2012 Deck – Week 19

On June 13, 2012June 13, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

This week almost passed without me having taken any photos. I had some slim pickings, but I think I got a nice one.

Nikhil has often used the word “Grok” especially as relating to “grokking the scene”. It has become more important to grok the scene if you want to capture and express through the photograph what it is the scene says to you.

Even though I thought I had heard the word before, no one lese I know has ever used it as often as he does.

I check it up on Wikipedia and then thought to myself, “that’s where it came from!”, apparently coined by the author Robert Heinlein in his novel “Stranger in a Strange Land”. I love the definition given for it in the novel (keep inmind that it is a Science Fiction novel set on Mars)

Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.

Can we understand a scene so completely that we become as one with it? That is probably something to aim for, to achieve it would be great,

Here’s a photo of Nikhil, Grokking the scene 🙂

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery, and if you haven’t seen the other entries for the Deck project they’re all over there in the Gallery.

City Watch

On March 16, 2012March 16, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

For anyone who has read the books by Terry Pratchett, specifically the ones dealing with the twin-city of Ankh-Morpork, you know about the City Watch, for those of you who have not read those books, I encourage you to try them, Terry Pratchett is a master story-teller and a comic genius.

But this is a photography blog, not a book review blog, and the title of this post has nothing to do with Samuel Vimes or the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork, although now that I think of it, maybe I should have titled the photograph “Vimes” 🙂

Most of us get very few opportunities to rise above the humdrum of everyday life, to stand above it all and, with a calm that belies the hustle and bustle below, just take in the view of a city, our own city, noise-filled, garbage-filled, accident-prone, with a mix of colonial buildings and modern square concrete structures.

Imagine this; from one vantage point, you can see the hub of public transportation, the minibuses and taxis, a landmark eatery, hotel and beer-garden, the seat of government, hotels, churches (including one of the tallest wooden buildings in the world), the high court, one of the largest markets in the country, city hall, the busiest business district in the country, the Atlantic Ocean and so much more.

That is the view from the clock tower at Stabroek Market, and you haven’t even turned around to see the wharves and the mighty Demerara River with its speed-boat traffic, the ferry and the aging but impressive harbour bridge.

Click on the photo below, see it larger in the gallery and imagine yourself in that man’s position.

2012 Deck – Week 9

On March 15, 2012March 15, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography6 Comments

As things got busy, I got fewer photos, but I was still left with a choice for Week 9, in the end I decided on this one. Nikhil was trying especially hard to get photos of some wall-walkers with the boats in the background, I wasn’t inclined to do the same at the time, but as I walked on the lower section later, this guy passed me and I thought I’d catch a shot of him walking away. As it happens the boats were in nice positions at this point 🙂 Dumb Luck 🙂

2012 Deck – Week 5

On February 11, 2012February 11, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography10 Comments

There are some weeks when you have a number of photographs, many that are technically better than others, yet you keep going back to one in particular which, although not the best composed, or the best exposed, nor the best focused image, it seems to demand from you that extra bit of attention.

This image is one such image for me, I had a few that were better, nicer, prettier, more appealing generally, but this one I liked more. The focus was not on the “obvious” subject, and for that reason I almost decided not to use it, but it appeals to me, it is an image that says something more than the others that I took this week.

If it speaks to you, then I am happy, if it doesn’t, then I fully understand 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 51

On December 29, 2011December 29, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography4 Comments

I had shortlisted four images for this blog-post, two of them were too much in keeping with the general theme of the last few weeks, so I discarded those (for later publication) and one was somehow reminiscent of photos I’ve seen from Nikhil and some other local photogs, so I ended up with this one.

I titled it “Ritual at Dawn” because I had inadvertently caught some people in the frame, I think they may have been Hindus out to perform a seaside ritual (I think I should enquire more about this)

I was a bit dissatisfied with the original capture, but was taken enough by the scene to try to “salvage” the image. I tried a single image HDR tone-mapping, but that didn’t work out as I expected. I then decided to go for a pseudo-HDR, since I hadn’t actually taken multiple exposures, I created the multiple exposures in Lightroom (using a 1.5ev on the original image) In the image with the +1.5ev I wanted to get more detail from the rocks on the shore, so I used a gradient to adjust the exposure in that area. Using the three new exposures I did an HDR process in Nik HDR Efex Pro, and although the full-coloured resulting image was OK, I thought that in this instance I would get a better image using a black and white HDR rendering.

