Tag: leaves

The Long Shadows

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

With the sun far past its zenith and fast approaching the horizon, long shadows are cast upon the ground.   Although I knew that I wouldn’t get what I wanted, I simply had to try.  The sun was still a bit too high, and it cast a fiery glow to the edge of the roof, but the shadows created by the posts drew me in and I simply HAD to take a photograph.

In the dirt there are furrows from bicycles or possibly wheel-barrows and scattered across are flower petals from a nearby tree.

Promenade Gardens, August, 2011.  Click on the image for a much better view in the Gallery.

OK, for those of you who have watched way too many sequels and prequels (and even re-makes) of Nightmare on Elm Street, yes, the three “long” shadows did put me in mind of Freddy reaching from the world of dreams and darkness into our dimension.

2012 Deck – Week 18

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Lunar Perigee and the 2012 Supermoon

In 2011 and 2012 there was much reference to the term Supermoon, which is an astrological term, as opposed to the Astronomical term Perigee.  What was so Super about it? Well, I was out there and it looked like a regular full moon, but we’d all love to believe that we could see it larger and brighter than at other times 🙂

Perigee is the time at which the moon is closest in its orbit to the earth (doesn’t matter what phase it’s in), while the Supermoon refers to a New or Full moon that occurs when the moon is within 90% of its closest approach to the earth in its orbit.  So I suppose that the perfect Supermoon would be a Full moon at Perigee  🙂  (incidentally, the time when the moon is furthest away from the earth in its orbit is called Apogee)

The Perigee varies from around 357,000km to 369,000km (in roundish figures), and while a difference of 12,000km sounds like a lot, the difference to the naked eye is negligible.

On May 5th, the moon was at its fullest at 1 minute to its perigee, so that’s about as perfect a Supermoon as we can get I suppose.

Anyway… on May 5th this year, I was up the coast near Lusignan when this year’s “Supermoon” was supposed to occur, two things happened (well, more than two, but two that are relevant to this post); I had lent out my telephoto lens, so getting a close-up was out of the question, and the clouds were conspiring against me, So I ended up with a wide shot full of clouds  🙂

After playing hide-and-seek with the moon for several minutes I gave up and headed out, one that I took would work, so this is one that worked  🙂

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

2012 Deck – Week 16

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography5 Comments
By The Manatee Pond

I’ve been staring at this photo for weeks, and finding the right words to accompany it in the blog seems to be hard…

It’s a great spot, it has the Kissing Bridge, popular with brides and lovers, photographers and kids who like to run over it back and forth.  The pond has the manatees, where kids come to feed them on afternoons, there are little spots where families picnic and relax, and it’s where budding artists sit and sketch simply because there is so much of interest around.

Does it have too much?  is the photo crowded?  Am I just being hard on myself?  Who knows….  but this is the photo for Week 16  🙂

Click on the photo for a much better view in the Gallery

2012 Deck – Week 14

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography1 Comment

I am still going through my photos from the 2012 Pakaraima Mountain Safari, there are lots of photos of vehicles and mountains, and I think I’ll save those for my post about the Safari (I really have to get around to that!)

On the way back from Orinduik after a very gruelling drive through “Rock World” we stopped for a breather and for the other vehicles to make it safely through.  I think that after making it through Rock World, if you smoke, you need a nice long pull on a cigarette, and if you drink, then you’d probably need a really stiff shot of something or a nice cold beer, and if neither option is available to you, then you need to go find something to just relax your mind and body and say “I’m alive!”

I grabbed my camera after I had gotten my legs to co-operate with general mobility, and went looking for things to shoot  🙂

This image was taken intentionally like this, also in post processing, the contrast slider in Lightroom was used liberally 🙂

As always, click on the image above for a better view in the Gallery  🙂

Palm Sunday 2012

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

This year I was away from town for Holy Week.  I was on the tenth Pakaraima Mountain Safari, and although I have not yet sorted all my photos from the trip, nor written any sort of account, I did choose this image for Palm Sunday to share.

It was taken at “58 Mile”, an area known for being 58 miles out of Linden, and for the “pit stop” establishment there know as “Peter and Ruth”, anyone heading to Lethem, or Kurupukari, or Mahdia usually stops here.

The photo is not of Peter & Ruth’s establishment, but of a little church opposite  🙂

Co-incidentally I was back in this spot on Good Friday at 3pm (most Catholics will know the significance of that) 🙂

So, although I got a lot of flak for not covering the Palm Sunday Mass (it seems there are some who look forward to my photos from that), I did manage a fairly nice shot that day anyway  🙂

Please click on the image to see it larger in the Gallery.

2012 Deck – Week 12

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

There was a competition in the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group on Colonial Architecture, it was getting very close to the deadline and there were very few entries, I “hurriedly” entered one that I took in passing, not a good shot by any standards, and regretted it immediately after.

Even if I am putting up a photo to “fill up space”, I should pay more attention, I have been less focused recently (no pun intended) , I can’t seem to get myself, the camera and the subjects to comply, to align properly.

I was out with Nikhil on a walk to get a photo for his 365 (366) Project and as we were wrapping up I saw this house and thought I should get a few snaps of it, and I knew right then that I had a better photograph than what I had recently dropped into the competition.

It was heavily overcast, and I deliberately composed it with lots of headroom.

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

Pakaraima Mountain Safari – Destination Orinduik

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

The endpoint or destination of the Pakaraima Mountain Safari is Orinduik Falls, so I thought I’d end this series with one of my favourite photos of the Falls itself.

Orinduik falls is a series of small drops, This is a small portion that I thought was framed nicely.

Hopefully this year I come away with some nice photos again  🙂

In 2009 I was shooting the Canon PowerShot S5 Superzoom bridge camera, it was shortly after this photo (in time and shots) that I fell and damaged the camera.  This year, I’m trying for surer footing (maybe my additional weight will help keep me stable as well)  🙂

Since I had damaged my camera, my brother loaned me his Nikon D80, my first shots on an SLR  🙂  I took the liberty of including one with him under the falls  🙂

2012 Deck – Week 11

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

I try not to do single image HDRs, that is, using a single exposure and tone-mapping it for greater detail throughout the scene, but sometimes I can never quite seem to get the processing on an image quite right in colour, and sometimes its an image that I would prefer not to use as a monochrome, so then I tone-map it in an HDR software to bring out that detail that I know is there.

This photo is of the Moravian Church in Queenstown, Guyana.  It is more than a hundred years old.

It stands at the junction of Anira Street and New Garden Street, and there are utility posts and wires on two sides of it, I composed this to minimise the effect of those wires.

Queenstown Moravian Church

Kaieteur

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography5 Comments

The mighty Kaieteur, the largest single drop waterfall (by volume) in the world.  Let’s not get confused, it’s NOT the tallest single drop waterfall in the world, but when you’re comparing the sheer volume of water flowing over it, it is the largest single drop waterfall in the world, make note of that distinction.  It has a single drop of 226 meters (741 feet), and averages about 663 cubic meters of water per second (23,400 cubic feet per second).  It is awesome!

For you Canadians and Americans, it’s about five times the height of Niagara,

You can read more about the falls and its history on other sites, I’m not about to go regurgitating all that data here 🙂

For years I’ve always avoided flying into Kaieteur because I could always say that my money would be better spent (in terms of distance and longevity) in going to one of the Caribbean Islands, it was cheaper to go to Trinidad (and stay for a week or two) than to go to Kaieteur and spend two hours.

My first visit to Kaieteur was in 2009, and if I could give up my day-job and become a guide for a tour company just so I could see Kaieteur every week, I’d do it, but then again, I like my job  🙂

This photo was resurrected from my files recently, I had taken three exposures for an HDR, and I decided to re-process those files and see what happens.  It won’t be great (especially to enlarge it), it was taken with the Canon PowerShot S5 IS bridge camera with a Raynox 0.66x wide angle adapter attached,  You can probably see some of the lens distortion at the edges.

This is my favourite view of Kaieteur (other than the views from the airplane, of course)  This is known as Johnson’s View, it’s the furthest view from the falls and gives a beautiful view on the vista.

Definitely, click on the image here to see it better in the gallery.