2012 Deck – Week 17

On June 5, 2012June 5, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography8 Comments

Fortunately for me, during the 17th Week of the year (or starting it, more precisely) was a mass celebrating the opening of the 56th Plenary Meeting of the Antilles Episcopal Conference in Guyana. Months prior to it, I was asked to help cover the event photographically, specifically the group photograph of the Bishops attending, while I usually don’t do portrait photos, I finally acquiesced to give it a try, and was permitted to call in some help.

I was fortunate to have helping me, for the mass coverage, four other photographers, who volunteered their time and expertise; Troy Parboo, Fidal Bassier, Derek Rogers and Joseph Lewis. I was truly glad for their assistance as I don’t do “people” and event photography too well, Troy and Fidal have had much experience in these areas and truly came through for me, and Derek Rogers has covered many events for more years than the rest of us combined, he also did my Wedding 🙂 Joseph came with less experience but much eagerness and a good knowledge of the proceedings that was invaluable.

It was agreed upon beforehand that the clergy of the church would prefer to have very few people “gallivanting” around the upper walkways, so I volunteered to be the one doing the running around (okay, I hogged it!)

This week’s deck photo I chose from that set. After taking a group photo of the Bishops, I ran across the road, hurried through the church and scampered all the way up to an overhead walkway that allowed a very high vantage point (Bishop Francis had expressed a desire to have a photo from up there after I had mentioned the view).

Although I have a liking for many of the others that I took, I chose this one for the Deck, it shows the High Altar of the Cathedral from above, with all the Bishops, Monsignor, Priests, Deacon and Altar Servers. It also shows a bit of the “Our Lady” altar behind, the passage (to the left) that I took around the altar and the pipes of the old Pipe Organ on the right.

Click on the photo for a better view in the Gallery, also in the album there are a few others from the event that I chose to share.

Ma

On March 25, 2012March 26, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn Commentary, Photography10 Comments

I can’t speak for others, I can only speak for myself, and I want to mention how I remember someone who died this morning. To me she was always Ma Cheong, not Mrs. Cheong, or Aunty Martha, but Ma Cheong.

For as long as I’ve known her in our parish community at the Cathedral, she has been a mother to many, her home (not her house) was always filled with young people, her children. Whether they were her own flesh and blood, adopted, fostered, or just happen to be there as friends, church member or passing through, she treated all the same.

Although she may never be immortalized in stone, she will live on in those she was a mother to, her ideals, her thoughts, her wisdom will shine through those that she imparted them to. To all of her children (and there are many of us who counted ourselves among them) I extend my condolences.

Like the statue of Our Lady that survived the fire which destroyed the original cathedral and now stands proudly at the Entrance to the current cathedral, I say to you her children and anyone who has known her, stand proud to have known and to have been loved by Ma Cheong.

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Please Click on the Image to see it larger in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 13

On April 2, 2011April 2, 2011 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.

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.

The sojourn continues

On September 8, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography14 Comments

I had first created a Sepia album when I frequently uploaded to WebShots (I slowed down because of their whole “captcha” usage for putting comments, too many people complained), and I had called it Sojourn in Sepia, I like the alliterative title. As I gained confidence in my photography I found that I was taking more and more images geared toward monochromatic post-processing, so the sojourn continues with this one that I took last week.

The latest addition to the Sepia album is one I tried on a walk down Brickdam, I was standing back waiting for Nikhil to take some shots when I looked up and noticed this stair and landing framed by the trunk of the tree.

On another note, all along I’ve been using the WordPress.com as the main blogging address, and I’ve also been using the sub domain as a forwarder although it wasn’t being treated as a full sub-domain, today I made it into a fully applicable sub domain, so all the blog address are now blog.themichaellamcollection.com addresses with sub-folders etc. The sojourn continues. 🙂

Also Ran

On September 7, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography10 Comments

So, I’m figuring that if it’s not a photograph for The Deck, or something thematic like Monochromes, what do I do with the photographs? Nikhil came up with a brilliant idea for his blog, he started a weekly review of his photos for his 365 Project. That gave me an idea for these photographs that don’t fit into my regular type of blog post, here’s the ones that did not make it onto The Deck 🙂

First up is this image taken in the Gardens, I was off to get the photograph of the Kissing Bridge when I found this corner of the bridge interesting, so I shot it, I still can’t quite put my finger on the reason it interests me, it just does, so I tried my best to frame it right and get a decent photograph of it.

Corner column, Kissing Bridge, Botanical Gardens

Then, of course, there is the bridge itself! Although I preferred the one I used that week for the deck which was in Black and White, I did take one in portrait orientation that I quite liked as well, so I dropped that one into my “Georgetown,Guyana” album, and here it is 🙂

I used to take a lot of photographs of flowers, that was when I shot with a Canon PowerShot S3 and S5, it seems that since I moved onto an SLR my focus has changed (excuse the pun), but every once in a while I still catch one in my viewfinder and get a fairly decent shot of it, like this one I saw on Brickdam.

And then, of course, there’s one of my favourite areas to photograph things, the Seawall. I often just thought of the seawall as just the Georgetown Seawall, but it extends along most of our coastline, these two were taken up near the village of Montrose, which is known most for the Starlite Drive-in, although I am not certain when it was exactly the they last showed a movie there.

Well, now that I have gotten that off my chest, I can rest knowing that these have not been ignored 🙂 I hope you enjoy one or more.

The Deck – Week 35

On September 3, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography9 Comments

I took very few photographs this week, I am not sure why that is, I just took very few. So out of twenty-five photographs total over seven days, I had to choose one for The 2010 Deck. As it turned out, I found some I really liked, and the choice would have been hard had it not been for this particular image in the set.

All the elements just fell into place for this one, and I was very happy with the final shot.

In observance of the holy month of Ramadan I give you this week’s Deck photograph: