Tag: Canon

2014 Deck – Week 17

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography1 Comment

Always Stop!

When you see something that you think might be remotely worth photographing, don’t doubt yourself, just stop to take the photo.  Of course, I’ve had many instances where stopping just wasn’t possible, practical or prudent (read that last one as lawful), so some photos remain as electrical impulses in the synapses of our brains.  When it’s possible to stop, just stop and take out the camera and go shoot a few exposures, if not, you’ll be kicking yourself for some time after.

This was one of those times that I stopped.  I’ve driven past this building many times, and always thought that there’s a good photo there somewhere… this particular day I saw the sheep in the corralled area, the sky beyond the building, and as I turned the corner, mentioned to my wife “that’s a nice photo”, she said stop, so I stopped in the corner, got out my camera and trekked back to the junction.

Canon EOS 60D  |  Sigma 10-20mm  |  10mm, 1/160s, f/9.0, ISO100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

2013 Deck – Week 44

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2013 Deck, Photography5 Comments

In recent years I’ve taken less and less Diwali photographs, probably because I choose to spend the time with my family, and seeing as we’re not Hindus, we don’t usually light up Diyas, and the area I spend the time in is not usually very well-lit.  This year was not very different, with the exception that in-laws decided to light a few Diyas, especially for the children to experience it, so I got a few photos of Diyas 🙂

As soon as I had taken this one, I knew that it would be my choice for the Deck Project, it just had the right feel for me, some people think it is simple and don’t see in it what I see, but that’s the thing about photos, every person has their own reaction, so I never usually expect people to love the ones I do.

Here’s my offering from Diwali.

Canon 60D, Canon 40mm Lens |  1/60s, f /2.8,  ISO 1600

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

Pegasus on the Shore

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

Turn back the clock 5 years and 4 months…  I was doing one of those things that the manual says not to… shooting towards the sun… but in this case I didn’t point directly at the sun.  Since I was pointing towards the late afternoon sun, all the colours in the image became washed out leaving an almost sepia-toned image, so I carried it that extra step further in post-processing and made it a Sepia-toned image.

What had caught my eye was the light glaring off of the water that remained after the tide had receded, it made for a nice high-contrast image.

March 2nd, 2008  |  Canon PowerShot S5 IS

Shot on the lonest end of the camera’s 12x Optical zoom.

Click on the image to see it larger in the Sepia Gallery, along with many of my other Sepia-toned photos

2012 Deck – Week 37

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

I have a few rules or guidelines that I try to abide by in my photography, and I’m not referring to the Rule of thirds or Rules of composition, I’m referring to ones that will guide me as a photographer and help me to get those photos that I want.

Rule #2:  STOP and take the shot

Many times we regret not stopping, for one reason or another, to take the “shot” that we could see in our mind; we saw it, we thought of how to compose it, maybe even how to process it afterwards, but unless we actually stopped and took the shot, everything else is supposition and a wasted opportunity.

I was driving down the Railway Embankment heading home and saw the colours in the sky developing into what could be a lovely sunset, I saw the clouds low on the horizon and the sun dipping towards them and I knew I had to take a photo of it.

A photo of a sunset, is a photo of a sunset, unless you have something else in the photo that adds interest, then its just a photo of a sunset, and there’s a million of those.  As I was driving down, looking for something to use in the foreground, I remembered the Chimney at Chateau Margot, and quickly diverted towards the main Public Road.  As chance would have it, I ended up behind some slow moving traffic and could not get to the spot as quickly as I’d have liked, but I got there, didn’t try to change lenses, but grabbed what was there and just shot a few exposures to get it.

Although I could have gotten the sky as I saw it earlier, from the road with houses around and utility wires all over the frame, I spent a few precious minutes to get to a spot I felt better about, and I think I can live with that  🙂

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

The Deck – Week 41

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography19 Comments

This week was fairly good as photography goes, I took a lot of photographs, 311 of which I’ve downloaded, the remainder were from a wedding that I was helping my bother Andre out at.

Choosing an image for this week’s deck proved more difficult than I would have thought, but that is mainly because the image I wanted to use, I decided to relegate to another blog-post for tomorrow.  The image I eventually decided upon was chose for the unusual perspective, at least for me, I am usually more of an angular person when it comes to the direction from which I generally point the camera, Nikhil is usually the one who goes for “head-on” views.

I had the Sigma 10-20mm Wide angle lens on my camera, and I thought that the image would look good from a head-on view facing the horizon, unfortunately the shoreline and the horizon were not exactly parallel at this point, but I think I got the image to where I wanted it 🙂

This was taken along the seawall somewhere between Montrose and Le Resouvenir on the East Coast of Demerara.

 

Moored at Montrose
Moored at Montrose

 

St George’s Panorama – June 2010

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments
Georgetown Guyana, St George's Cathedral

I have always been fascinated by Panoramic photographs, and I’ve tried a few over the last few years, this is the first one since I started by site or the blog.  We had an opportunity to go to the top of the new NBS head office (under construction) and take a few photographs, and I thought I would try a panorama from up there.  So far it is also the only thing I have processed from that day, very bad of me, but time is a very scarce commodity it seems.

Saint George’s Cathedral is probably one of the most photographed buildings in Guyana, it is not only a beautiful piece of Architecture, but is also imposing in it’s surroundings.  It is an island unto itself, surrounded by a “roundabout” (North Road splits and reconverges on the other side), it faces oncoming traffic from four sides (if you count Church Street) and is one of the tallest wooden structures in the world.

Some people like these wide panoramas, some don’t.  I think that the problem with wide panoramas is that there should be something eye-catching in it or about it that will make it more than just a bunch of images stitched together.  I have a few that are not spectacular, simply because it just looks sort of plain, but I like them anyway.  This Panorama, however, is punctuated by the St George’s Cathedral and makes it more appealing than some of the others that I have tried.  It is a compilation of twenty images taken in “portrait orientation” to get the most of the sky and foreground.  Each photo was taken at the widest on the lens (18mm) at 1/320 shutter speed and f/10 aperture, even though Canon has a stitching software I actually prefer Adobe Photoshop’s stitching (don’t tell anyone, since I am not a big Photoshop fan and most people know it).

If you click on the image above it will carry you to the site where (depending on your monitor) you can see a larger version.