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.
Several weeks ago my Deck photo was an exterior photograph of the Saint Barnabas Anglican Church. That church is now in the process of being demolished, but luckily, I got to take some photographs of the interior just before that. I happened to be on the outside of the church doing some more exterior shots with the wide-angle lens when I was approached by another local photographer, Amanda Richards, recent winner of the local chapter of the PAHO Safe Motherhood Photography Contest, she was awaiting the priest to open the church for the Deconsecration Ceremony. So fate stepped in, and I got to go inside the church to photograph parts of it before all the items were removed.
This photograph was pure luck! I was facing the altar taking a photograph, when I saw the area lighten around me, on turning around, a man was opening the doors at the back and just at that moment Ms Marjorie Kirkpatrick walked across the aisle. And there it was, one of my favourite photos of the set.
I called the photograph “Final Entrance Opening”, referring to the doors themselves and to the final service to be held there.
I will do a later blog-post on the rest of photos from that set. 🙂 I promise.
Partial remains of the Globe Cinema, demolished this year, 2011
It recently dawned on me that there may be only one functional cinema left in Georgetown, possibly only one left in Guyana. While the television and computers, handheld media players and the internet have certainly impacted on how we watch our movies, the cinema has always had a big draw for people, however the cinemas in Guyana have steadily gone into disrepair and certainly some have disappeared. While we can place a lot of blame of the modernisation of media viewing, the owners and promoters of our cinemas have to take some of the blame, even when I was much younger, and the cinemas were full of moviegoers, I remember the sordid states of the seats, the persevering smell of urine, and the sound of the rodents running around the aisles.
Starlite Cinema, Pouderoyn, West Bank Demerara. Closed and abandoned
They never did the little things that made you WANT to go to the cinema, why suffer through all that when you could wait a few months and see it in the comfort of your home? It was the experience, it was the “event” of going to the cinema with family or friends to watch a new (or old) movie in the company of others there to enjoy the experience, the camaraderie, the joy of the big silver screen, unfortunately the experience was not always a good one. And the cinemas are disappearing, one by one, by one…
The Astor Cinema, still functional as of this year, but attendance makes it hard for the proprietor to keep it up.
I was re-reading an article written by Godfrey Chin on the Rise and Fall of Guyana’s Cinemas, I believe this was part of his “Nostalgias”, and while I am not old enough to know of some of the cinemas or even the movies he mentions, it hits home. He, of course, goes back to even before we gained our Independence, back to the days of British Guiana, and he brings us into the modern era, where instead of Cinemas modernising to keep up, they just kept going, stagnated in time, except for the titles of the movie releases 🙂
What prompted this blog-post was the sudden nostalgia I got (I am probably getting like Godfrey) when I was processing a photo I took of the partly demolished “Globe Cinema” and an image of the abandoned Starlite Cinema. Both of those images are included in this post. As the Astor is the last remaining cinema, I think that I should make an effort to get permission to do some photography in that establishment before it too disappears.
Formerly the Strand Cinema, now the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God
There are at least two other Cinemas that I know of which have been converted into places of worship, it seems to be the thing to do 🙂
Click on each image to see them larger in their respective galleries.
Earlier this week I saw a Facebook Note from a local Journalist, Neil Marks, about the St Barnabas Church being sold, I always find it sad when any place of worship is sold, even more so when there is historic significance to the site (as is the case with most of them as they usually go back several generations).
Nikhil and I took a walk there hoping to find it open, we really wanted to get inside. As it was closed, we settled for taking a few more photos of the exterior from outside the fence. I went to the website of the National Trust of Guyana looking for more information on the site and found that there was pitiful little there.
If you’re going to do a project then you should at least make every effort to keep it up, right? I seem to be lagging behind too much, something’s got to give! Anyway, I found a few minutes and I decided to post my image for last week before it got too late.
Finding the time to post on the blog is one thing, but apparently things are getting to the point where finding the time to get the photograph itself is becoming a challenge, definitely not good. Last week I took four photographs, yes four, F-O-U-R, 4! and three of them were of the same scene, so that left me with a choice between two images. Bah! I can’t let this happen again.
This is not a great image, it probably isn’t a good one, but it’s what I have and since I am sticking to the rules I made myself, I have to choose one of those images I took within the week, 🙂 I beg forgiveness in advance.
One year ago, I wrote and posted my first official post on this blog, I am not counting the “Hello World” that Word press starts me off with. It might seem morbid to some that the first post was about the death of my maternal grandmother, and a photo of the same, but to me it’s not only the scenes that capture our eyes as photographers that may appeal to viewers, but the feelings and emotions that we can convey or arouse from others viewing our work.
One year has passed, and I have had “ups and downs” in blogging, recently a lot of “downs”, time seems to be an elusive creature, and I have not put as much into the blogging or reading blogs as I think I should. But I think that I have kept up pretty well, and The Deck project certainly gives it some impetus.
