Tag: grass

2013 Deck – Week 14

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2013 Deck, Photography, thoughts6 Comments

I remember when…  (I think this line is only used by people who have seen things that may not be current and have to use this line to explain that situation to those younger than themselves… or by a youngster who wants to impress others with their amazing memory – even if some of it is invented)

Where was I?  … oh, yes…  I remember when I rode a bicycle to school, then to lessons, and to visit friends, or to go to church, or just for a joy-ride.  I remember lugging around a heavy chain with a large Union lock to secure the bicycle to a post.

I remember the bicycle I rode to lessons, an old “Big Ben”, or “Steel Donkey”, it was a lady’s frame, so we’d put a wooden bar across to tow others, or just to make it seem more masculine. (Something remarkably similar to the one Nikhil captured here) I remember taking turns with Johnny at towing home Trecia from lessons, even though it was not on my way home.

I remember while courting Maureen (now my wife), I had a “down handle” on a ten-speed bicycle, and we’d ride everywhere… even places I knew I shouldn’t… I remember being beaten with a 2×4 (piece of wood) by a thief try to get that bicycle from me…

I remember riding from home down to South Ruimveldt to visit my friends Andrew, Ian, and then to Durban Backlands to visit Dayal… sometimes just for the ride; and years later I rode to and from UG daily, and I remember leaving UG at 8pm after History lecture and riding down in pitch blackness with Scheme alongside on his bicycle (trying to remember where the potholes were) !

I remember riding to the seawall to work off the buzz of a beer that I drank while (legally) too young, I remember riding from Turkeyen to Bel Air hoping to wear off the buzz of too many beers from a Raymond’s birthday celebration, this was when I was a student at UG, only to stop at Nikhil’s home to ask for coffee before continuing home 🙂

I seldom ride a bicycle now, but I think every child should learn to ride one… it gives a sense of independence, of freedom… of adventure.

The photo that sparked a deluge of memories…

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

2013 Deck – Week 12

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2013 Deck, Photography1 Comment

Frankincense:  That’s the incense used at most Catholic churches when they are celebrating major feasts, it’s a smell that’s been familiar to me since early childhood, and one I always associate with the presence of the Bishop at a mass.

Last Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday), As I was avoiding the rain, and ducking under tents, I happened to stand right next to the altar server who was tending the Thurible with the coals and the incense, as the rain kept me cornered for the moment I took a few quick snaps  🙂

Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery  🙂

Yellow

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography1 Comment

I had started processing this photo about two weeks ago, then left it off.  I had cropped, rotated, and dropped the saturation a bit, but wasn’t satisfied.  I pulled it up this morning, tweaked the highlights a bit and decided that it was done… that simple!  Sometimes, all it needs is a little time 🙂

I noticed these at the side of the trench when I parked my vehicle, they were lower than the road, and the side of the trench was slippery, so I couldn’t get a foothold to get down to the level I wanted, so I adjust my settings on the camera and held it down to try to get the composition I wanted… never got the perfect one, and quite  few were unusable, but this one I liked (after rotating to correct my badly angled dangling camera  🙂

Click on the Image to see it in the Flora Gallery in the Collection

A walk on the beach

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography12 Comments

A few Fridays back, I joined a few other photographers on a walk down to the large jetty (pier/groin) that marks the end of the Kingston seashore and the beginning of the Demerara River mouth.

As with all walks with photographers you go hoping to come back with a good image, or even a great one, yet when I downloaded my haul I was very disappointed, maybe I was hoping for too much.

Does this mean that the walk was not a success?  No.  It was what it was… a walk on the beach.  To be with friends, people with a similar pursuit, and enjoy the conversation, the breeze… that was enough.

All the photos were not horrible, but not jumped out at me, yet I decided to process at least one to make a show of reaping something from the toil of the harvest.

As I look at the image I processed, I wonder if this scene will get worse or better with the development of the new Hotel on the seashore.

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other Seawall related photos

2013 Deck – Week 03

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2013 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Although I like to think of myself as a photographer who likes to take Landscape photos, there is not a lot of scope for that living in the city, but I’ve always had an interest in capturing images of buildings, especially old ones that may not survive due to neglect or just continued development (or any number of other reasons)

During the third week of the year, I had an inexplicable desire to take some photos of St Rose’s High School, just before attending a presentation by Hew Locke (an artist with some amazing work), Nikhil and I took a walk around the block, and I got my chance to take a few images.

To emphasize the building more, I used an “orange filter” setting whilst processing, this darkened the sky and made the building more pronounced.  Although I did not intend to combine “street photography” into it these two boys strolled past just as we were there.

As always, click on the image to see it in the Gallery

On the Street

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

OK, maybe the title isn’t accurate, the photo I will use was taken a little distance from the street, but it’s also about a point I made recently.

On the Guyana Photographers Facebook page, we had a Challenge for “Street Photography”, and one of the points we made was that it did not have to be literally on the street; the genre encompasses images that capture aspects of “Life”, it will always have a human figure in it, because that’s what the genre is about, human’s and their actions .  It can be a shot of a vendor on the street, or a vendor in a market stall; a woman riding a cycle down the road, or hanging out her laundry in the yard; a man on the corner reading the morning newspaper, or at his desk writing a memo.  The best street photographers usually manage to tell quite a story in one image, there is often irony, or action; discourse or solitude and regardless of what story you get from it, it’s a story that you the viewer can understand whether or not its the story being told.

I am NOT a Street Photographer, I fail dismally at my attempts, but mostly because I am not into taking those types of images, except by happenstance.  If you want to see good Street Photography by Guyanese photographers, check out the works of Nikhil Ramkarran and Avinash Richard, while neither do the genre exclusively, they both capture moments of time in the life of Guyanese that can be spellbinding.

