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.
An outside view of the Hotel,
I had dropped by hoping for a nice “blue hour”, and took some exterior photos of the hotel. Tripod in hand, bag on my back, I kept moving from position to position for more than an hour… I think the guard was getting suspicious even though he was aware of what I was doing 🙂
Got there maybe 5:30pm, took my first shot by 5:45pm… this one was just about 6:30pm
2013 | Cara Lodge, Quamina Street, Georgetown, Guyana
I was originally just going to upload the photo and post a link to Facebook, but then I decided I actually had something to say…
Across the globe things are changing, rapidly in some places, slowly in others. While everyone is striving for an education and a job that earns a high salary, I think we too easily forget the way of life that actually matters; satisfaction at the end of the day’s work, a ready smile for friends and strangers alike, playtime as well as work-time, and actually caring about another human being.
This photo reminded me that we should pass onto other generations the joy of life, of actually living, and not just the drudgery of daily toil that has no reward but a monetary one.
Work hard, but enjoy the benefits of your labour, be able to say “I did that” with pride and with satisfaction; play easily without the need for satisfaction, but able to enjoy it for what it is, human interaction and the joy of Life; cry for joy and for sadness, because sadness means you were once joyful.
Look towards the horizon, curiosity is a good thing, but remember your roots, remember Home.
Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 18-270mm | 1/125s, f/8.0, ISO 200 (46mm)
Click on the image to see it in the “Up East” Gallery (it only has 14 pieces so far) 🙂
I had taken this photograph of one of the many trees lining the Main Street Avenue, it struck me that I could look up at these canopies along the avenue and feel a sense of calm and even tranquility but when I look back down and around me I am surrounded by rushing people, rushing vehicles, horns blaring and exhausts fuming.
Whilst processing the image I couldn’t think of much to say about this to put on the blog here… and I thought I’d take up a suggestion someone once made about using a Haiku Poem to accompany it (for some reason the image gave me an Oriental vibe). I read up on Haiku and realised that anything I attempted would likely come out wrong… and probably be laughed at by anyone who knows about Haiku, so I decided to at least put in these two paragraphs to accompany the photo, and yes I will put the attempt at Haiku under the photo… If you don’t know about Haiku, then I’ll be fine, if you do know about Haiku… just don’t laugh out loud 😀
Fresh scents, a clear day
Trees adorned with other life
A busy street thrives.
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery
A few Fridays back, I joined a few other photographers on a walk down to the large jetty (pier/groin) that marks the end of the Kingston seashore and the beginning of the Demerara River mouth.
As with all walks with photographers you go hoping to come back with a good image, or even a great one, yet when I downloaded my haul I was very disappointed, maybe I was hoping for too much.
Does this mean that the walk was not a success? No. It was what it was… a walk on the beach. To be with friends, people with a similar pursuit, and enjoy the conversation, the breeze… that was enough.
All the photos were not horrible, but not jumped out at me, yet I decided to process at least one to make a show of reaping something from the toil of the harvest.
As I look at the image I processed, I wonder if this scene will get worse or better with the development of the new Hotel on the seashore.
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other Seawall related photos
Well, I wanted to say “Playing with a Wide-angle Lens”, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration. 🙂
The word wide is relative, so I’ll describe how I use the terms, these are probably not industry accepted descriptions, so don’t quote me 🙂 Your basic entry-level DSLR usually comes with a kit lens that has a range of focal lengths from 18mm to 55mm, this I consider to be a wide telephoto lens, at the widest end (18mm) you get a nice wide view and at 55mm you get closer to close up of the subject, I consider somewhere around 33mm (on the crop-sensors) to be somewhere around “normal” (mind you, I’ll be talking from the stand-point of an APS-C sensor or crop sensor, a full frame or micro-four-thirds is an entirely different scenario)
Since this is the standard kit lens that most people get, we don’t often see it as wide, so that’s when we go Ultra-wide.
My favourite wide-angle lens (OK, the only one I have in the Ultra-wide category) is the Sigma 10-20mm, this produces pleasing images for me, and I love working with it. You get some amount of distortion at the wider end (understandable) but this tends to be good in certain circumstances.
Often, in architectural photography, you can use wides and ultra-wides to capture more of the interior, and convey more of the sense of space and more of what encompasses the room.
At other times, you can use them closer to the subject to give an increased sense of distance, even accentuate the distortion by being close (do this with people’s faces, and you’ll get some weird effects)
I used the ultra-wide to capture the corner of this building (New Building Society), along with parts of the sidewalk and sky (and a pedestrian) 🙂
There are many things you can do with a wide, many of which I don’t do, I don’t normally put it right up to people’s faces and click, but I’ve seen those photos, and it’s a neat effect 🙂
What I did in this next image was to use the ultra-wide to adjust the sense of scale, I used a fire-hydrant in the foreground to dwarf a three-story building in the background. One thing that I liked about this shot was that I didn’t have to worry about electricity wires!
