Looking Back

On March 23, 2011March 23, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography14 Comments

Today was supposed to be the day the trial began for the two men who attacked and robbed both Nikhil and I last September, but true to these types of cases there were some problems with the case and it has been postponed for a few weeks, but this revelation did not happen until we had been in the court for nearly three hours.

I was looking back at the photos I took that day, only two of which I had processed and decided to process another one. Looking back, I think that this image has some merit, I love silhouettes, and while it wasn’t quite sunset as yet, the sky was lovely, and the Pegasus silhouetted against the sky appealed to me.

And as usual, please click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.

Ships at Sea

On March 16, 2011March 16, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography18 Comments

Well, I had to title it something and this sounded apt enough. Both photos have a sea-vessel and the water they traverse upon, so “Ships at Sea” it is, even though I am not sure they would call it the Sea… I’ve always been confused by that.

Growing up it was always the Sea, and protecting us from it was the Seawall, made sense…. now technically, the water to the horizon northwards from our shores is the Atlantic Ocean, I don’t think it is still the Caribbean Sea, and since I am being technical, both photos are not pointing Northwards but more West by North West, making that particular area of water the mouth of the Demerara River.

Aye, my head hurts from trying to sort that one out, so Sea or Ocean or River, its got a boat on the water. They’ve both been done in monochrome to emphasise the clouds and the water, taken on different days but in generally the same location, on the stretch of beach along the Kingston shore.

Click on them for a better view in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 10

On March 12, 2011March 12, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography15 Comments

Only one day of shooting photos this week, terrible! But I did get a very nice one (at least one), and it is somewhat in keeping with my last post “A fascination with skies”.

Both Nik and I needed to get out and get something, as the week had progressed without much photography being done, it was raining and we thought that we might have to abandon the idea (at least for me, since the camera wasn’t going to handle the rain too well), but as we drove the rain eased for a bit and we decided to stop at the Koker at Ogle and see what was there for the offering.

A good thing we decided to stop, I got a few and I am sure Nik got more than I did :-), and as we headed back to “town” the rains decided that we’d had enough of a break and continued its work.

I hope you like this one, it’s another “seawall” shot, and another monochrome 🙂

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

A fascination with skies

On March 8, 2011March 8, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography21 Comments

Many of my favourite images have had some amount of sky in it, I usually get very “miffed” when shooting landscape or even people and building shots and the sky is just a drab gray, I like blue skies, plain blue, hues of blue, I just really like blue skies, if there are errant clouds then all the better, but a sky fully covered with clouds usually gets to me, I found a way to deal with that over time, I look for a good scene that will process better as a monochromatic image.

While I have gotten better at that, I still like the blue, and I like dramatic skies, streaming clouds, or clouds spotting the vista to the horizon. The last Deck photo was taken on a day that had a nice variation of clouds in the sky, and I got a few others that I thought were worth sharing.

These were taken with the full intent of getting as much out of the sky as possible while still retaining some foreground interest. All were taken with the Sigma 10-20 Ultrawide Lens. I hope you like one or all 🙂

The temptation to render any of the three images into monochrome was great, but I resisted, barely. I felt that the colours in the sky and the foreground were more truly representative of the “feel” of the afternoon, than a monochrome would express, although I think I could probably have gotten more drama out of the images in monochrome 🙂

Click on the images to see them larger in the Gallery, I think I may have to print the one title “Inland Bound” larger for better scrutiny myself 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 9

On March 4, 2011March 4, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography22 Comments

This week I almost didn’t have anything to upload, and I almost went for Sasi’s idea of using the eggs 🙂 Fortunately, Nikhil had a desire to go check out the Kingston Promenade again, so we took a few minutes and went.

I started out with my Tamron telephoto lens but quickly switched to the ultra-wide Sigma 10-20, I had noticed the skies were nice, some clouds, some patches of blue showing, some streaky areas, and some heavily clouded areas, so I thought something good can come of that.

I got a few keepers from the shoot, but this one stands out, somehow a coconut got wedged or nestled into the hollow of a tree trunk on the beach… Nature’s “hole-in-one” 🙂

Click on the image for a larger viewing in the Gallery.