Recently there have been other deaths as well, not a good way to celebrate one year of blogging, but it is what it is. My daughter recently lost one of her teachers from last year, Teacher Gillian, and only this week we lost “Mr. Terrific”, Flavio Commacho, who was very instrumental in the conversion of our system of measurements in Guyana from Imperial to Metric, I remember from when I was a little boy listening to “Swing to Metric” on the radio (yes, radio. Televisions weren’t quite the thing as yet)
Also this month we lost Sister Rose Magdalene, there is so much to be said for her, and there is a lovely Tribute page on Facebook. What I remember of Sr Rose is her love for music and pageantry. She wrote, she sang, she danced, she lived and loved with music in her heart. I always will remember the special Christmas mass at the old Sacred Heart Church (now burnt down), the traditional readings were replaced by a pageant telling the story of the birth of the Christ child, and at the heart of it all was Sr Rose. This photo in today’s blog was taken at the memorial mass held in Guyana at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Brickdam Cathedral) for her, the people in it are a few of the members of the Marigold Children’s Choir that she formed many years ago.
This was meant to be a simple (hopefully artistic) photograph, but for me, it has a depth of emotion also.
Another tough week, one day of actual photography, and even that was “forced”. Yesterday, another blogger whom I follow, Bob Zeller, posted a blog along the lines of an award for “Versatile Bloggers”. While I don’t see myself that way I was very honoured to be included in the company of he other bloggers in Bob’s List, if you get a chance check that out, quite impressive. I will follow this up in my next post; hopefully, I can be as magnanimous as Bob was 🙂
This week’s Deck photo was originally to be of my Alma Mater, Saint Stanislaus College (a High School actually), but I was more taken by my images of the church that I attend. They are both on the same street, Brickdam, and Nikhil and I walked it looking for things to photograph.
This is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, seat of the Bishop of Georgetown, His Lordship Francis Alleyne OSB, and is commonly referred to as Brickdam Cathedral. It is the central church of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Guyana and my parish for all of my life, although I now live outside the geographical area of the parish, we still attend mass there. It is bordered by Brickdam, Hadfield Street, Camp Street and Pollard Place, the current concrete structure replaced the original wooden structure that was destroyed by fire decades ago. Although it is not photographed as often as the St George’s Cathedral, it has its own appeal and beauty.
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Some people may notice, while others may not, this image, while not a true HDR image (I only used one exposure) was processed in Nik’s HDR Efex to get the most out of both the clouds and the building, I tried to be as subtle as I could without losing the detail that I wanted.
Having a photo buddy is good, being in the company of other photographers is even better, you pick up things, learn a few tricks and see things from different points of view. Often enough, whenever Nikhil and I are out on a photo-walk, I will see him suddenly divert and take aim at something, and out of my mouth would pop a phrase like “the bike and the tree, eh?” or “the pattern of leaves”, or “the red block and the white blocks caught your eye”.
I am usually right, and I admit that I saw what caught his eye (either before or at the time), I see what it is, I see that there’s a photographic opportunity, but most times, I don’t see the composition that he sees. I’ve come to the conclusion that , at least for now, it’s just not really my thing. He does a marvelous job on those patterns and juxtapositions, on odd combinations of subjects, I don’t “see it” as he does, and that’s fine, if we all saw things the same way, there’s be nothing special in any of our photographs. I think that photographers understand to a good extent what I mean, but the regular Joe, or photo-tekker-outer, or snapshot artist, may not. It’s like Street Photography, there’s an art to it that not everybody gets, certainly not me, and I’ve tried some before and may try more in the future. A good photograph can tell a story in just one scene, the problem I see these days is that not everyone can read 🙂 and even less of us are good story-tellers.
This one is a good example, I saw it, I noticed things like the contrast in colours, the symmetry/non-symmetry, the textures, the geometry, but I wasn’t inspired to take it, I just wanted to do it to see what I could come up with if I pushed myself. I know that in some circle it has merit, but I just can’t bring myself to say it’s a good shot. 🙂
Although Nikhil is no longer pressured on a daily basis for a photograph since he completed his first 365 project, we still manage to go for a photo-walk every now and again. One of those walks took us into Campbelville, and although it was mostly for him to get some Nas-inspried photographs, I came away with a few goodies 🙂
One was also somewhat inspired by an image I once saw from a controversial photographer called Ken, although my photographs may never become as “professional” as Ken’s I learnt a lot from reading his blogs and rants 🙂 So, I titled this one “Ken”, it was taken at the corner of DeAbrue and Duncan Streets (north-west corner)
Ken
The second one, I wish I had spent more time on, the scene reminded me of a photograph I once saw from Errol Ross Brewster, and I am ashamed I let the rain chase me away from this spot without getting more out of it, but there you go, the Canon T1i isn’t weather-sealed. This is at the corner of William and Middleton Streets (north-east corner), it is a single image, but I used HDR Efex Pro to recover some detail in the clouds, in the shot it was totally blown out.
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