Tag: man

Pakaraima Mountain Safari 2012 Pt 3

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

We awoke on the third day of the Safari at Rukumotu, and after clearing up our campsite, we joined the convoy to start our day’s drive.  Shortly after leaving the village we saw the reason that Frank declined to descend the mountain at night… a very rocky and difficult drive, with loose rocks that needed some steady nerves for Nikhil.

Once on the valley floor we made better time, but for some reason we lost sight of the convoy, some gentlemen on a tractor indicated a route we should follow, the trail seemed fine until we came to  a fork, made deliberately because the older trail was badly damaged.  Although the bypass included a steep ascent, Nikhil mastered it like a veteran.

Further along the trail, we cam to a widening in the trail that was mud from treeline to treeline and probably more than twenty-five feet across, at this point we were still alone having not caught site of the lead vehicles of the main convoy as yet.  We were now two hours out from Rukumotu, not finding any path across that looked any better than another, we drove straight in…. and got stuck…

Although we tried extricating ourselves from the mud with the winch, we didn’t get very far, and decided to wait on more experienced travellers to assist us, surely the tail of the convoy would catch up.  After what seemed like an eternity, but was more likely a half of an hour, we saw the entire convoy coming up behind us… somehow we had gotten ahead of the lead vehicles.

We can take some comfort in the fact that most of the other vehicles also got stuck coming through that patch…  but we do hold the dubious distinction of being the first to get stuck… for the entire Safari.

Of course, Nikhil is also quite proud of being instrumental in hauling many of the others through, once we ourselves were on solid ground

From there to our next main stop at Yarong Paru (or Young Peru) it was uneventful (relatively); at Yarong Paru, we took a breather, and gave over some packages the convoy had brought along for the village, as well as made arrangements for re-fuelling… and I took some photographs too…  lovely spot on the mountain to be…

I even did a Panorama.

After leaving Yarong Paru, we crossed the Ichilibar bridge, and as we drove along the river bank, we noticed the scene towards the river, we paused (very briefly) to get a few photos.  Here’s one:

Our next stop would be at the village on Monkey Mountain, a hard drive, but I did manage to get in a few photos as we drove.

We arrived at Monkey Mountain with time to spare (compared to 2009 anyway), it was still daylight, as we prepared camp, and Naseem worked at our dinner, I managed to catch a nice shot of some children playing football not far from our benab.

Click on the photos to see them larger in the Gallery

Pakaraima Mountain Safari 2012 – Pt. 2

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography1 Comment

When on Safari, we tend to want to get up early, not just to get ready, get breakfast, break camp etc, but to ensure that we get our ration of fuel for the day  🙂  And that the convoy doesn’t leave us behind.   I jest, they wouldn’t do that, would they?

We awoke early at Karasabai and broke camp, after the morning ablutions, breakfast and so forth, we then had some time for a few photos as we waited for the convoy to assemble

Karasabai is not a cluster of huts, but a wide area.

Naseem poses for the Cameras

Bicycles, the main method of transportation, after walking

Jan gets ready for the days drive

Our first full day in the mountain trails, and we even had a few stops where we could take more photographs 🙂

Bush Cowboys

One of the Army vehicles making its way through a rocky part of the trail.

Cecil Beharry, and his Land Rover from Jamaica!

Just after a rather steep mountain pass, we stopped at a village called Karabaiko, where Eddy even got into doing some repairs.

A portion of a hut at Karabaiko

Mechanics on the go

We visited the village of Tipuru on the way.  Tipuru has a nice little shop that has lovely indigenous food and drink for sale, like Cassava bread and “Fly”, a potato liquor.

Thence to our final stop for the day at Rukumotu (not our planned stop, but it was too late and too dangerous to proceed any farther.

End of day at Rukumoto

At Rukumotu, they gave us permission to camp out on the grounds or in the school, we picked a nice hard spot outside the school, that ended up bending at least one of our tent pegs… we were definitely in the mountains, not soft Rupununi soil at all.

Click on the photos to see them in the Safari 2012 Gallery in the Collection.

Goodbye Uncle Harry

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography19 Comments

Growing up, my maternal grandfather was seldom seen in the congregation of the church, he was always at the back “helping out” Uncle Harry.  I grew up knowing Uncle Harry as Uncle Joe, then others called him Harry, when I asked my grandfather about it he said that he is Harry Joe!  You never question wisdom like that!

Uncle Harry would be there to open the church, he’d be there to close the church, he was the man to go to to get your weekly Catholic Standard, or the tickets for the next Festival of Carols.  He would hand out the collection baskets to the people who would be needing them for each mass, and he’d have Bibles, Hymnals and other little books on sale too.

He was as grumpy as he was jovial.  He was a New Year baby, born on the 1st of January, worked for many years at Banks DIH, from all the way back when it was known as D’Aguiar’s, and he worked at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for as long as my memory serves, up until he was retired a few years ago.

After retirement from his duties in the church he’d try to attend either the early morning 6:00 am mass, or the next one at 7:30 am on Sundays, rain or shine, in his long pants, dress shoes, shirt-jac, umbrella, hat and his spectacle case and pen in his top pocket.

He died on Sunday 17th March 2013, St Patrick’s Day, at around 2am; it was his time.  May his Soul Rest in Peace.

I had taken that photograph of him (candidly) two days before my own birthday in 2011, and he was sitting there staring towards this altar below:

Mashramani 2013

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

I know that most people’s Mashramani photos are already out there, and I have to say that this year saw a large increase in not only the amount of photos out there but also an increase in the quality of the photography of the event.

In trying to “cover” the event I take a lot of photos, which means I then have to process those photos.  This year I used two cameras, I had a wide-telephoto Sigma 17-50mm on the Canon Rebel T1i body and the slightly longer telephoto Canon 18-135mm kit lens on the Canon 60D body (my favourite lens for the event, the Tamron 18-270mm, has an issue I cannot resolve as yet, it’s slow to focus, which is not good for moving subjects).  My favourites from these events have always been close shots rather than wide, but I decided to try to get a variety anyway.

As I expected, my favourites are still the close-up shots  🙂

Click on the Image above for the full Gallery

For a hand-picked selection, click on this Link, I selected my favourites, not necessarily the best ones, just the ones I like  🙂

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

An image for Mash

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography12 Comments

Recently, I was fortunate to have a photo of mine selected and used for the cover of the Caribbean Airlines in-flight magazine – Caribbean Beat (November – December 2012), and they have also used another to accompany an article in the current issue (January-February 2013)

Click on the image above for the full PDF article by Vidyaratha Kissoon along with the accompanying image.

Amazingly it was an image that I liked, but not one that got a lot of attention  🙂  Getting great images during the Mashramani parade is not easy, I’m thankful to come away each year with more than a few that I like.

Here’s the image: Click to see it in the Gallery along with a select set of photos from last year’s Mashramani

In Quiet Solitude

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, thoughts5 Comments

As I was processing this photo a poem began to form in my mind, but by the time I had finished processing, I had lost it… that’s how it goes.

The title of the photo is the same as this post “In Quiet Solitude”, yet as I thought about it, I wondered how accurate it was,

it wasn’t that quiet…  there was the sound of birds chirping, the rustle of leaves as the monkeys jumped from branch to branch, the gurgle of the water as it flowed from the creek to the lake, and the subtle but distinct snap of a camera behind him  🙂

By the same argument, he wasn’t alone, remember the birds, the monkeys and the photographer….. (or the monkey behind the camera) 🙂

But I still stick with the title, sometimes you can just stand beneath the trees, with a gentle breeze blowing, and be thankful to be away from the noise of traffic, the voices and machines of city life, the constant ping and ring of mobile phones, and maybe even the conversations that you were listening to but not really hearing.

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  🙂

A place to rest

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

As the year draws to a close, I think that while we’re celebrating the end of a year, be it a successful one or just surviving one with our sanity intact, we should reflect on what we have, what we should be thankful for and what we have accomplished, whilst still looking forward to what is to come in the new year.

We should also remember those who are not as fortunate as we are, who have lost loved ones, those who have lost their jobs, those who have lost their homes, those who have lost their sanity (I often joke about coming close to doing that myself, but thankfully, it’s just a joke).  If you want to give to those who are in need, give selflessly, give anonymously, give generously.

A photo from 2010.  Taken on High Street, opposite the Parliament Buildings.