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.
Having a full time job that isn’t photography related makes for a hard time finding things to photograph, or more precisely, things that interest me…
I’ve actually been doing some walking with Nikhil recently and as such I’ve been accumulating some “street” photographs. While it’s not exactly what I like to shoot, every once in a while I find one that I think is worth sharing
With Georgetown being the centre of activity in Guyana, the streets do tend to get congested 🙂
Every time I see a skeleton or decomposing body of an animal, I think of Avinash Richard who, although known for his Street Photography locally, was also known for his photos of such things, and how he countenances death not with morbidity, but with fascination; fascination not in the death of the creature but in thoughts of the life it lived and what caused it to knock on Hades’ Gates.
Of course, this is how it comes across to me, he would be better equipped to answer for himself 🙂
As with most photos that I render in monochrome, I knew the instant that I composed and pressed the shutter button that this image would be rendered in BW, but this one made me think a little, I even compared the coloured version and the processed monochrome for a few days before asking Nikhil’s opinion. Thankfully, he reinforced my original thought process.
Most of my new images usually become my current favourite, but I believe that this one is truly one of my favourites of recent images.
I really think it can be seen better on the site, so click on the image above to see it in the Gallery, along with the previous images from this year’s Deck Project.
Lucky number 13? I don’t know, but the thirteenth week of this year was filled with activity… it was Holy Week in the Christian Calendar, and in the Hindu calendar it also held the festival of Phagwah (or Holi).
I got many photos, mostly from the Church activities for my own satisfaction, but I’ll definitely share some.
On Phagwah day I usually don’t get many photos of people playing / celebrating Phagwah, as I tend to keep my camera safely away from the waters and powders that abound. Nearing the end of the day, I was sitting with my family on the seawall, and along came these young ladies fresh from playing, and I couldn’t resist snapping a shot, one even posed 🙂
Click on the image above to see it better in the Gallery!
Frankincense: That’s the incense used at most Catholic churches when they are celebrating major feasts, it’s a smell that’s been familiar to me since early childhood, and one I always associate with the presence of the Bishop at a mass.
Last Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday), As I was avoiding the rain, and ducking under tents, I happened to stand right next to the altar server who was tending the Thurible with the coals and the incense, as the rain kept me cornered for the moment I took a few quick snaps 🙂
Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery 🙂
I had started processing this photo about two weeks ago, then left it off. I had cropped, rotated, and dropped the saturation a bit, but wasn’t satisfied. I pulled it up this morning, tweaked the highlights a bit and decided that it was done… that simple! Sometimes, all it needs is a little time 🙂
I noticed these at the side of the trench when I parked my vehicle, they were lower than the road, and the side of the trench was slippery, so I couldn’t get a foothold to get down to the level I wanted, so I adjust my settings on the camera and held it down to try to get the composition I wanted… never got the perfect one, and quite few were unusable, but this one I liked (after rotating to correct my badly angled dangling camera 🙂
Click on the Image to see it in the Flora Gallery in the Collection
My priorities in life must most definitely be askew, since I seem to have less time for photography than ever before… But even if I have to take a photo of the same thing every week, I will finish this project 🙂
As I was driving along the seawall, I noticed the white-capped waves as they rushed to shore and thought to just stop and catch a few. It was a bright afternoon, but lacking any fancy filters or gadgetry I thought that I’d just bring out the focus of my intent in post-processing.
I used an orange filter in Post-processing to deepen the hue of the sky and emphasize the white caps of the waves.
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
I had never been into the Indian Monument Gardens before, and it seems that the one time I did venture in was when they were doing some new construction on a stage to the western end and had not done any recent cleaning near the monument itself, yet I still think I got a few usable photographs (if you ignore the weeds on growing near the monument and the stains on the base itself)
The monument itself commemorates the arrival of the East Indians to Guyana as indentured labourers, the first arrival being on May 5th, 1838, the first ship being the SS Whitby (symbolically represented in the monument). The monument was erected in 1988 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of their arrival, a portion of the Merriman’s Mall was appropriated for the Monument Gardens. (the area bordered by Church Street, Camp Street, North Road and Alexander Street.)
I found very little information in my short research, but it appears that a nationwide competition was held for the design, and after choosing the winning entry the design was made real by an “Builder” from India, the Gardens itself was laid out by two architects, one from India and one from Guyana (Albert Rodrigues).
I chose this angle because it shows some of the supporting structure of the Ship itself.
As always, click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
Most of my photographs from the recent Mashramani parade for Georgetown were of one particular style, but somewhere in the middle of all the fast flying shots that I took I managed to capture one that was quite different from the wide shots of the floats or the half-body close-ups of the revellers
I don’t know if it’s the photography book I have been going through, but for some reason this image stands out from the plethora of photographs that I took on Mash Day.
The book is “Through the Lens – National Geographic Greatest Photographs”, and it contains some truly amazing photographs. I am certainly not claiming that any of mine can class with anything from National Geographic, far from it, but the “feeling” that I got from this one was different from the rest, and I think that it is a better photo for that.
You have to see it large, please click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
For me, this shows a woman lost in the moment; it’s just her, the music, the rhythm, the motion… alone in a crowd, part of the band bu apart from the band all at once. This is “the moment” for Mashramani 2013. I hope you like it.
I know that most people’s Mashramani photos are already out there, and I have to say that this year saw a large increase in not only the amount of photos out there but also an increase in the quality of the photography of the event.
In trying to “cover” the event I take a lot of photos, which means I then have to process those photos. This year I used two cameras, I had a wide-telephoto Sigma 17-50mm on the Canon Rebel T1i body and the slightly longer telephoto Canon 18-135mm kit lens on the Canon 60D body (my favourite lens for the event, the Tamron 18-270mm, has an issue I cannot resolve as yet, it’s slow to focus, which is not good for moving subjects). My favourites from these events have always been close shots rather than wide, but I decided to try to get a variety anyway.
As I expected, my favourites are still the close-up shots 🙂
Click on the Image above for the full Gallery
For a hand-picked selection, click on this Link, I selected my favourites, not necessarily the best ones, just the ones I like 🙂
When shooting an Event, it’s usually important to try to get photos that cover the gamut, spans the diversity, from the beginning to the end, so that viewers can get a sense of the whole, but amidst all of that I am usually on the lookout for that one shot that stands out, that transcends the transformation from reflected light, to digital data on a sensor to pixels on the screen and finally to ink on a page.
Does this image from the recent Children’s Mashramani Parade do that for you? I know it does it for me.
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with the other images for the Deck Project so far for the year.
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