Tag: fence

Tower

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

Back when it was still called Hotel Tower.

There has been a Hotel with the word “Tower” in its name on this spot for more than a century.  I can’t find enough online historical evidence, but before the current name “Tower Suites”, it was the Hotel Tower for many years, and prior to that it was the Tower Hotel.  I saw an 1909 Ad that claimed that “The Tower is the oldest and Best Hostelry on the Northern Coast of South America”.  🙂

Hotel Tower  |  2009  |  Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Sigma 10-20mm

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

1888

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

I took this photo 5 years ago. (November 03, 2011, 5:06pm)

It’s one of those photos you take at the time, then just put aside; at the time it was just part of several images I took while walking along the northern and then the western side of City Hall, none of which were ever processed or shown to anyone.

I found a few dates about the building to be interesting; proposals for the construction of a Town Hall were endorsed in 1886, a design was chosen in 1887, and works completed in 1889, yet in the wrought iron fretwork design above this northern doorway is the year “1888”.

1888 – 11-6453  |  City Hall, Georgetown, Guyana  |  2011

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

Vanishing Vanity

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Commentary, Photography5 Comments

There once was a time when we created not just for function but for appeal, when we designed things to make our lives easy, as well as for those things to be easy on the eyes.  There is a sense of loss, its physical, but also emotional, when the older buildings are removed and replaced with structures that closely resemble steel slabs  or concrete cuboids.

I don’t do it often enough now, but I once had a fascination with capturing old buildings around Georgetown… but they seem to be vanishing faster than ever now; I hear it’s the sign of progress.

Like everything else in life, if we don’t fight to keep it, then we will lose it, but most of us seem to have grown up in a time when that “fight” is not in us,  where we accept the decisions of others, because we believe that our voice, our opinion does not make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm  |  Regent Street, Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana.

Click on the image to see it in the gallery, along with other images from around Georgetown, Guyana.

Sunset at KB

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

Following up on yesterday’s image, It was a sunset, but the scene called to me to process in black and white for that composition, the next evening, I decided to take multiple exposures for an attempt at an HDR Sunset; same area, different composition and view 🙂

Three exposures, combined in Nik HDR Efex Pro II, minor adjustments in Lightroom

Canon EOS 6D, Canon 24-105L  |  Karasabai, Pakaraima Mountains, Guyana

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery, a set I call Scenic Experiments, all HDR images  🙂

2015 Deck – Week 42

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography1 Comment

Following a week of hospitalization, I had another couple weeks of confinement to Barracks.  As it happens this first week in my comfortable cell (house and yard, but mostly the bedroom) was even more productive for me and Instagram. 🙂

Here’s a view from my bedroom… complete with the wrought iron barrier for the prison-like feeling 🙂

Backdoor Grill  |  Instagram  |  Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos

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

2015 Deck – Week 35

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, PhotographyLeave a comment

There are times when you take a photo and know right away that you’ll love it; whether anyone else might, that’s a different question, but so far this one has turned out to be pretty well liked.

For those of us still living here and for many of those Guyanese living abroad… this is probably iconic of some areas of Georgetown.

Cummings’ Street Car Wash  |  Instagram  |  Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

2015 Deck – Week 34

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography2 Comments

I realise that this one might need some context…  which, in the eyes of some, makes it a less successful photograph that it could have been.  Of course, I could just as easily not give context and it could probably be a better photograph for it…

But, I will put in my few words anyway 😀

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm.

Main Street/ High Street, Georgetown.

Basically, I wanted a photo of the pedestrian in the distance with the recently knocked down / destroyed sign in the foreground; the sign that once indicated to drivers and pedestrians that there was a pedestrian crossing ahead.  🙂

But this photo got me to also thinking about the street upon which I took the photo; this portion you see is called High Street, the portion behind me (which is obviously not in the photo) is called Main Street, as you proceed further south it then changes to Avenue of the Republic and then back to High Street.  Why would what is effectively one street have four different named sections?  From what I’ve read, it was possibly once called simply “High Street”; the portion running through Cummingsburg was then named Main Street, and then when Guyana attained Republic status the portion running through Lacytown was renamed to Avenue of the Republic.  Interestingly, after a slight detour around St Saviour’s Church, it becomes Saffon Street, this, however, never seems to be considered as part of the “High Street” issue.

Stretches of streets within Georgetown which have multiple names is normally attributed to the fact that Georgetown was originally built as a number of different wards, and the streets were never meant to be contiguous, then the wards were joined together, the multiple names resulted, along with some streets having a slight turn to continue since the original ones were not in-line.  The wards involved in the High Street issue are Kingston (High Street), Cummingsburg (Main Street), Lacytown (Avenue of the Republic) and Stabroek / Werk-en-Rust – and part of Charlestown (High Street).

Click on the image to see it in the gallery.

2015 Deck – Week 32

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Georgetown, Guyana.

The French called it Longchamps, the Dutch called it Stabroek, the British named it after King George III, Georgetown.  Each generation always seem to wish for the “good old days”, but as I’ve aged and seen this edifice that I pass daily age as well, I think that City Hall has indeed seen its Glory Days, unless something radical is done quickly.

I look at the photo and the phrase that comes to mind is “everything looks better in the morning light”

 

City Hall, Georgetown, Guyana.  Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20 Lens

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images from the 2015 Deck Project

2015 Deck – Week 21

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography4 Comments

Every year I seem to complain that I don’t get enough time for my photography, and yet every year I seem to have a few thousand exposures resulting in several gigabytes of images stored away on a hard-drive, and in there somewhere are usually a few images that I think are worth the time and effort that I put into this passion of mine.

If I have one really good image a year, that should be enough, right?  🙂

This year I’ve been experimenting with Instagram, confining myself to the combination of taking the image with the phone, processing it in Instagram and using the square crop; not exclusively, as I still shoot with the DSLR, but a small experiment to see what would evolve, and surprisingly I’ve rather enjoyed it so far.

This week I use another of those images for the Deck Project.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos |  Instagram

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