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.
Today we honour one of the more famous of the Street Photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson (born August 22, 1908). I won’t try to mimic or even come close to his type and style of street photography… but here’s a Georgetown Scene for you.
Morning Munchies
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with some other Street Photographs.
I’m not a street photographer, far from it, I am not only very hesitant to engage with people on the street, I am also very afraid that when taking candid shots they will see me shooting and think I’m up to something nefarious and then accost me (verbally and physically). While I like the genre, understand some things about it, try to encourage others into pursuing it, I don’t see myself excelling at it at any time.
While there are times when I am afraid to take a photo of people as they go about their daily lives, there are those other moments when the people of Guyana surprise me (whether they mistake me for a tourist or are just in that mood, I don’t know) and they literally ask for their photo to be taken, most times I am still hesitant, but I do sometimes simply swing the camera in their direction and shoot.
Georgetown Seawall | Seawall Public Road
By the way, that’s a Banks Beer in his hand 🙂
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery
Other than being in the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group, I’m also a member of a few other Facebook photography groups… one of them is the Guyana Mobile Photographers, which focuses on photographs taken with mobile devices, such as my phone. There was a suggestion of there being “challenges” for the members to push themselves, I had just walked out of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on a Sunday morning when Avinash suggested to the group to use “worship” as the theme, I quickly ran back inside with the phone in hand to see what I could snap… I couldn’t believe my luck at this scene.
From the time I uploaded it I knew that I’d be using it as the Deck Photo for that week…
Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos | Instagram
Click the image to see it in the Gallery, you can also check out how my experiment with mobile photography is going over on Instagram.
I lived in Charlestown (Georgetown, Guyana) for a short while after we got married, if I crossed the street, I’d then be in Albouystown. Back then I had my first access to a digital camera, an Agfa ePhoto 1280 (Megapixel? what’s that?). It was mainly for work purposes, but through it I learnt a few things about digital photography, and it probably rekindled my interest in photography at the time.
I had read somewhere that Charlestown (and Charles Street) was named after the Duke of Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand (or Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, his original German name), but why a Ward of Georgetown, Guyana is named after a German Duke is a question I can’t answer.
Charlestown, at the time I lived there, was still quite “quaint”, in respect to the type of buildings, but even then things had begun to change, with one or two square concrete building being erected where once stood more aesthetic wooden structures, but times change, and change is inevitable. Fortunately, change is also slow, comparatively, and some of the older buildings are still standing. I walked, rode or drove past an old wooden building on the corner of Broad Street and Charles Street for many years, when I took up photography a bit more seriously, I kept an eye on it and kept putting off taking a photo, one day I decided that the “For Sale” sign meant that it may be bought and torn down, so I made the extra effort to stop and spend a few minutes grokking the scene seeking out a nice photo, waiting for the “perfect” photo was out of the question, so I just wanted a “nice” one.
Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-500 | 1/400s, f/10, ISO 400
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images in the “Georgetown, Guyana” album.
The Art of Photography and Photography as Art
2015 – Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm
This blog post is a milestone of sorts, it marks my five hundredth blog post. It began on a sad note, with a photo from my maternal grandmother’s funeral, it has been more of a photo journey rather than a photo blog, more about myself and the photos than about the photos themselves I suppose, so it’s rather like a journal…almost… of sorts.
On this journey I’ve learnt a lot, with still much more to learn, I’ve met many other people with a passion for photography, and many who love to look at beautiful imagery.
I have learnt that there is a difference between the Art of Photography and Photography as Art, and I believe that it is a realization that comes to most of us who pursue it with an aim for creating “art”.
2010 – Canon T1i, Sigma 18-270mm
It sounds presumptuous even to my own ears to refer to anything that I produce with the camera as “art”, but people like my friend Nikhil would thump me behind the head for even saying that. Not everything I take can be considered as art, so I humbly submit that I have a few that may be taken into consideration by those who are more knowledgeable than myself and more in-tune with the art world to be judged and pronounced as art.
Nikhil would also tell me that I have had work exhibited once at the National Gallery of Art (Castellani House) and have also been among the finalists in two of the recent Guyana Visual Arts Competitions, so I can’t get away with trying to play modest about being called an “artist”.
2011 – Canon Rebel T1i – Tamron 18-270mm
I began as most of us probably did with learning to use the camera and just snapping away at anything and everything that caught my eye.
After a while it began to be more important to learn and understand the art of photography, to understand how light plays an important part, where paying attention to composition results in a much better photo of the same subject. The art of photography is to know your camera (whether it’s a mobile device such as cellphones or a larger DSLR) to learn what it can and cannot do, and to know how to use it to accomplish what you want. Like any craftsman worth his salt, the art of the craft is the union of the person and the tools at hand.
It is good to learn different techniques, different approaches, different styles; that can be part of your arsenal, but it need not define the photograph you take.
2012 – Canon T1i, Tamron 18-270mm
The photograph is an extension of your self, it is a product of your own thoughts and skills, when the photograph stops being just a snapshot and becomes an expression of an idea, a concept, more than just a moment frozen in time, then it is possible that you have created a piece of art.
