Photography; I shoot what I like, and sometimes people like what I shoot. All photos are copyright to Michael C. Lam unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Sometimes using a “rule” works in your favour. One of the most harped-upon rules of photography is the Rule of Thirds, I think every beginner in the field knows this one. Divide the viewfinder in three parts, both vertically and horizontally, then use that to help compose the image, whether putting subjects into the portions or onto the dividing lines.
Nikhil always tells me that we should know the rules, so we’ll know when to break them with greater effect on the resulting image, or in this case use it as literally as possible 🙂
I tried my hand at another seascape, and remembered that sometime back I was told that more than two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered by water, so I covered two-thirds of my image with the sea-water 🙂
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.
Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.
– Hiroshi Sugimoto
In 1980 Sugimoto began working on a series of Seascapes from around the world, he uses different exposure times (sometimes up to three hours) and he composes them with the horizon bisecting the photograph. Oh, he uses an old-fashioned large format camera to do this, serious stuff!
Sugimoto I’m not, but his reflection on how the view of the sea affects him made me thing of all the times I’ve visited our own Seawall, and even when the tide is high and the waves are rough, there’s a sense of sereneness that permeates me, calms me and makes me forget my worries. His last phrase there also reminds me of how we often stand (or sit) and face the waters and stare out to sea, as if in a daydream, “on a voyage of seeing”.
I won’t try to mimic his work, but the simplicity of his work made me wonder if I could try a simple seascape, something without the occasional boat or human element, or the rocks along a shore.
This image was taken in the afternoon, and I processed it using Nik Silver Efex, with an orange filter for effect.
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery, along with others in the Black and White series.
I was driving up the East Coast Demerara Public Road and noticed the lovely blue skies, as I was alongside the seawall, I decided to stop and just take a look over the wall to see if there was anything that might catch my eye, that would make a good photo. Although I thought that I already had a good photo for the week, I still wanted to see, and I think I was lucky, I was down on the other side looking at a very clear ocean, with just a few poles sticking out of the mud and thought that I had better jump back in the car, when I noticed the coconut,
I switched lenses to the ultra-wide Sigma 10-20, and tried out a few shots, and this one appealed to me. I hope it pleases some of you too 🙂
For a better view, click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with many other photos, this one is in the Seawall Gallery 🙂
Most times when I experiment with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, it is usually a static scene, with very little chance of movement between exposures, in as little of the scene as possible, like my recent Bamboo Grove image, this is to reduce ghosting and blurring in the final image, however, I do sometimes go for some scenes where there is movement, but these don’t always work out.
Last year I tried one and liked the results enough to use it for my Deck Project for the 19th Week, and whilst in Barbados I tried one down at the beach. At the beach there was more movement that I’d have liked, with “everyone” in the water moving about. As usual, I don’t try to be too ambitious, so I stuck with my usual three exposures for an HDR, each at about 2ev difference.
Using Nik HDR Efex Pro, I manipulated the ghost reduction feature until I had as little ghosting from the bobbing heads in the water that was possible 🙂 There’s really only one reason I chose this scene to try an HDR, the clouds! 🙂
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.
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At the close of the thirtieth week of the year, I was in Barbados, and my sister and her husband had decided to carry us on a whirlwind of a tour of Barbados’ scenic points, I’m surprised I could remember where I took this one.
I think we almost circled the entire island that day, starting from almost the southernmost point of the island and going eastwards around the coastline.
If my memory serves me correctly, this one was taken at North Point, from the name it’s likely the northernmost part of Barbados, and I was very engrossed with the view, but I managed to get some photographs in while admiring it.
This is an HDR from three exposures, I hope you like it.
Third day of the full reunion, we visited the famous Dunn’s River Falls, and the tour guides split us up into two groups (we were apparently too large a number to keep together, especially with other tourists there too 🙂 ) In their introduction the guides said that there were two famous waterfalls in the world, Niagara Falls and Dunn’s River Falls, ALL the Guyanese in the group said without hesitation “KAIETEUR FALLS”, after giving us a look that could curdle milk in the goat, he ignored us and carried on with his “talk” 🙂
I didn’t mind a talk about safety on the falls, but when I have to start chanting “hot hot hot” and “wet wet wet”, and have to answer tour guides questions on camera, when all I want to do is enjoy the climb, I can get testy, I didn’t go for the Kumbaya and to make the guides look good on camera, especially when all the notices going down had a number of warnings for climbers and at the very top was “Anyone climbing the Falls to so at their own risk”, so kept thinking to myself “back off Rasta, and let me climb”
The guides were only interested in getting photos and video of their groups to “sell” to you after the climb, safety was the last thing on their mind. Our group got separated numerous times, members fell, and even had slight injuries.
