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.
From the first time I steeped out and saw Simpson Bay from the house, I was fascinated by this wrecked boat that was in the water a bit east of the house. I took many photographs of it, from different angles, I used different apertures, tried out a polarizer filter on it, I shot it from the house and from along the shore, it seemed I just couldn’t get enough of it. Like most of the large “debris” found along the coastlines of St Maarten, it was a casualty of a hurricane, one of the many that sweep down Hurricane Alley every year, or given its current state, maybe more than one hurricane.
Even though I posted a photograph of it already during my Sint Maarten visit, there was one I had reserved to do some more processing to at a later date, and I would like to share that one with you.
I have to play catch-up this week, since I missed out on uploading my Deck photo for last week, so this week is a double upload and blog. I had already decided what photograph I would have most likely used for the Deck, but I did not get a chance until this week to process the remaining images from my vacation.
The Deck photo for Week 31 is a parting shot from St Martin, over on the French side, on the beach front near Marigot, we were waiting for the boat to arrive for our final adventure, a chance to see the corals and fishes under the sea through the transparent underside of a “glass-bottomed” boat. My underwater shots came out terrible, but I loved this scene from the shore:
In the last week, I took photographs on three occasions, one was at a funeral, the other two were on afternoon walks with Nikhil, but for some reason I was not getting the “feel” for the scenes or subjects. My final photograph of today turned out to be one that I was pleasantly surprised with, I took another shot at the New Thriving Chinese Restaurant. The image is a pseudo-HDR, since I also wanted to try out a new software that Nikhil had recently introduced me to, it is still in the Beta (testing) stage, but I am rather impressed by it. It introduces a new type of HDR called HDR ReLight as well as doing the regular tone mapping type HDR, but it also processes RAW files, which I shoot primarily. This was the portion that I wanted to try, and I was rather pleased with the result, the software is Oloneo PhotoEngine, give it a try if you like HDRs or you shoot in RAW.
Here’s the photo for the Deck Week 32, I hope you like it.
This week, I’m off in Sint Maarten on holiday, so I have quite a selection of photographs to choose from for this week’s addition to the Deck. It was a hard choice, but I selected one that epitomizes the week I’ve had so far.
It has been a week of goodbyes and departures, of hello’s and discovery, of family and of friends, I have shed tears of sadness and tears of joy; in life there is light and darkness, the sun and shadow, deep blue heavens and golden sunsets. Life is about change, and as day changes to night, there is beauty to be found, beauty in the day that is ending, in the time of change itself and in the night to come.
So I give you this week’s Photo for the deck of the week.
Leaving Sint Maarten (St Martin actually, since that's the French side you're seeing)
Couldn’t help the James Bond reference in the title, it just sounded better than “We went to Anguilla”. I suppose, like most Caribbean islands, it is a nice place to visit, the people are nice and friendly, the weather is a mix of sunshine (Boom Boom) and some rain, the beers are cold and the beaches are gorgeous. You walk off the ferry and you feel you’ve stepped out of the current century and back into the latter half of the last one. That’s not to say that they are backwards, far from it, it’s just the “feel” of the place, with some of the older type architecture, the local accent that has a lyrical beauty to it, and the sun and palms trees do carry you back to when most movies used tropical settings for their “exotic” feel. If I had stepped off of the ferry in a white shirt, fedora and rugged briefcase, I might have expected to be met by Felix Lighter.
The dock/pier at Blowing Point, Anguilla
We went across by “ferry”, not the normal name I would use for a boat the size we went in. A nice small twelve passenger boat that I would more call a Water Taxi than a ferry, especially with 450 horse power pushing it. The captain and crew (well only one on board, but also those at the ports) of the GB Express were the epitome of island friendliness, making the trip across the small stretch of sea very enjoyable.
In true island fashion, when you reach port and ask about a car to rent, you are not reffered to an agency, just simply “go ask for Andy” 🙂 And Andy delivers, a nice enough car (with a few dings and dents for character) and a map of the island, and some advice, like – remember to drive on the Left. If you are in town, the capital being called The Valley, and you ask someone about an establishment for eating, they tell you “go to Lisa’s”, well, we didn’t get the opportunity to go to Lisa’s but I am sure that the advice would have paid off.
At the Golf Club
We took a little drive around the Golf Course, and admired all the nice work being done there, it is still being developed,but you can still book your Tee time and play a round of 18 🙂
A Bridge in the Golf Course
After the Golf Course, we drove on around the western tip of the island, or the West End and along the norther coast, where we stopped to take a photo of the Road Bay and Sandy Ground from Back Street.
