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.
This week’s photograph is not the best I’ve taken for the week, it is, however, somewhat representative of Christmas in Guyana. The Masquerade bands come out during the Christmas Season and then at Mashramani, although I didn’t see the “Mother Sally” and the “Bull” at this gathering, these gentlemen were out in the hot midday sun, entertaining the public and raising some funds for their future endeavours.
Merry Christmas to all who stop by to read this, busy though most of us are 🙂
I almost didn’t get to sort out this last week’s photos, and I may have already used my best image for that last post 🙂
This week’s image has a little novelty, a small moon in the background. While this week’s image may not be too special, today is special for myself and Nikhil, we were both chosen as “Featured Local Photographers” for an event being held by the Demerara Tobacco Company as part of the Dunhill Experience, so a few of our images will be on display at a semi-private event and we are expected to be there to discuss our photography with the guests. This is a first for me, my fifteen minutes of fame (or shame, if I can’t put two words together correctly). Wish me luck, I am not too worried about my friend Nikhil, he’s a lawyer, he’s faced worse people 🙂 I think that they will feature other photographers at later events, so we’re like the opening act 🙂
Anyway, here’s the photo of the Susamacher Methodist Church 🙂
Whilst in Sint Maarten, I went to church at a small Catholic church not too far from where we were staying, and when I say “not too far” I mean a couple of minutes walk. The church was called the Mary, Star of the Sea, Catholic Church. On a separate occasion, I walked over to photograph it from the roadside, and although I have already posted and uploaded to my site, at least one photograph of it, I had reserved one for later processing.
The name of the church had captivated me, I assumed that its location was partially responsible. I couldn’t remember seeing a particular effigy bearing the name during my growing years, but I do remember the phrase “Mary, Star of the Sea” being part of hymns and litanies, and probably a prayer. I was surprised to learn that the Latin was Stella Maris, which happened to be the name of the Primary School I went to as a child. It is strange that many of us go to schools and seldom, if ever, question the origins of the name of the school.
Like this church, the school I attended was located on a coastal area, Mary, Star of the Sea, is the patroness of seafarers. Under this title she was believed to intercede as a guide and protector of those on the seas either as travelers or workers.
On this photo I did something unusual (for me) I used an orange filter for a special effect and did a high structure monochrome, the original was nice enough in colour, but I thought it warranted a bit more “umph” for impact. I hope you like it.
I had just finished processing two photographs from my recent trip to Sint Maarten, and as I processed them I knew that I would be including both in one blog-post, then as soon as I put the title into the post I was reminded of a bible quote:
And I say to you: That you are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (From the Gospel according to Matthew, 16:18)
Now the post, nor this blog-post has nothing to do with that quotation, it merely sprang to mind as I gave the post it’s title. Some portions of Back Street (and Front Street), Philipsburg have nicely rendered cast-iron stump columns that mark the end of the pedestrian pavement and the beginning of the vehicular roadway, but there are a few spots along the street where these do not exist, at some of these spots, they have put large (maybe medium is a better description) rocks to keep the vehicles off the pedestrian walkway. One of these intrigued me and that’s the photograph that I want to share first:
As a pedestrian on these streets, I was very hopeful that this rock, like Peter, would prevail against an errant vehicle if not the Gates of Hell.
Farther down Front Street, Philipsburg, past the Jewelery Shops and Casinos, there lies the Roman Catholic church of Saint Martin of Tours, it extends from Front Street onto the Boardwalk facing the Great Bay. I have to assume that either the hurricanes don’t hit too hard here or this church was built to prevail. I took the opportunity to take some multiple exposures with the intent to try an HDR image. The pews are stained a deep reddish wood colour and this is very evident in the photograph. The few people who go to pray during the day must be accustomed to crazy tourists snapping photographs since it didn’t seem to bother them as I took my time getting this shot, of course, I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, but that quite hard for a man of Chinese descent with a rather large camera in hand.
This HDR is a composite of three exposures, 0ev, +2ev and -2ev, I still have some issues with alignment, but I think I am getting the hang of it.
First order of the day was morning Mass at the Catholic Church in Simpson Bay, the church of Mary, Star of the Sea. A very nice little church, and when we walked up to it I thought that it was closed, but the door opened to us and it was cool! Air-conditioned environment at church!! It will never happen in Guyana 🙂 Mass was short (most people had to rush to work after),but the service was very nice.
Then it was back home for a non-tourist morning, stayed home, checked mail, etc. 🙂
Then after lunch, back to Philipsburg, this time we took our daughter along, shopping. After spending some time on Back Street, we ventured onto Front Street, that’s where the Casinos and Jewellery Shops are, but that’s not the kind of “scene” I was looking for, I was looking for the “older” Sint Maarten, and a walk along Front Street rewarded me with a few nuggets.
I’ll just post a few here, click on them to jump to the site with the album, 17 new images added for the fifth day here in Sint Maarten. I’m hurrying because I’m off to Anguilla!
Check the rest on the site… and another day ends in Sint Maarten…
Have I been taking numerous photos of buildings recently? Yes I have, and it’s all Nikhil’s fault! As usually happens, when we take a walk, it’s usually centred around a small area in Georgetown, and what else is there to photograph in Georgetown except buildings? Maybe some trash on the road-corner, but that’s not my style of photography (well, not yet anyway).
Georgetown has a very wide array of “architectural styles”, so you can often go around one city block and come back with a nice diverse set of photographs, while I may photograph the entire structure most times, it is usually a combination of the smaller features that really draw my attention.
Combinations of both wooden and concrete portions are somewhat common to see these days, usually because of “additions” to the original structure, but sometimes it is a deliberate architectural decision.
Even buildings constructed with one type of base material have very appealing little characteristics sometimes. Something I don’t see too often these days is the use of shingles, especially on the walls of a building, quite interesting to see that, especially when you’ve grown up in either wooden houses (with tongue and groove wood walls) or in concrete boxes with louvre windows like I did.
This blog-post is going to be particularly shot on words, but heavy on the photographs. I have six photographs of buildings that I wanted to include in this post, all taken in Georgetown, some from the wards of Bourda and Queenstown and one from the Kitty area, on Clive Lloyd Drive.
I am not sure how many residents of Georgetown (much less Guyanese) know where Clive Lloyd Drive is. It’s that little stretch of road from Vlissengen Road to Sheriff Street running along the Seawall, I think that it becomes the Rupert Craig Highway at Sheriff Street.
Now that I have filled up the space between these two photographs with words, I can now go on to show you the other photographs 🙂 Two are of the “Open Bible Church”, whose “building” is for sale, so it’s not likely to be there for much longer. One of my goals is to try to photograph some of the more interesting buildings around town before they disappear, and are forgotten. I have an open list, so feel free to send suggestions, and no, the concrete box with the louvre windows is not that photogenic, seriously!
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.
I have come to realize that the photographs I take are an expression of my life and the events, people, places and things that affect and have an effect on me. Few things can effect changes in a person as drastically as the death of someone close. In times like this I realize that while I like taking photographs I can never seem to to capture the emotions of a scene as many of the professionals can. I can’t explain it, but I “had” to take photographs at my Grandmother’s funeral, it wasn’t something I wanted to do, or even preferred to do, I rationalized it as a job that would help keep me occupied, but it was more than that.
To my Grandmother, may she rest in peace.
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