Phillip Williams – The Michael Lam Collection's Blog

PW_SavannahGirls — Girls of the Savanna - A Phillip Williams Photograph

You know …no you don’t know what can happen after a shot is taken, after a single moment is captured and frozen in time. Sometimes, no, most times that image lives on long after the person or object is gone. Phillip Williams (on Facebook)

A photograph is a moment frozen in time, given how some of us take photographs it could be a moment that is a split second, or minutes (those nifty long exposures that show light trails at night or even star trails in the sky). Phillip Williams captured a moment, a beautiful photograph at Guyana’s Rodeo showing two lovely women on horseback. The one to the left with the blue tie around her neck is Cheryl, a friend of Cheryl’s told Phil that she took her own life late last year, may she rest in peace. I am not a reporter and I can’t verify this, but it’s not relevant to the emotions and thoughts that go through people’s minds when they hear things like this.

As photographers we should remember that we capture moments of people’s lives, and those moments are tied to memories, photographs can be very powerful when it comes to evoking an emotion. Phil’s photo makes me want to head off to the Rodeo to see what these young ladies would be doing, it gives me a longing for Lethem and the open savannah outside, it brings back memories of vaulted skies and distant mountains.

For friends and family of Cheryl, this photo may bring joyful memories of the Rodeo, of how she lived and laughed and loved, or it may bring back painful memories of her death and the sorrow that those who loved her felt at her passing, and the unanswered questions about the “why” of it all.

If you are going to call yourself a photographer, a photo-hobbyist, an amateur photographer, an aspiring photographer, and yes, even a snapshottist, what you produce with each shutter-click can be very meaningful. Will every photograph we take have that impact, probably not! Should we strive to make every photograph that we show to others have more meaning than just a shutter-click, definitely!

I wanted Phil to do a small write-up, but he said he is more of a “Visual” type of guy, no argument there, he’s quite a talented photographer and videographer, his photos and videos do their own story-telling, I seem to like adding words to mine 🙂

Click on the photo to see the original at Phil’s Flickr feed.

Well, it’s not the first time I’ve had a photo used in a project, but this is the first time since I started a blog 🙂 I had two photographs printed in the 2010 Calendar for the Guyana National Trust.

Scotiabank (Guyana) did their 2011 Calendars through a firm called KRITI, who approached a number of photographers who had some local scenes with a slight emphasis on the skies above, be it dramatic skies, overcast skies or just beautifully clouded skies. Of the six photographs featured, there were five “local” photographers and one foreign photographer (who lived here for two years, so he’s as local as foreigners get).

Below are some snapshots of the calendar with links to the photographer’s pages that I could get. (Click on the photos to go to the photographer’s pages)

Starting of was Nikhil’s image along the LBI (La Bonne Intention) shore,

Then Dwayne Hackette’s Sunset along the Berbice River,

Phillip William’s Earth Station photograph,

Philip Williams: Earth Station, Carifesta Avenue, Georgetown, Guyana

Rustom Seegopaul’s Georgetown from the Harbour Bridge crossing the Demerara River

My Lonesome Tree photograph from the Hamburg (Tiger Island) in the Essequibo River (taken when I shot with a Canon S5 Bridge Camera

Lonesome Tree on the Hamburg — Michael Lam: Lonesome Tree, Tiger Island, Essequibo River

and to top it all off with James Broscombe’s Great Balls of Fire, from the Rupununi

To be absolutely frank, the image of James’ Great Balls of Fire in the calendar does not do the original photo Justice, definitely click on the image above for a good look at the photo on his blog.

It should be noted that these cover all three major rivers of Guyana, the Georgetown Coastline and the Interior. If you are a Scotiabank Guyana customer, make sure to collect your copy 🙂

Thanks to Scotiabank and a special thanks to Sita at KRITI.