otherwise bland river scene.
The Sepia image was taken around the same time, whenever I see something like an old house or an old boat (almost anything old) I almost instantaneously think “monochrome”, it just goes well together. When I first started doing Sepia photographs I had favoured the Canon default type on their point-and-shoot cameras, that very very vibrant, heavy on the sepia, but as I learned more and took more photographs, I learned to appreciate the lighter touches of sepia in an image.
Continuing my series of The 2010 Deck of photos, this, the twenty-first week of the year, this week’s photograph is “Another day…”
It is telling, that in a week of taking very few photographs (outside of a session at a dance) that the one I considered the best was one that reflects on a growing part of our society. So many homeless and destitute, and so many in need of help. Many times, it’s scenes like this that draw our attention, even though most of us turn a blind eye to it and pretend that it doesn’t exist.
I have come to realize that the photographs I take are an expression of my life and the events, people, places and things that affect and have an effect on me. Few things can effect changes in a person as drastically as the death of someone close. In times like this I realize that while I like taking photographs I can never seem to to capture the emotions of a scene as many of the professionals can. I can’t explain it, but I “had” to take photographs at my Grandmother’s funeral, it wasn’t something I wanted to do, or even preferred to do, I rationalized it as a job that would help keep me occupied, but it was more than that.
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