At the beginning of the climb, from the bottom of the falls, there were at least five groups of people trying to climb the same section, simultaneously… The first stop they made was at a “pool” in the falls where they got small groups (families etc) to get in (it was fun!) and smile and wave for the camera 🙂 It was all for their camera, this was the photo they’d try to sell you when you reached the top! Yes I’m complaining, and I’m a photographer! Here’s one Andre took at that point 🙂
An Andre Lam photo
I prefer his photo, not because it is better (which it is), but because he didn’t twist my arm to take it, and he didn’t twist my other arm to buy it 🙂
Remember I mentioned the groups of people trying to climb simultaneously? Here’s a photo of a (relatively) calm spot, now go pick out the groups, remember that each group has two “guides”, one has on a blue shirt (he’s the official guide) and the other has on a yellow shirt (he’s the one with the video camera, who will disappear halfway up to go make the DVD) 🙂
Somewhere before this point (after my daughter had fallen and was saved by my cousin Nyuk-Lan in true action hero fashion, and my father had fallen twice, a few of us departed the falls, and I took over Andre’s camera to get some shots in, I really have to get more experience on strange cameras, I got fewer good ones than I’d hoped 🙂
Being totally fed-up with the guides, Nyuk-Lan led a team of rebels on their own merry way up the falls, including a section that was obviously being avoided by the guides and their groups, and it made for a few lovely photos 🙂
After all that, getting back to the hotel and it’s pools was relaxing 🙂 Joan had made reservations at La Diva Italian Restaurant, while waiting for dinner we noticed what was going to be a lovely sunset, both Andre and I headed out (while the servers were serving the appetizers) to take a few photos. The sight of the two of us taking photos seemed to have spurred numerous diners in other restaurants to do the same, and heading back to the restaurant, Andre noticed numerous people on their room balconies with their cameras too 🙂
From my seat in the restaurant, I noticed the colour of the sky contrasting nicely with the lighting in the restaurant area 🙂
Before departing from the Kingston Area to begin the Family Reunion in Ocho Rios, my dad thought that getting a photograph of everyone who were in the Kingston area would be a good idea, so after everyone had eaten some breakfast, packed their bags and were ready to go, we all got together for the group photo.
I was hoping to do some photography whilst on the drive over, but the high grasses after the recent rains and a few other adverse conditions made that a bit impractical 🙂 I did manage to snag a photo of a vendor’s stand with some of the fruits out front during a brief stop.
One of the areas we drove through was Fern Gulley, but photographs can’t tell that story, you have to take the drive through yourself, but I took one of the curving road and the enclosing ferns to give the general idea, this spot had a nice window in the canopy above for extra light, many other sections did not, the ferns would enclose the road and create a lovely rainforest feel.
Once at the hotel, we checked in, went for lunch, then to find our rooms, We had chosen the mountain view option rather than the ocean view rooms, just to save a few dollars 🙂 This is part of the view from our room, not too bad 🙂
After some afternoon swimming (or more like wading in the pool), we were taking a walk to see the Gazebo at the ocean’s edge and I snagged a few more photos, after that it was dinner and bed 🙂 Not a bad day overall.
Nikhil does more unusual cropping than I do, often times he’ll use the cropping to help emphasise the subject, and this is something I don’t often do, usually when I crop I try to keep the same proportions as the original image, and I try to crop very little, usually only as a corrective method (to rotate the image correctly of to remove something at the edge(s) that shouldn’t be included). I often forget that I can crop for emphasis and to strengthen the composition.
This week’s image is such an example, I originally thought that it was a good image, but for some reason it wasn’t as strong as I’d originally thought, so after some monochrome work on it I tried an unusual crop, and I think it worked.
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.
For many students in the trimester system, it is now the end of the school year, the end of projects and assignments, the end of homework, the last of the tests and exams until the next academic year begins.
I find it fitting that the image I chose reflects some of this; hands raised in joy as the sun sets on another day. The end of one thing usually marks the beginning of another, soon we begin the “August” or summer holidays, although those in the semester system have already begun theirs 🙂
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.
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