A fascination with skies

On March 8, 2011March 8, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography21 Comments

Many of my favourite images have had some amount of sky in it, I usually get very “miffed” when shooting landscape or even people and building shots and the sky is just a drab gray, I like blue skies, plain blue, hues of blue, I just really like blue skies, if there are errant clouds then all the better, but a sky fully covered with clouds usually gets to me, I found a way to deal with that over time, I look for a good scene that will process better as a monochromatic image.

While I have gotten better at that, I still like the blue, and I like dramatic skies, streaming clouds, or clouds spotting the vista to the horizon. The last Deck photo was taken on a day that had a nice variation of clouds in the sky, and I got a few others that I thought were worth sharing.

These were taken with the full intent of getting as much out of the sky as possible while still retaining some foreground interest. All were taken with the Sigma 10-20 Ultrawide Lens. I hope you like one or all 🙂

The temptation to render any of the three images into monochrome was great, but I resisted, barely. I felt that the colours in the sky and the foreground were more truly representative of the “feel” of the afternoon, than a monochrome would express, although I think I could probably have gotten more drama out of the images in monochrome 🙂

Click on the images to see them larger in the Gallery, I think I may have to print the one title “Inland Bound” larger for better scrutiny myself 🙂

The Deck – Week 50

On December 17, 2010December 17, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography13 Comments

After three successive monochrome postings for the Deck project, I decided this week, that regardless of what the weather was like I wanted a coloured image,and I finally got something in keeping with the season, Demerara Mutual Insurance company lit up their building very nicely, and I took a few images at night to try and capture the spirit 🙂

Here’s the resulting image. Demerara Mutual has it’s main office on Avenue of the Republic in Central Georgetown, to the right of the photo, you can even see a portion of City Hall.

Sunset at Ogle

On July 24, 2010July 23, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography1 Comment

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.

Buildings – Queenstown, Bourda… and Clive Lloyd Drive

On July 20, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

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 Streets

The Deck – Week 22

On June 4, 2010August 28, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography2 Comments

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. 🙂

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.

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.

This weeks entry for the Deck: Serene.