This one is one of my better ones to date… but only because of the irony  🙂

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

My Tamron 18-275 lens has some dust inside it, by pointing towards the sun two spots showed up in the image which were later emphasized by the BW processing, those were cloned out  🙂

2013 Deck – Week 02

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2013 Deck, Photography6 Comments

During week two of this year, I actually used at least three of my lenses, including the ultra-wide Sigma 10-20mm.  On Friday, Fidal had arranged that we meet for a drink near Ogle, but before we went,  he and Rosh suggested we go to the seawall nearby to get in a few shots 🙂 (we were joined by Savita and TJ, if you must know)

As it turned out, that was a pretty good idea, there was a lovely sky above and some unusual streaming clouds (probably from the jets passing), and I got down into the grass to get a low perspective shot.

While processing it I remembered a song that I probably hadn’t heard since I was much younger, I had come across it on an LP my father had, it was called “Grazing in the Grass” by Friends of Distinction; it was one of those 70s songs, and I didn’t understand the lyrics then, and I don’t quite understand them now (yes I went and listened to it again), but then, I probably need to be high on something for those lyrics to make sense to me.  You can check the song out for yourself  🙂

As always, click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

Working With Wides

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography12 Comments

Well, I wanted to say “Playing with a Wide-angle Lens”, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration. 🙂

The word wide is relative, so I’ll describe how I use the terms, these are probably not industry accepted descriptions, so don’t quote me 🙂   Your basic entry-level DSLR usually comes with a kit lens that has a range of focal lengths from 18mm to 55mm, this I consider to be a wide telephoto lens, at the widest end (18mm) you get a nice wide view and at 55mm you get closer to close up of the subject, I consider somewhere around 33mm (on the crop-sensors) to be somewhere around “normal” (mind you, I’ll be talking from the stand-point of an APS-C sensor or crop sensor, a full frame or micro-four-thirds is an entirely different scenario)

Since this is the standard kit lens that most people get, we don’t often see it as wide, so that’s when we go Ultra-wide.

My favourite wide-angle lens (OK, the only one I have in the Ultra-wide category) is the Sigma 10-20mm, this produces pleasing images for me, and I love working with it.  You get some amount of distortion at the wider end (understandable) but this tends to be good in certain circumstances.

Often, in architectural photography, you can use wides and ultra-wides to capture more of the interior, and convey more of the sense of space and more of what encompasses the room.

At other times, you can use them closer to the subject to give an increased sense of distance, even accentuate the distortion by being close (do this with people’s faces, and you’ll get some weird effects)

I used the ultra-wide to capture the corner of this building (New Building Society), along with parts of the sidewalk and sky (and a pedestrian) 🙂

There are many things you can do with a wide, many of which I don’t do, I don’t normally put it right up to people’s faces and click, but I’ve seen those photos, and it’s a neat effect  🙂

What I did in this next image was to use the ultra-wide to adjust the sense of scale, I used a fire-hydrant in the foreground to dwarf a three-story building in the background.  One thing that I liked about this shot was that I didn’t have to worry about electricity wires!

The best way to see what your wide-angle lens or your ultra-wide angle lens can do is to put it on the camera and go have fun.  Sometimes it makes compositions tricky as it tends to include everything, even things you may not want, but like working with any focal-length, it’s up to the photographer to adjust framing and composition for these things.

I mentioned using wide-angle lenses for interior architecture, well I doubt if a tent falls under the category of architecture, but I suspect the engineers who came up with the idea for this tent would appreciate the use of the wide-angle for impact  🙂  And would you look at the view!  🙂

All images above were shot with the Sigma 10-20mm on a Canon body, Click on the images to see them in the Collection along with others in their respective Galleries.

Expression

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

During this season when many people wish for World Peace, Goodwill among Men, we also see many young lovers finding new ways to express their love for each other.

Many novels and movies have lines like “I’ll shout it to the Heavens”, but it seems that in Guyana, we have a new method… “I’ll paint it on the Seawall!”

Some man (or woman, we are living in a new age) seriously meant for the subject of their amorous intent to see the writing on the wall  🙂

Click on the image above to see it in the Gallery along with other images done using the HDR (High Dynamic Range) multiple exposure method.

This image is an HDR composite of three exposures, I stood there waiting for the traffic to clear long enough for the three exposures  🙂

Changing Roles

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography7 Comments

There are lessons to be learnt from our children, if only we could be as open and as innocent as they are, this world may be a better place.

Recently, the Sunday School program planned (although I use that word loosely in their case) a pageant for the Christmas Season, to perform the Nativity after the Sunday morning mass.  We showed up on Saturday for what we thought was the first rehearsal, with my daughter thinking she would be a shepherdess, only to realize that it was to be the ONLY rehearsal, and that since the girl who was slated to be Mary was absent, they asked Miriam if she would substitute.  Needless to say I was livid, but my daughter was overjoyed to be part of the pageant, and looked forward to playing the part of Mary.

So, her shepherd staff went to Joseph, and we had to ask my mum for an outfit for her (my mother runs St Jude’s Playgroup, and they carry on the Nativity Pageant every year, so the basics for the costume were there) 🙂

The adults who were supposed to be organising the pageant should be chastised (the ladies who actually conducted the rehearsal and executed the pageant were not the original organisers, and they pitched in and did all they could for the children), and ashamed of themselves, but the children who pulled off a last minute pageant that went almost flawlessly, should be more than proud of themselves, and their parents should be equally proud of their children, I know that I am proud of them, especially my daughter (I am very biased) 🙂