2011 Deck – Week 36

On December 9, 2011December 9, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Since the members of the Guyana Photographers (Facebook Group) started doing PhotoWalks it has provided me with other opportunities to get out and do some photography, as well as to see and admire the photos emerging in the group from these walks, there truly is a lot of enthusiasm and talent among the members.

On one of those walks (this one was to the villages of Good Hope and Triumph, I got what I thought were good shots, then I saw what others put up and realized that mine were all just OK 🙂

I fell into the trap set by all the enthusiasm and put my better shots onto the Group’s Page, without thinking to reserve at least one for this post, so a-hunting I went through my images for one that I could use. You can check out some of the photos from the group in the 3rd Photo Walk album Facebook.

2011 Deck – Week 18

On May 14, 2011May 14, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

I’m still playing “catch-up”, still a week behind in the blog, and months behind in reading 🙂 Today marks one year since I actually registered as a WordPress user, although I didn’t start blogging until one week later, so I feel compelled to at least update the blog today, so I’ve managed to choose a photo from Week 18 of this year, processed it in one of my favourite ways, HDR, and even uploaded it 🙂

On the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo, Arrival Day, or whatever you want to call it, I went with Naseem and Nikhil for a drive and photo-jaunt between Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara and Rosignol at the mouth of the Berbice River (West Coast Berbice), needless to say we took a lot of photographs.

Our first stop was at the village of Enmore, we were going to go see the Enmore Martyr’s Monument, but the bridge we were planning on using was unusable, opposite that bridge there was a nice scene, so we took some time to “grok” it (as Nik would say) and even took some photos, I took a set of bracketed shots to use for an HDR rendition, and that’s what I present to you today. All the original images came out dark and desaturated as I expected, since I was shooting into the sun, but since I planned on using them in an HDR, that was OK 🙂

As an HDR, I really suggest you click on it to see it at the Gallery!

Evening Approaches – Panorama

On March 24, 2011March 29, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

It’s been a while since I touched a Panorama, or a stitched image 🙂 This one is old (last year) but I never got around to stitching and processing it until now. Originally intended as a six image Panorama, it seems the last two in the sequence refused to be stitched in (I may try a different software later) so I ended up with a four image stitched together Panorama.

This is from the Roundhouse on the Kingston Promenade on the Georgetown Seawall, facing west, the sun isn’t quite setting but it the exposure gave it a little darkness and added to the mood. At full size you can see that there are people on the Jetty (pier) in the distance. and even someone on the rocks in the foreground.

Evening Approaches - 18mm, 1/320s, f/10, ISO400 - 4 images

I encourage you to click on the image for a better view at the Gallery, but unless you have a very wide monitor, it won’t help too much 🙂 Try this link to see an 1100 pixel wide version.

The Boat and The Sky

On February 10, 2011February 10, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography28 Comments

I was about to title this post “The Monkey and The Camera”, because Nikhil might have been right about that day at La Bonne Intention, a monkey with a camera may well have managed to take a good photograph.

In hindsight, I really should have switch to my ultra-wide lens earlier that day, but even with the Tamron 18-270 mounted on the camera, I still got wide enough to capture the truly “awesome” sky that was prevalent at the time.

I’ll let this photo speak for itself. (Click to see larger)

The Calm – LBI HDR

On January 25, 2011January 25, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography24 Comments

For anyone who has followed my through my blogging, you’ll have seen Nikhil’s name popping up with some regularity, we’re friends, and he’s also my photo-buddy. In September of last year he came out with a spectacular image which has since been used by Kriti in their publication of the 2011 Scotiabank (Guyana) Calendar, it’s an amazing image, he titled it Resting Drama (if you click on the name you’ll see it on his site).

I was left stunned with his image and had not processed any of my images from that day, they will all pale in comparison. Today I decided to process one, (I’ll get to the others eventually) this one was a three image HDR, whilst he faced north, I faced east, into the slowly setting sun.

I want to explain a few things; firstly, it’s a three image HDR (High Dynamic Range) trying to get the most detail out of the scene. Secondly, it’s about the scene as it is depicted, I tried as much as possible to keep the image as “natural” as possible, sometimes HDRs can go overboard and look over-processed or even cartoonish.

The sky was cloudy, so we were in a shadowed setting with some cloud coverage overhead, heavier as you looked eastward,but far towards the east the sun was setting, and fewer clouds were in the sky that far east giving the sunlight entrance to the scene. The sunlight bathed the seawall mildly or gently, You can see the wetness towards the sea reflecting the light, even the grass shoreward was lit to a degree.

I think I may be using too many words, I should just let the photo speak for itself.