Tag: clouds

2014 Deck – Week 11

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography2 Comments

This week’s photo is about Implied Motion.  OK, I lied, it’s a photo of a Jhandi flag at the Kingston seashore, but as it turns out it is one of those images that displays implied motion (at least for me)

Whenever we try to convey the idea of motion in a still photograph we usually do one of two things, we either have the main subject show motion blur with the background or rest of the scene in focus (such as light trails at night on the street, or a speeding cyclist, slightly blurred with the track sharply in focus)  or we do the reverse, with the main subject in focus but the background blurred (such as in panning shots, or a pedestrian in front of a speeding minibus – by “in front of” I mean with respect to the camera, not the business end of the minibus – although that would make a dramatic photo of a different sort).  🙂

Another method might be to blur everything, such as taking a photo from inside a moving vehicle, creating that “vortex” look (on a side note, using the zoom on the camera while standing still produces neat effects too)

Chrono Photography is also a neat trick used to convey motion, by capturing multiple instances of a moving subject and then layering them in your favourite photo software creates a good sense of the subjects path through the frame.

After babbling about all these ways to create a sense of motion in a still photo, I will just say that I used none of the above for this photo.

This photo is either serendipitous or pure photographer’s luck (hmm, maybe one has something to do with the other).  I had stepped out of my office intending to walk around a few blocks, upon looking up at the sky I notices the clouds in a lovely “blown” pattern, I decided to walk to the seawall instead.  I have taken many photos of the roundhouse before (and will probably take many more), I have also  taken many photos of Jhandi flags before (and will likely take many many more), but that day I saw the clouds in a dispersed pattern, a Jhandi flag blowing in the wind with the roundhouse as a backdrop, and I decided to compose and shoot it, I took a few exposures, then saw five birds flying from the roundhouse towards me… Serendipity!

I was also shooting with the Sigma 10-20 Ultra-wide lens on the camera, so I also got a bit of lens distortion at the edges that helped with the appearance of motion in the clouds toward the edges even more.

That’s a lot of preamble for one photo, but I hope I bored you enough that the photo is now more pleasing 🙂

Canon EOS 60D  |  Sigma 10-20mm

1/250s, f/11, ISO 100  |  6°49’34” N 58°9’45” W

Click on the image to see it in the gallery along with other images from this year’s Deck Project

Perception

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, thoughts1 Comment

Lately, I’ve been very busy, although depending on your point-of-view I might also have been giving priorities to the “wrong” things; for my myself, I say I’ve been busy.

I tell people that I’ve been busy, so I haven’t updated this blog, and updated the Deck Project, they look at me askance and think I’m either lying or stretching the truth, but it’s a matter of perception I suppose.

Often, what we see in a photograph is also a matter of perception, this image is one I overlooked when choosing my photo for week 9 of the Deck Project this year; when I say “overlooked”, I mean that I did not see then the potential that I saw when going back through the images the second time.

I was looking at a photograph recently of what appeared to be a woman holding a young girl lying limp across her arms, I later realized that it was a young man in her arms, but the combination of dark hair and a dark material near the head gave the long hair I usually associate (firstly) with girls, the features of the youth were very smooth and “pretty”, and he was attired in a hospital gown, all adding together to skew my perception.

I’ve also been trying to look at scenes differently and change my perspective, also altering my perception of the scene itself.  Anyway, all of this preamble is just to introduce you tot he image that I had also titled “Perception” 🙂

12:55 pm  |  Red filter  |  Canon 60D, Sigma 10-20mm lens

1/320s, f/11, ISO 100, 10mm  –  Processed in Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex

Click on the image to see it larger in the Black and White Gallery of the Collection.

Midday Meditation

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

If I had the time in the middle of the day, I’d probably be doing just like this fellow in the photograph… sit and just stare out to sea for a while; but I was taking a walk and taking some photographs 🙂  (The walk ostensibly for health reasons and the photos for my sanity) I’ve photographed this spot many times, I was going through an old album when I came across this one and thought that a square crop would work nicely, then I saw the faint details of the clouds and thought that some tone-mapping would give me more detail and a monochrome version might just look nice, and voila!  I got a bit of haloing, but I can live with that 🙂

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images in my Sepia Collection

2014 Deck – Week 09

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography2 Comments

The fascination with all things coastal continues!  Of course, it’s more like searching for images that I like and since most of my time seems spent on the coast, that’s what you’ll get 🙂

The fishing boats at Lusignan, always seem to compel me to take a few photos, even if I never use them, but this one worked well for me, I think my processing went a tad overboard (no pun intended) but at the end of it all I still liked the final image.

I was considering a Dutch title for the image since the word Moored comes from the Dutch word Meren (according to some dictionary I was reading), but then the name Lusignan was from France, so I went with a French title instead (not that anyone really cares) 😀

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm  |  1/250s, f/10, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with the other images for this year’s Deck Project

2014 Deck – Week 03

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Even though I don’t get out too often to take the landscape photos I yearn for, I do enjoy picking my daughter up from her Saturday “Revision Classes” on a Saturday and heading out to the seawall, she goes hunting for rocks and shells, and I hunt for photos.

This tyre with it’s bright paint caught my eye, and I was going for a simple photo then my daughter began running on the far side… resulting in an even better photo 🙂

I’ve been working in LightZone again for this one, and I really believe that it has a lot of potential, I really miss the gradient tool that I’ve become accustomed to in Lightroom, but it’s just like switching cameras, you just need to use the tools at hand to achieve a finished product that you can be satisfied with.

