2011 Deck – Week 45

On December 21, 2011December 21, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography4 Comments

This week’s photo serves two purposes, one is a short explanation of “how I did it” and the second is… well, it’s a moon shot, what’s not to like 🙂

Someone recently asked me how I got the moon with such detail, I had to have someone give me tips once, so its easy to pass along what I know, hopefully someone else can improve and even tell me other things 🙂

Shooting the moon. First tip, use a tripod, it helps to have a stable camera when you’re doing this (most of my moon shots were without tripods though), The important bit is the metering, I use a spot metering mode. I simply set the camera to spot metering, (my camera only uses the centre focus point for this), I use the centre focusing spot in the display, make sure that is centred on the moon, and half-press the shutter-button to focus, then recompose and click. Really simple.

What the spot-metering does is meter the lighting for just the moon instead of trying to evaluate the lighting of the entire scene (in this case the whole sky)

Now normally we crop these images to show the moon in its full glory, well, I crop it since this is the whole image from my maximum zoom on the Tamron 18-270 lens. I left this uncropped because I actually like it this way this time.

The moon is set against a dark sky (it was somewhat lighter before I processed), I look at it and think that it must be lonely up there, I’ll never fly into space like those great astronauts and cosmonauts, not fly to the upper atmospheres like jet-fighter pilots, but I still think that even after the initial moments of wonder and awe, it must be lonesome up there. I am thankful for the family I have, the friends I have, the co-workers that I have (even those that have moved on).

If you’re ever feeling lonely, go out under the open sky, look at the moon and remember that under that same moon, there are billions of people, and somewhere there is someone who is thinking of you.

Because of the background colour (at the time of writing this) I suggest you click on the image for a better viewing at the Gallery 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 44

On December 20, 2011December 20, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography5 Comments

I didn’t have time to go running for the kit lens and my Raynox macro clip-on, so I shot this with the lens that was on the camera, the Tamron 18-270.

I must say, I don’t think it came out too bad… I was looking for something to shoot, when I noticed some movement in the grass, I think this is the one we generally call a stink-bug… maybe.

2011 Deck – Week 43

On December 19, 2011December 19, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography6 Comments

Every year I tell myself that I will try to get some really good photos during the festival of Diwali (or Deepavali), the Hindu Festival of Lights, I haven’t really made the effort to do this for the last few years. This year I thought I could at least get a photo of one of the many men (yes, and sometimes women/girls) who spin lighted steel-wool in the streets. I think to myself, it can’t be hard right? How can I mess it up?

And then I forget the Tripod….

So, I really wanted to use one of those shots, so here it is 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 42

On December 17, 2011December 17, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography6 Comments

Many times on a walk in the city I would take a photo of The Lodge, I don’t think I’ve ever used any of the photographs before, and since this week had very slim pickings, I chose one that I took in passing. Actually I had a choice from eight subjects, this one just seemed better than the rest. 🙂

This is one of those photos that when writing about it I feel very silly. I don’t know anything about this place and I’ve seen it all my life. Its one of those places that everyone just refers to as The Lodge, and they give you a knowing look, so I never asked, and was never told. I’m sure those conspiratorial glances were more ignorance rather than knowledge.

So it seems to me that maybe I should ask someone… what is that place and what really goes on in there? Do you think I’ll get answers on the blog? 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 41

On December 15, 2011December 15, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography8 Comments

The month of October is earmarked in many countries as Breast Cancer Awareness month, and although I have quite a number of photos for the week, but I happen to think that this one has a more meaningful effect for me and for others.

While I do not normally go for these selective desaturated images, or the “accent colour” black and whites than some others do, but I thought that it was something that worked for this particular image.

The Beauty and Home Systems Inc. Guyana (the local Avon people) annually make a big deal of this and the wrap the trees lining the avenue down Camp Street with Pink cloth (possibly as a representation of the Breast Cancer Pink Ribbon), for a few years I have been meaning to stop and take a photograph, but never did until this year.

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 40

On December 14, 2011December 14, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Sometimes we just take a walk out to the seawall for, well, a walk 🙂 We go to see the boats, walk in the water, enjoy the breeze… well, the children go walking in the water anyway.

This photo was taken on one of those walks, there’s a spot at Lusignan where the boats that have finished their day’s fishing are moored, the fishermen are finishing up their day’s work, where the catch of the day is off-loaded and packed for sale, it was at this spot we walked to, my daughter and her cousin are down at the water’s edge, and I’m walking ahead to look back and, or course, snap some photographs 🙂

I could try saying a lot more, but I think in this instance the photo can speak for itself 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 39

On December 13, 2011December 13, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography10 Comments

A Return to the Scene.

Last year Nikhil and I were unfortunate enough to be robbed, I did a post on it back then, although we were quite traumatised and our families admonished us to stop walking “all about the place” taking photographs, we haven’t stopped, and in that year we’ve made many more friends in the photographic circle in Guyana. Thanks to Fidal and his idea of a Group on Facebook, we have been fortunate to meet other local photographers of varying expertise and different visions, just seeing what they’ve been doing has emboldened us to see a brighter future for photography in Guyana.

As a symbolic gesture we returned to the scene of the crime, this time, with more caution, and I was armed with a monopod! 🙂

The afternoon was not ideal for me, but I decided to try an HDR looking towards the spot where we were attacked and robbed.

Return to the scene — Return to the Scene

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 38

On December 12, 2011December 12, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

On this week, I only went out to take photos on one occasion, and on that occasion I took 45 photos, and I was way odd that afternoon, most were very underexposed. It wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling in the mood, I was fairly enthusiastic, I was enjoying the fresh air, the brief walk, and the scenery, but I never once looked down at the screen to check my photos, no chimping.

I was fairly disappointed but one of them had to work 🙂 I chose one that appealed to me in a general sense and felt that it would work well in monochrome, after playing with the processing for a while I found I wasn’t getting what I felt the scene needed, so I took the file into Nik’s HDR Efex to try a single image BW tone-mapping, and amazingly got what I thought was a good final processed image. I would never consider this a true HDR, since I only used one image, but the tone-mapping of the HDR software helped bring out the details that I wanted in this image.

2011 Deck – Week 37

On December 10, 2011December 10, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography10 Comments

It’s the little things. Whether its an unexpected hug, or a smile to brighten your day, it’s the little things that make a big difference sometimes.

I was at my mother’s place and my daughter said she was going to see the flowers and she wanted me to take photos of them, I know many of my fellow enthusiasts are not “flower people” and many of the female Photogs I know are very into taking photos of flowers. I went with my daughter to see the flowers, and while I wasn’t enthusiastic, I found myself being caught up in her joy and simple pleasure of seeing the flowers.

Sometimes, it’s the Little things that matter.

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 36

On December 9, 2011December 9, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Since the members of the Guyana Photographers (Facebook Group) started doing PhotoWalks it has provided me with other opportunities to get out and do some photography, as well as to see and admire the photos emerging in the group from these walks, there truly is a lot of enthusiasm and talent among the members.

On one of those walks (this one was to the villages of Good Hope and Triumph, I got what I thought were good shots, then I saw what others put up and realized that mine were all just OK 🙂

I fell into the trap set by all the enthusiasm and put my better shots onto the Group’s Page, without thinking to reserve at least one for this post, so a-hunting I went through my images for one that I could use. You can check out some of the photos from the group in the 3rd Photo Walk album Facebook.