I remember lots of people engaging me in dialogue after the post that I made “Where to look for something to photograph”, and while there were nods of assent and some disagreement (which I quite understand), one thing that struck me was the question as to the variety of images I get when I do something of that sort.

It seems, that Nikhil and I are making quite a habit of taking either a midday walk or an afternoon walk, and sometimes I come back with a few images worth sharing, other times I am not so lucky.  I recently processed a few images from two such walks and thought I’d share them here.

This first image struck  my fancy, I liked the wooden structure, the fence and the palm tree in the background, the only problem I had was that PVC pipe marring the scene.  There wasn’t much I could do about that pipe, but while the image looked nice in colour, I thought that rendering it in black and white helped just a tiny bit to tone down the intrusion of the pipe.

Not only did it help a little there, but it also brought out the nice lines of the old-fashioned windows and shutters.  One of the reasons I took the shot to include the pipe was that I wanted to get both bridges in the shot.

The next photograph shows two things that are fairly common around certain parts of Guyana, the plant (which I have always called an eggplant, because some people decorate them with eggshells, the white eggshells looking rather nice on the green leaves) and the concrete fence with the spaces between the blocks.

There was something about the simplicity of the scene that I liked and tried to capture, the texture of the fence the radial symmetry of the plant (not readily seen)  and the stretch of grass.

One of the things about Georgetown, is that almost anywhere you decide to take a walk, you are sure to come across some old buildings, not necessarily just old in age but also derelict.

The next photograph is one such example, a house that appears to be currently uninhabited, and slowly going to ruin.

Obviously, what caught my eye was this same derelict look; the old style of windows, the wide open room at the end that towered (slightly) over the rest of the building, the encroaching vegetation that may soon take over the building.

I believe that, ideally, I would have loved to do either a photograph of the inside, or wait until dark and try to illuminate it somehow on the inside, but neither of these ideas was practical.

I find that these older buildings had “character”, and I can most times find some angle of interest to photograph on many of them, much unlike most modern box-like houses which have distinct lack of character, being built “functional” as Nikhil once told me.

Before you believe that on these two walks near and in Queenstown, there were only buildings which may look good when displayed in monochrome, there was also this old church (maybe not so old) on Irving Street.

I’ve wanted to photograph this church, my intention being to get it early in the morning when the sun illuminates its north-eastern section, I had never actually considered an afternoon photograph, but as we approached it I saw that it was nicely framed by two palm trees and was pretty well-lit by the afternoon sun, I couldn’t have planned it better.

Most people who know me, know that I love a blue sky in my photographs, with or without clouds, I love a blue sky, and I think that the building has been nicely offset by the lovely blue sky and the verdant green grass.

I can imagine a wedding party in the churchyard, that would make quite a pretty picture, maybe I should volunteer as a wedding photographer just to get that!

Now I wonder what the view from that tower would be like…

The other photograph in line is one of a house that has some nice old architecture, on a small scale, but definitely gives lots of dimension to the front of the building.

I can go on and on about why I liked this building, from the nice step and porch, to the verandah, to the style of roof with its secondary portion, to the windows, the door, there were even side windows (Demerara Shutter styled) at the side that aren’t in this photograph, but what really caught my eye was the combination of these to create the face of the building together with the nice simple colour scheme of green and white.  Very nice and very simple and when I looked at it from this angle, there was the Red mailbox just sitting there, some say it’s a sore thumb, but I think it adds to the image not take away.

If you look carefully you can see the fretwork on the porch, the lightning rods on the roof peaks, the louvre-like wall of the verandah is especially distinctive, and what I liked a lot, was the green bench on the porch, it completed the image for me.

The final image of the set is a photograph of a place you couldn’t miss if you traveled down that street, unless you were blind.

It appears to be a residence, but obviously of someone of means and someone of deep religious conviction.  The Hindu influence is very definite, the building, though low, has many architectural nuances, and although the fence is high it is designed to allow the beauty of the place be seen.

I am not a big fan of these multi-part roofs, but they do have their beauty, and while I would never paint anything in my yard pink and powder blue, it does somewhat compliment the earth tones of the main building.

I didn’t mean to ramble so much on this post, but the images from a walk can be quite interesting to me.