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.
When I took this, the man who looked after the fields was rapidly approaching us… with tools in hand, so I didn’t even try multiple exposures; I knew that by shooting into the sun I’d blow the highlights, but it’s something I could live with, just to get this scene.
That tractor is probably twice my age, and it takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.
Takes a lickin’ | Mahaica, 2015 | Canon EOS 60D, SIgma 10-20mm
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
One of the things I like about the seawall, is that you just never know what’s going to wash up (or out) 🙂
1/100s, f/10, ISO 100
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery
I don’t always get a week that’s full of photographs, so on some weeks, like Week 22, there are slim pickings, and I have to choose either the more appealing photo, or one that no one would get…
I have the flu, so processing one that’s appealing is easier 😀
Maybe some time later, I’ll do the other one that I was considering 😉
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
Welcome back to my Deck Project, a photography project of one photo for every week of the year, giving me 52 photos for the year. (and there are 52 cards in a Deck of normal standard cards, not counting Jokers, hence the name Deck Project)
I start the year at a very familiar place, the seawalls, living on the coastland of Guyana gives us easy access to the sea and the extensive shoreline.
Recently there was a discussion about how Guyanese (among many others) prefer to use pirated software instead of paying. This has primarily to do with a difference in income levels and the cost of many software can easily exceed the salaries of the average or even above-average Guyanese. The cost of such popular photo-processing software as Adobe Lightroom and Corel AfterShot Pro has declined in recent years making it more affordable, but the habit of acquiring pirated copies persists. After this discussion I remembered Nikhil posting about an Open Source photo-processing software called LightZone, and I decided to give it a good try (even though I do own and use Adobe Lightroom)
This photo for the first week of the 2014 Deck Project was processed primarily in LightZone (but since I use Lightroom to interface with my website, I used Lightroom to tag/keyword and upload the image) LightZone is surprisingly versatile and powerful, I think I’ll be using it a bit more to experiment with some features as well as to encourage those who can’t afford Lightroom or AfterShot to try something that’s Free but also pretty powerful.
Canon 60D, Sigma 10-20mm | 1/125s, f/8, ISO100, 10mm
Seawalls near Thomaslands, Georgetown
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery
The headline might be misleading….
In Guyana, this photo could have been in the capital city of Georgetown, but it’s actually in the village of Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara. In this era of washing machines and dryers, it’s neat to see clothes drying in the afternoon sun on a clothes line near coconut trees 🙂
Something about fresh sun-dried clothes has a crisp clean “feel” to it that transcends the sense of touch, it goes to the sense of smell, straight to your brain and tells you this is fresh, outdoor fresh… it puts a smile on your face and a bounce in your step. 🙂
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images from my Out and About Collection
I was driving up the East Coast Demerara Public Road and noticed the lovely blue skies, as I was alongside the seawall, I decided to stop and just take a look over the wall to see if there was anything that might catch my eye, that would make a good photo. Although I thought that I already had a good photo for the week, I still wanted to see, and I think I was lucky, I was down on the other side looking at a very clear ocean, with just a few poles sticking out of the mud and thought that I had better jump back in the car, when I noticed the coconut,
I switched lenses to the ultra-wide Sigma 10-20, and tried out a few shots, and this one appealed to me. I hope it pleases some of you too 🙂
For a better view, click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with many other photos, this one is in the Seawall Gallery 🙂
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.
I decided on the name before I realised that I have one that was actually taken in October, but since I am unable to come up with a new creative sounding name, it remains as September Monochromes.
I want to start off with a Sepia image, it’s not necessarily a great image, but I liked the elements; seashore, people – young and not-so-young, and a fishing rod.
The next is the first of the Black and White images, it is one that I recently entered into a DP Review challenge called Clouds, I was experimenting with a borrowed Canon 80-200mm lens and most of the images came out very low contrast, so like the Sepia one above, most of the rest I’ve rendered in monochrome. This one came out much better than expected, I had to give it a title for the challenge, so that’s how the title came to be.
Along the seashore, you are sure to find a coconut washed ashore by the waves, this one was partway up a concrete sloped walkway on the seawall, maybe washed there but probably kicked there by some youngster.
The final image is the one taken in October, after our Robbery ordeal and we daringly went right back to the Kingston Promenade, I like the clouds in the sky and thought that the lighthouse silhouetted against it would look nice 🙂
They were doing some renovation work to the lighthouse, so you might notice the scaffolding on the sides of it there.
I had a few images that I rendered in monochrome this month, these were the results of three walks I did with Nikhil, I got a few nice coloured images, but more that I processed in monochrome, which is unusual for me. I have a few friends who always love my monochromatic work, so I think that they will like these images 🙂
I know that the title “monochromes” cover more than just black & white and sepia images, but I have not quite gotten around to expressing myself in the other formats as yet, although some of my black & white images are actually more of a selenium tone rather than pure black & white. I tend to lean towards the idea that if it is close to black & white, then that’s where I will categorize it, even if it does have a slight tinge of another colour. If the effect is more obvious, then I will rethink its category.
To start it off I have two Sepia images, one from the shore at the Kingston Promenade seawall and the second from the Manatee Pond at the Botanical Gardens, Georgetown.
And now for the Black and Whites, I have four new added to the album; and they go like this:
I have found a fondness for monochromatic images, now all I have to do is learn how to represent them better and better, each time I try one I find something new, sometimes I want lots of detail and other times I want high contrast with starkness, sometime I want a bit of both. Hopefully I am learning all the time 🙂
The Michael Lam Collection's Blog 