Mashramani 2011 – Republic Day

On February 27, 2011March 3, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography13 Comments

Republic Day, a day of celebration, we govern ourselves, no longer under imperial rule; some say that was a mistake, but it happened 41 years ago, sometime before I was born, so it’s all academic to me. Mashramani is the adopted celebration of Republic Day, celebrating a crop that’s harvested, a job completed; or in this day an age, just a big bacchanal, a reason to go out and party, to see the costumes and floats, both governmental and private sector.

Things to remember next year (if I choose to go out): SUNSCREEN, lots of water, and a really big flexible hat that won’t interfere with the camera in front my face.

Because of the recent rains, the “mall” where people usually walk and eat, picnic and party, was soggy, so they chose to walk alongside the bands, this was not good for a photographer, getting s decent shot was hard, so I took as many as were allowed, getting lots of spoilage in the process 🙂

I’ve chosen a tetrad of images for this blog post, those are by no means representative of the full gallery, but I had to choose something 🙂 Click on the image to go to the full gallery.

I hope you view the gallery and let me know which ones you like, commenting on the gallery is as easy as commenting here 🙂

In an attempt to explain Mashramani to someone recently I had to use comparisons, so lets just say that it has similar roots to Trinidad’s Carnival, Rio’s Carnival and Louisiana’s Mardi Gras; well, less Mardi Gras and more Carnival 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 8

On February 25, 2011February 26, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

Wednesday gone was our Republic Day in Guyana, and the big event was the Mashramani Parade, so I had already decided that I was going to pick one of those photos for this week’s Deck image.

After several days of torrential and continuous rain (that flooded my house) the day was Sunny, very sunny, still clouds on the horizon, and every once in a while, above us, but primarily sunny. My head now looks like a large cherry on top my shoulders, I am sunburnt. But hopefully after I upload all the selected images from the day, I’ll think it was worth it 🙂

I chose one that I think represented the exuberance and gaiety, the sheer joy of tramping and mashing down the road that the revellers seem to possess (on and off) through their parade.

Mashramani 2011 – Children’s Parade

On February 23, 2011February 22, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography18 Comments

In Guyana, one of the festivities marking the occasion of Republic Day is Mashramani, the word being derived from one of the many native Amerindian languages, meaning roughly “celebration after a job well done”, the actual celebrations are more African in origin celebrating the end of the harvest time. As part of the Mashramani Celebrations the various schools have entries into the Children’s Float and Costume Competition, the parade is usually held the Saturday before the main National festivities.

I took some photos that day and have uploaded them to the site, below is a checkerboard of photos from that collection, please click on it to go to the collection for the full set.

With any luck today will be sunny and I will be ably to get a nice set of photos from today’s National Mashramani Float Parade.

Happy Mashramani to all Guyanese, a Happy Republic Day, and to the rest of the world, Happy Wednesday 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 7

On February 21, 2011February 25, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography20 Comments

For the seventh week of the year, I fell ill from the Tuesday and didn’t catch myself until the Friday (almost, I was still a little out-of-it through the weekend), so I effectively had one photographic day of that week, so one of the images HAD to work for the Deck. As fate would have it, I didn’t get to process any of those images until today, so I am a little late this time around for the Deck, but better late than never, as they say.

For that week I took a total of thirteen photos (that number alone should have told me it would be a bad week), of those, seven were snapshots for a pre-valentine’s day dinner that my family had and those went up on Facebook, and the remaining six were all from a walk that Nikhil and I took to the seawall, so I just picked one that seemed marginally better than the rest and processed it.

Chips!

On February 17, 2011February 17, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography19 Comments

I’m a bit under the weather, so just a quick one to tide me over.

In almost every village area in Guyana, you either have walking, riding or driving vendors crying out their “wares”, I think some of the famous ones are “Broom Here!!!”, “Papers! Papers!, Kaieteur, Chronicle, Stabroek, Times! Papers!” and of course “Chips! Chips! Chips!, fresh chips!”

Maybe I’ll get the others another time, but for now here’s one of the Chips salesmen 🙂