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.
Age is a relative thing, something (or someone) is either younger (or newer) or older than another by a certain amount of time, whether it is by minutes, days, years, decades, centuries, etc.
I’ve grown up knowing the Hand-in-Hand Insurance Building (and others of its time) and they’ve become landmarks to me, that makes them old, or older than the stuff that went up in the last decade anyway.
They may not be of the Victorian era, so their architectural aesthetics may be less appealing, but they are certainly a lot more appealing than many of the concrete boxes that are being erected these days.
The Hand-in-Hand building always reminded me of a concrete and stone attempt to look Victorian, or maybe semi-Greco-Roman, but I’m not an architect and my terms may be far off the mark.
I had always admired its arches, the wrought-iron fence, the wrought-iron “fret-work” that created the arches between the columns, the low-sprawling style of the building.
When I took this photo I never intended to process it in Sepia tone, yet that is what appealed to me when I began processing, and to help the age along a bit, I added a light vignette (hopefully not too noticeable)
So this building is Newer than Victorian, but probably older than I am 🙂
This building was (at the time of the fire that destroyed it) known as the King Solomon Building, which also housed the offices of Travel Span airlines. Growing up, I always knew it as Joe Chin Travel Services. It was the building next to the lot that housed the Sacred Heart Church, also destroyed by fire.
It makes me wonder about the other buildings on the block, maybe I should take some photos of them before something dreadful (and permanent) also happens to them 🙂
I titled this photo the Midday Sleeper and the Ghostly Kirk. The “Midday Sleeper” part is an homage to a series of photos by a photographer (Simon) that I know as Darkhalide Photography, and the “Ghostly Kirk” is a reference to the ghostly reflection of my friend Kirk in the glass panel to the right of the doorway, I don’t think you can see it unless viewed very large.
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 🙂
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.
Yesterday I had mentioned the first shot I took with the Canon Rebel T1i (500D) was a photograph of St George’s Cathedral, so I thought that I’s share it here.
Part of the type of photography than many of us practice is trying to establish our images as “art”, and often times I take inspiration from others, I do not COPY from them, although some may look at it that way, that’s their prerogative.
This shot of the St George’s Cathedral will probably never be considered “art”, but it’s a nice shot of the Cathedral, and as I wanted my first image from the T1i to be something special, I had taken inspiration from Dwayne Hackett, whom I consider to be a far better photographer than most locals that I know of. It was very humbling when I later heard from him that he also admires my own work and that of Nikhil.
This shot I tested a new camera (the T1i back then) and a new lens, the Sigma 10-20 Ultra-wide Lens, and as soon as I got the shot I thought to myself, this is what I’ve been missing all along, I never took photographs on the Canon S5 after that day.
Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery.
When I got my hands on the first DSLR that I could say was “mine to use”, you know; not borrowed for a short time, I decided that I wanted the first exposure (or the first frame) to count, to mean something, or at the very least, to be a special photo 🙂
I had just gotten my hands on the Canon Digital Rebel T1i (500D), and I had not too recently been viewing some photos by Dwayne Hackett, and there was one that had inspired me, it was of St. George’s Cathedral, and I decided that I wanted that to be my first shot. As it turned out, even though I tried to time it right, a vehicle sped into the frame just as I clicked, so the second actuation was my photo instead.
I have now gotten my hands on an upgrade, so I thought I’d do the same thing, try for a special photograph. Week after week I pass the St Philips’ Green and think about how I would photograph the Church there (under renovation), but I am usually afraid to stop because of the type of desolate area it is. They had just finished clearing the area close to the road and the Church was quite visible from the road across the cleared land, and the branches from the trees helped to frame it nicely, so that was to be my first actuation on the Canon 60D.
Although Mashramani fell in the eight week of the year, I did not necessarily want to use a photograph from that event, fortunately I had gone on a walk with Nikhil around St George’s Cathedral and I had tried out an HDR, although it has some issues, I rather liked the outcome.
I was a mere four feet from the door, but other than standing in mid-air to get the shot, this was my only option. Although I did some correcting to the distortion caused by the Sigma 10-20mm lens (and the close proximity to the subject), I still got some distortion that I couldn’t get rid of.
My aim with this HDR, was to get the doorway, but also to get as much detail on the inside that I could. Nikhil wanted to go and adjust the mat, but I thought that the angle that it was at worked fine for me.
Oh, and as usual, I neglected to lug the tripod with me, so this was handheld.
People who know me, know that I like music, I can carry a tune, I can even play one (given enough time), and I have a wide appreciation for music, meaning that I try to appreciate different styles and genres.
