Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái

On February 3, 2011February 3, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography22 Comments

Happy New Year! Today is Chinese New Year, the year of the Rabbit! To anyone of the Elmer Fudd persuasion, leave the Wabbits alone, go Duck hunting 🙂

Last night there was a display of Festive Lanterns, or Khom Fai, to mark the occasion in Guyana, and it was a very nice display, if you got there in time. And when I say in time I mean before the time that was originally advertised. Originally billed for a 7pm start (even one of the organisers Facebook page has it that way still) there was apparently a change during the day and it was moved up, anyone reaching for 7pm would have missed it (almost entirely), I arrived 15 minutes before seven and almost missed it 🙂 Maybe next year I’ll camp out an hour before hand. It was held at the Parade Ground, Georgetown.

It’s not a great photo, but it gives you the idea of what went on!

Festive Lanterns. Handheld, 0.3s, f/3.5, ISO 3200

On a Breezy Afternoon

On January 29, 2011January 29, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography12 Comments

I liked how this particular image came out, not necessarily for art, but for the framing of the couple on the bench. It’s one of those Georgetown Seawall scenes that can be somewhat iconic.

This scene brings to mind the song by Dave Martins and the Tradewinds entitled “In Guyana”, it’s mostly of a time gone by, and mostly even before my time, but some of it pulls at my heartstrings.

Sunsets on the seawall, enjoying the breeze, Sweet Caribbean Music, blowing through the trees, a stroll along the seawall, from the Bandstand to Ayanganna, that’s how it was, In Guyana…

OK, I know those aren’t the words to the song, but I hope Dave won’t hold that against me 🙂

The Parallel Project – Starburst

On January 24, 2011January 24, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, The Parallel Project20 Comments

There are special filters that you can buy to create those “star-burst” effects from very bright points of light, but you can also do this by using a small aperture, the aperture rings in the lens will help to produce this same star-burst effect without you going out and buying those filters. Of course, the filters do give some very neat effects 🙂

I had intended this experiment for a night scene, but as I was in the park accompanying Nikhil, I thought I’d try it out using the sun as my source of bright light. (I even took shots with a larger aperture to make sure it was working as it should)

The Tree in the Park. 1/30s, f/16, ISO 400, 18mm

100

On January 21, 2011January 21, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography13 Comments

Normally on a Friday, I post the newest photo for the Deck Project, but I will have to post that tomorrow. This is my one-hundredth post since starting this blog, so I was looking for something special to do to mark it.

I decided to go through the photos that I’ve taken since using this current camera, the Canon EOS Rebel T1i, and I found three images that I thought would mark the occasion nicely.

Firstly, an image taken on the one-hundredth day of 2010, I only took photos on one subject that day, so I had to choose one from those, and one that I had not already uploaded. I may never see Washington DC (especially when the Cherry Blossoms are blooming) so this tree is our Guyanese version 🙂

Secondly, the one-hundredth photograph, or more specifically the one-hundredth shutter-activation of the T1i. This was from a project I did for Banks DIH, they were soon to open the new fine-dining restaurant and bar now known as OMG! This scene is from inside the restaurant, This is among the first experiences I’ve had with a Digital SLR camera.

Thirdly, I had reached and surpassed nine-thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine shutter actuations on the camera, and the numbering had started over, so the next photo is the second one hundredth image by number on the camera, so technically it’s the ten thousand and one hundredth image.

I started this blog with a post called “Before Our God”, with an image taken at the funeral of my maternal grand-mother, coincidentally on the one-hundredth post, an image from that same day is numbered 100.

For all those who have gone before us, those with us and those to come after us, most of us eventually realize that photography is more than just clicking the shutter-release button, it’s about the Moment, the Memory and the Meaning of the scene you have captured.

September Monochromes

On October 13, 2010October 15, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography15 Comments

I decided on the name before I realised that I have one that was actually taken in October, but since I am unable to come up with a new creative sounding name, it remains as September Monochromes.

I want to start off with a Sepia image, it’s not necessarily a great image, but I liked the elements; seashore, people – young and not-so-young, and a fishing rod.

The next is the first of the Black and White images, it is one that I recently entered into a DP Review challenge called Clouds, I was experimenting with a borrowed Canon 80-200mm lens and most of the images came out very low contrast, so like the Sepia one above, most of the rest I’ve rendered in monochrome. This one came out much better than expected, I had to give it a title for the challenge, so that’s how the title came to be.

Along the seashore, you are sure to find a coconut washed ashore by the waves, this one was partway up a concrete sloped walkway on the seawall, maybe washed there but probably kicked there by some youngster.

The final image is the one taken in October, after our Robbery ordeal and we daringly went right back to the Kingston Promenade, I like the clouds in the sky and thought that the lighthouse silhouetted against it would look nice 🙂

They were doing some renovation work to the lighthouse, so you might notice the scaffolding on the sides of it there.

The Deck Weeks 31 and 32

On August 12, 2010August 28, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography1 Comment

I have to play catch-up this week, since I missed out on uploading my Deck photo for last week, so this week is a double upload and blog. I had already decided what photograph I would have most likely used for the Deck, but I did not get a chance until this week to process the remaining images from my vacation.

The Deck photo for Week 31 is a parting shot from St Martin, over on the French side, on the beach front near Marigot, we were waiting for the boat to arrive for our final adventure, a chance to see the corals and fishes under the sea through the transparent underside of a “glass-bottomed” boat. My underwater shots came out terrible, but I loved this scene from the shore:

In the last week, I took photographs on three occasions, one was at a funeral, the other two were on afternoon walks with Nikhil, but for some reason I was not getting the “feel” for the scenes or subjects. My final photograph of today turned out to be one that I was pleasantly surprised with, I took another shot at the New Thriving Chinese Restaurant. The image is a pseudo-HDR, since I also wanted to try out a new software that Nikhil had recently introduced me to, it is still in the Beta (testing) stage, but I am rather impressed by it. It introduces a new type of HDR called HDR ReLight as well as doing the regular tone mapping type HDR, but it also processes RAW files, which I shoot primarily. This was the portion that I wanted to try, and I was rather pleased with the result, the software is Oloneo PhotoEngine, give it a try if you like HDRs or you shoot in RAW.

Here’s the photo for the Deck Week 32, I hope you like it.

Back Street

On July 27, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn PhotographyLeave a comment

In Philipsburg, Sint Maarten there’s a street called Back Street, my wife was so excited to go there I was all but dragged along on the first “working” day of the week down this particular street. It is the second street after the waterfront in Philipsburg, the first street has Casinos, Jewelery shops and the like, but Back Street has the deals. Philips burg is so picturesque, I could stroll it for hours, actually we did stroll Back Street for hours 🙂

I got a few nice ones and more on the site. Click on the images to go to the site with the Sint Maarten Collection, as of this blog-post, there are 20 new images from yesterday’s walk.

Backstreet looks to be part of the “Old St Maarten”, the road is actually asphalt cobbles, not laid asphalt like most roads, some of the architecture is new, but you can still see the older architecture in some of the buildings of Philipsburg. I could try to describe things, but I’m no architect, and even things on the roads and pavements may defy my descriptive powers, and I certainly don’t know the names of some of them.

I’ll let the photographs do the talking.