Photography as Art has to be more than just a pretty photo of a pretty scene or even a technically perfect photo of a dilapidated house, for a photograph to be Art it should have soul, it should convey an idea, elicit a reaction from the viewer, it has to be seen, talked about, appreciated or ridiculed even.
2013 – Canon EOS 60D, Tamron 18-270mm
Not many of us in Guyana can successfully claim to be original in our photographs, most of it has been done before and by better artists than ourselves, Photography as an Art has to overcome the fact that everyone now has access to a device that captures images, and in the maelstrom of images swirling around the internet we have to produce a piece that stands out, that makes people stop and look, but also to have them remember it afterwards, to recall it and speak about it.
Art is subjective, that’s basically saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it is not enough for the creator of the piece to want it to be art, the viewer has to appreciate the piece, not necessarily from the perspective of the creator but from how it affects them.
2014 – Canon EOS 6D, Canon 24-105mm
All the images in this post are “new to you”, they are from the six years than span this blog, 2010 to 2015, one from each calendar year. I went through the files looking for images that I have overlooked, or just not processed, not looking for any subject in particular, but for images I think worth processing, worth sharing and reflect what I would like to show others.
I hope that at least one strikes your fancy.
Click on each one to see them in their respective galleries in the Collection. Thank you for being a part of my journey so far.
In Guyana, when you’re hungry and you want some “fast food” (that’s a relative term, as anyone who has been to a fast food restaurant knows only too well) the place to go is the nearest Chinese Restaurant, or maybe not the nearest, but one you know and trust… ok, trust is a strong word; the one that hasn’t given you “belly-wuk” as yet.
As you can imagine, it’s unlikely that I’d be in a Chinese Restaurant with the camera in hand, but these days the built-in cameras on our cellphones (mobile phones for you northerners) are pretty decent, a year ago I’d probably never have tried to take this photo, but with different gear comes a different attitude.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos | Instagram
I’ve been in that chair, probably with the same expression, a few times before… 🙂
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery, for other images from my mobile phone photography experimentation, check my feed on Instagram.
Psychologists and psychiatrists make big deals out of “association”…
I saw this scene and thought to myself that the reflective safety vests reminded me of the song YMCA by the Village People, then that led me to thinking about Men at Work, the band that sang “Land Down Under”… do you think the pipes being put “under the ground” is an inference as well?
Don’t know what psychologists or psychiatrists would make of me, but for now I’ll avoid seeing any. and I should probably avoid the Canje area for a little while too 😀
This isn’t a great photo, but ever since I took it I’ve been thinking that I still like it for some reason… so I finished the processing and uploaded.
Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-50mm | Uncomposed moving shot.
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
Each week it is hard to make a choice of a photo for the Deck Project, mostly because its hard to separate the emotion involved with the image at the time of it’s being taken and the merits of the image itself, but for Week 8 of 2015, I think it’s mostly because I think to myself that I came away from that week, which was mostly Mashramani images, with what I thought of as very uninspiring and “average” images.
Seven weeks later and I was finally able to look at them and chose one that I felt was different, or maybe just not the “usual” of the crop.
Am I happy with it? Yes. There are quite a few that I’m happy with, but it seems to me that I now want a little “more” from my images than just the “pretty picture”. I’m not there yet, but I’ll keep trying.
Context: this reveler was very close up behind the truck, it was 3 in the afternoon, although the sky was partially overcast, the sun was shining nicely down on the parade at this point.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF24-105mm f/4L
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
A street photograph – as much as I can get one 🙂
It really needs very few words, but what caught my attention was the way the police officer and her companion deliberately walked diagonally off the pedestrian crossing…
In Guyana… is just suh!
2014 | Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-50mm
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with some other attempts at Street Photography 🙂
Each year I normally do a post on the Children’s Parade, then follow up with one that I’d choose for the Deck, this year, call it laziness, or expediency, or simply a desire to show the one that I was excited about, I will do it all in one post.
This year’s parade was marred by some rain, and when I say marred, I mean for me and my equipment, most of the children seemed to quite enjoy themselves in the changing weather 🙂
I got a few good photos, more than a few “eh” photos and maybe one or two better than average ones…
The one I chose for the Deck may not have the same impact on the viewer as it had on me as I am still fresh with the emotion and excitement of the moment… the rain was still falling, my sister Mary was trying to hover near me with an umbrella (she knows how expensive camera gear is) and the young man who was pulling the main float of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs had seen me and was dancing and heading straight for me performing all the way.
I don’t normally chimp, but soon after he had passed and there was a short lull in the parade I scrolled back to see if I got anything that was usable, and even on the on-camera screen I could tell, it was about 85% good. 🙂
Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, 2015
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with the other images for this year’s Deck Project.
The other images I have from the Children’s Parade are in the Mashramani 2015 – Children’s Parade Gallery, click on the image below to see them all in the Gallery
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