I used two localised masks in this one just to see how that would work, and it did a good job, I wanted some more clarity on the tyre itself without affecting the entire image, and I wanted to make local adjustments to the sky (I didn’t have a polarizer on the lens)

I hope you like it.

Clink on the image to see it in the Gallery.

2014 Deck – Week 02

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography3 Comments

I selected one of the images I took from the recent Guyana Photographers’ Photowalk to the Conservancy via Canal #2 for my Deck Photo for this week.

While I’ve never swum or plunged into the Conservancy, I do remember the many outings to creeks and diving off of a tree at the side, even after being warned that it was either shallow or may have stumps unseen under the water.

This shot reminded me of those days.  Many other photographers on the walk captured this moment, one even at, what appeared to be, the same moment, but it still remains one of my favourite images from the walk.  When I noticed what was occurring, I knew I didn’t have time to stop, bring the camera to my eye, compose and shoot, so I shot it from the hip 🙂

Canon 60D, Sigma 17-50mm  |  17mm, ISO 100, 1/400s, f/9

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

A Walk on the Conservancy

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

We recently had a Photowalk  for willing members of the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group, it was ostensibly called “Canal #2 Photowalk”, that just meant we met at the western end of Canal #2 on the West Bank of Demerara, right where it meets the Conservancy, from there we chose a direction to walk (by default we headed North).  Each member is initially allowed three images to upload to the album on the group, and Fidal Bassier wanted us to put some emphasis on “Composition” for this PhotoWalk, so there was some discussion about it… and I chose these three photos for certain reasons.

First image:  House  – 14-1649

I was mentioning to someone at the beginning of the walk (or a few someones) that it is important to know what makes a good composition, read as much as you can on things like the Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines, and other compositional aids, rules and guides.  Once you know these things it makes composing a decent image all the easier, but it also allows you to realize that some scenes will allow you to “break” those rules.

For this image I pretty much threw the Rule of Thirds away… the main compositional aid being a Leading Line – the bridge leading you to the house, but even this is muted a bit by the shadow across the early portion of the bridge.

Second image:  Sit – 14-1654

Initially the impulse was to zoom in to avoid all the clutter in the photo to simplify the scene down to the man, the boat and the conservancy behind him; but I thought that including the rough woodwork and using the low sun as a backlight would make for a nice silhouette shot or at least a more inclusive rather than exclusive composition.  The low-hanging branch also helped enclose that corner of the frame.  Shooting into the sun naturally desaturates a scene, and I used this to advantage in the colouring of the image.  I also again ignored the Rule of Thirds and relied on the leading lines of the wood and the bright sun to lead you to the subject.

Third image:  Prelude to Sunset – 14-1698

It seemed that although a few of us wanted to stick around to see the sunset, others preferred to get going… so I took a Prelude to Sunset photo.  When I first started taking photos, I would be happy with just a plain nice sunset, but as I began to appreciate some more the images that actually made me look twice at them, I came to realize that some Sunset images (and most landscape ones, come to think of it) needed a foreground object in the composition to hold your attention as well, so I tried to include a portion  of a rusty pontoon.  I exposed for the sky and had already decided that I would be doing some post-process fill-light to regain some detail in the pontoon.

I hope I didn’t bore anyone with all of that… overall, I think it was a good Photowalk.  Click on the images above to see them in the Gallery along with other images in the “Out and About” album.

Singed

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, thoughts2 Comments

Have you ever latched onto a word with unusual fascination?  When I first read or heard certain words, there was an undue fascination that I got for them, one of those was “singed”…  No, it has nothing to do with singing, so no funny quips about that 🙂  Another one was “chaos”, that one was simply because I’d read it in a book and had formed this pronounciation in my head that turned out to be completely wrong.

So… back to “singed”

It was the first week of 2014, and I was walking the seawall looking for a few photographs when I came across the piece of singed wood… it was laying across another piece of wood forming a cruciform shape, the harsh midday sun cast a strong shadow and I decided that it might make a decent photograph 🙂

I also took the opportunity to try out LightZone to process it from start to end… I finally found how to straighten the horizon in it… using the crop tool just like in LightRoom (silly me couldn’t find it the first time I was processing an image in it).  I must say, that while there are some things I miss from this piece of software, it is a very powerful application, and the integration of the changes into the saved file (JPG or TIF) makes it easy to go back and adjust the processing.

LightZone also professes to be able to work as a plugin to LightRoom, so if you just want some of the neat features in LZ, you can try it as a plugin.  For an OpenSource (read that as FREE) software, it is powerful and user-friendly, this is not a stripped down software, but a full fledged product for RAW image processing.

Now… to the image.  It probably won’t rank as a great photograph, but I liked it and it gave me a good opportunity to try out LightZone

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm  |  1/160s, f/9, 10mm, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images in the Black and White collection

Bob

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

I was walking along the seawall last year when I spotted these three birds on the rocks near the waterline, I was fortunate enough to get off one photo of them together before they separated further (in no small part to my approach)

Whenever I see three birds together I always think of Brother Bob, Bob Marley, simply because of those words in the song… “Three little birds, Pitch by my doorstep”

The song was actually called “Three Little Birds”, but most everyone I know refers to it as “Don’t Worry” or “Every Little thing’s Gonna be alright”

So these aren’t exactly little birds, and they certainly weren’t singing sweet songs, but they still reminded me of the song.

Hope you like it:

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-55mm  |  1/500s, f/8, 50mm, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other Bird photos