Everyone has their opinions, and they’re entitled to them, so not everyone will agree on the categorization of music into “good” and “bad“. I have my own definition of music, or more specifically the “tune” or “melody” that forms the body of a song; for me it’s “If you can play it on an instrument (other than the human voice) then it may be classified as a melody or tune”
Enough of the rambling, this is actually about a photograph. This was a photo that was a strong contender for the 2011 Deck – Week 51, but was passed over.
Jane has been the primary organist at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for as long as I can remember, she has her quirks, but the one thing I know is that for her, it’s about the Music. As I understood the story (as I was told as a boy) she had a development challenge and learning music (and the piano/organ) was a form of therapy, to say that Music saved her life would probably be a reasonable statement.
About the Music
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery 🙂
I think Week 50 was the worst photographically for me this year…. I have one photograph. According to Dwayne Hackett even if I took a hundred shots of the same subject that day and I used one, it’s still only one photograph, I didn’t take a hundred photographs, just a hundred attempts 🙂 I took three photographs of the same subject that week. Three!
If I thought things couldn’t be worse, I had forgotten to reset the settings on the camera… so they were taken in bright sunlight at ISO 1600.
Reminder to self (for the thousandth time) always reset your camera immediately after a shoot (or whatever session) or else you have to live with whatever the camera hands you next time!
This building is right behind DeSinCo Trading (Sheriff Street), in the little side street, I think its Craig Street, I had never noticed it before, I was waiting in the vehicle while my better half was in DeSinCo, I just couldn’t help myself after staring at it for several minutes, just got out of the vehicle and snapped three shots just to satisfy the little voice in my head that said “go take the photo, go take the photo!”
Church Closed
Its a sad sight to see places of worship that become abandoned, usually because of a lack of attendance over the years, I don’t know the story behind this one, but I was reminded while writing this post of my most recent experience in church, I was saddened at the poor attendance to Christ mas Eve’s Midnight Mass. I remember when I was younger (much younger) the Midnight Mass at the Cathedral was always packed, maybe some of the pews in the wings would be empty, but the centre of the church would be filled. Have we lost the faith that we once had or has the commercialisation of Christmas finally overtaken the true meaning for the Season?
Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery.
UPDATE: I was told by Dave that the property is now owned by DeSinCo, Frank (owner of DeSinCo) built a new church for the parishioners on Middleton Street (a short distance away), so this one was not closed for a lack of attendance but for a more practical and financial reason. 🙂
Monuments. That is basically what a tombstone or tomb-marker is, whether it’s a simple slab with a name on it or an obelisk, it’s a monument to the person interred, a reminder to the living of a person now dead.
These markers fade with time, and people forget, generations pass and the dead are lost to the living. Some are forgotten entirely, some are just names on a family tree. Do we all want to fade from memory like dawn fades to day, once there, once unique, never to be seen again, never to be remembered and referred to?
Most of us will do just that, but the few who are exceptional will live on as legends and icons of History. Whether we are remembered as tyrants or dictators, philanthropists or inventors, pioneers or adventurers, famous artists or infamous criminals depends on the decisions we make daily.
At times like this, when my thoughts stray to these realms, I remember two phrases from my early High School days. I attended St. Stanislaus College, it was a Catholic School before the government took everything over under early PNC rule in Guyana. Some things had remained as part of the teaching and tradition of the school.
The two phrases I remember were from different sources.
One was given to us as four letters to be written at the top of every page, I believe it was handed down from the Jesuits who taught at the school when it was a Catholic School; the letters were AMDG, a shortened form for Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, which meant “For the Greater Glory of God”, it was meant to encourage you to try to make everything you do, everything you say be geared towards that goal.
The second phrase was the school’s motto, Aeterna non Caduca, literally translated to “eternal non perishable”, but we were told that the motto translated to “Not for this Life, but for Eternity”. Whatever we do should not be just to have an effect now, in our lifetime, but for eternity.
Taken together they can be a driving force for a truly spectacular life, a life of meaning, unfortunately, not many would adhere to such a strict code.
Many people who happen to drop in to read my blog-posts are fellow aspiring photographers (in one way or another), we may never be an Ansel Adams or a Nick Brandt, a Frank Horvat or Mario Testino, an Irving Penn or a Steve McCurry, a Joe Rosenthal or a Don McCullin, an Henri Cartier Bresson or a Vivian Maier, but what we can do is aspire to show to anyone who will look, how we see the world through our eyes, our view-finders, our lenses, make them feel what we feel through visual stimulation (and if necessary a few words) 🙂
Can I do that? Can we do that? I don’t know, but I am sure going to give it a try!
Monument
This was taken during a photo-walk arranged by the Guyana Photographers Facebook group, lots of people thought it strange to arrange a walk in a cemetery 🙂
Click on the photo to see it larger in the Gallery.
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