Road Bay, as seen from Back Street
From there we drove into the, capital “The Valley”, it has some nice quaint places. The whole island has a laid back feel to it, no hustle, no bustle, no major traffic, just nice and relaxing.
Wall Blake House, The Valley, Anguilla
Even though there were many places I would have loved to have seen, there is no way you can really see and enjoy an island in one day, no matter what anyone says, and I just had to see and experience the beach at Shoal Bay East, my brother-in-law swears it’s the best beach in the world, and it was so good, we really didn’t want to leave.
Shoal Bay East
Shoal Bay Beach
And a brief stop at Scilly Cay to allow me to snap this photograph…
Scilly Cay with Scrub Island in the b ackground
I took some more photos along the way back to the ferry, but it was time to go home and enjoy another day’s end. Click on the photos to get all 36 images from this day.
I had just decided to upload this, and then I gave it a title… Giving it a title brought forth a torrent of emotion. Yesterday I said farewell to my sister-in-law and niece, Areza and Ariel, and in a few months I will be saying the same to my brother André. They have lived at Ogle for all of Ariel’s life and as soon as I titled that image “Sunset at Ogle” I realized that their family is having their sunset at ogle all too soon.
Ariel is my first niece, Areza is my first sister-in-law, André is my first brother, it is strange how those things happen. My parental family may not be the perfect family, but we grew up together, had and have our differences, but at day’s end we are family. I count myself fortunate, in that my brothers and sisters are not just my siblings, they have grown to be my friends, André and Nicholas are the closest of these, but that’s because we grew up like the Three Musketeers, inseparable, always fighting, always in mischief.
If you click on the image and see it at the site slightly larger, you’ll see three figures walking towards the sunset, two adults and a child. Serendipity. This photograph is not of them, but I dedicate it to them, as the sun sets on Ogle.
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!
Open Bible Church, Oronoque and Lamaha StreetsQueenstown, GeorgetownOpen Bible Church, Frontal viewThe Cottage - Clive Lloyd Drive
On Saturday, I had to take the vehicle to the mechanic for a strange “shuddering” that was making driving a bit nauseating, I get motion-sick it seems. Synchronizing for someone to collect me from the mechanic was not too easy, especially as I seem to make an earlier start than most folks I know. So, instead of waiting around outside the mechanic shop, I decided to start walking towards town, and get picked up on the way. It was one of those times that opportunity knocks, the sky over the Conference Centre at Liliendaal was very nice and I looked at the whole scene for a minute and finally decided to try a HDR of it.
After taking two sets of three exposures I continued my walk, I have other photos from the walk, but this post is abut the HDR, so that is the only one I will link to for now.
As most photographers, whether hobbyists or professional, have discovered (sometimes the hard way), it is important to always have your camera with you, you just never know when opportunity will knock.
International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Guyana.
This past week I actually took 157 images, I only took these on three days during the time span. I know this stuff only because I had to pick a favourite of the week for a challenge on DP Review, so of those images, one jumped out for me, it may not have been the best image or the most spectacular, certainly not the most colourful, but it had some meaning, and it tells a story.
Now this is the thing about photography, I am just there to record the image, the image usually tells its own story, and like many other types of art, the story can be different for each viewer. A scene will evoke different memories, different reactions, different emotions in people; none are right nor wrong, simply different.
This is my photo for the Deck, the twenty-fifth week of the year 2010, you may like it, you may not, but you will have some reaction to it, let’s just hope it’s a good reaction.
On Wednesday last (June 2nd), my friend launched his Blog “Bad Light, Good Light” (http://badlightgoodlight.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/origin-of-a-name/) with a post regarding the origin of the name of his blog. It just happens that the image he used to illustrate the point he was making in the post was one from a walk we went on the day before, and on that walk I took what would become my photo for the 2010 Deck for this week, and it is of the same location as his, although I’ll admit his image had a lot more artistic merit. 🙂
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I’ve always been told “don’t shoot towards the sun”, and, by and large, this is usually good advice, but there are times when doing just that results in some nicely silhouetted images that have their own appeal. What I particularly liked about this scene was the portion of land to the right with the vegetation and the two boats anchored to the left, these made excellent silhouetted areas that contrasted nicely with the mostly clear sky, the low clouds were nicely “haloed” by the afternoon sun and that pretty much competed the scene for me.
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I have always been an admirer of paintings by a local artist named V. C. Budhram, his renditions of water ans skies were always impressive, for that reason alone the ripples in the water reminds my of his work. His compositions, of course, were never like this, always more vibrant, full of life, and far more colourful.
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