The best way to see what your wide-angle lens or your ultra-wide angle lens can do is to put it on the camera and go have fun. Sometimes it makes compositions tricky as it tends to include everything, even things you may not want, but like working with any focal-length, it’s up to the photographer to adjust framing and composition for these things.
I mentioned using wide-angle lenses for interior architecture, well I doubt if a tent falls under the category of architecture, but I suspect the engineers who came up with the idea for this tent would appreciate the use of the wide-angle for impact 🙂 And would you look at the view! 🙂
All images above were shot with the Sigma 10-20mm on a Canon body, Click on the images to see them in the Collection along with others in their respective Galleries.
After lunch on my second day in Jamaica, we drove up to Cinchona Gardens, what was once a beautiful Botanical Gardens, a destination for families and tourists, an old Colonial house and out buildings, gardens and ponds, and bamboo copses. The road up to it is impassable by regular cars, so Cecil’s Safari enthusiasm came out as he tackled the mountain with gusto.
Before even going towards the Cinchona Gardens proper, the view to the right of us as we drove up was very compelling, so I just had to take a few photos in the hope that one would help express what I saw,the tops of the range were obscured by low-hanging clouds:
The Gardens stand in a spot of the mountains that is five thousand two hundred feet above sea level (5200ft), and there is usually a constant “misting” from the clouds, so most everything is wet. The first steps into the garden proper brings you to some tree stumps of tree cuttings, makes great seats for the weary 🙂
From an upper vantage point, you can see the seating area in the walled section of the garden with a small man-made pond, the sky had begun to clear a bit so that I could get more than just a blanket of gray clouds in the photos 🙂
Alexis stood for quite a while admiring the view of the valley below and the mountains in the distance, he even went as far as shouting out to hear the echo… which he got 🙂
The main building was cordoned off with a “Danger” tape,warning visitors not to go in, I was tempted to venture in, but Cecil wisely told me not to try it, so I satisfied myself with a few photos from the outside.
As the skies were clearing a bit, I took another set of photos of the view into the valley and across at the Blue Mountains, this time I could actually see the tops of the range in some areas.
From the Cinchona Gardens we were to make our way towards the Blue Mountain to visit Whitfield Hall, where people desirous of climbing the peak would start their trek, on the way there as we neared Hagley Gap, we stopped to take photos of and near an old bridge that appears to be out of use.
We stopped along the road to get a few photographs of a beautiful view down another valley, this was probably about 15 minutes outside of Whitfield Hall.
Whitfield Hall is an old House and Coffee farm, it is snuggled beneath some very very tall trees and is such a tranquil spot, we sat and ate the rest of our food before heading back home.
On the way back I couldn’t resist a passing shot of the hills/mountain showing the barbed demarcation of the end of the road, where the cliff drops down to the valley below.
Veteran Guyana Safari expeditionist Cecil Beharry (CB to his friends), told me to just let him know when I’m in Jamaica, so I told him I was coming down for a family reunion, and he insisted that he take me into the mountains, how could I refuse?
The day after I arrived in Jamaica, he took me and my cousin Alexis (I’m told he is my First cousin Once Removed, although I prefer not to have him removed) on a mountain drive, some of these spots were apparently where he “practiced” for the Pakaraima Mountain Safari in Guyana. He had just gotten back his vehicle from the last Safari, and we were going to give it another mountain drive 🙂
As it happened, we were on the road near Irish Town when we noticed some strange sounds coming from the vehicle, on stopping and checking (Alexis being a hobby mechanic and Cecil being Jamaica’s Power-steering specialist) it was discovered that there was a leak somewhere, Cecil called his son Craig to come exchange vehicles (a Trooper to the rescue)
I didn’t mind stopping / breaking down in that spot, I got a few photos, my two favourite are below:
With a new vehicle at our disposal (ok, we’ll apologise to Craig for the dents and scratches and the dirt…), we headed onto Newcastle where there was on old colonial army base that is now housed and maintained by member of the Jamaican Armed Forces (restoration work was being undertaken while we were visiting), I’ll share two photos from that location, one of the “barracks”,as I thought of them, and one of the cemetery, I must say that the view from the cemetery was very tranquil 🙂
On the way to Newcastle, we stopped to take in one of the breathtaking views of the hills/mountains, but I was also captivated by the walls along the road, they are apparently built to help retain the earth on the sides of the hills and prevent landslides, in these “walls” are holes which are meant for the drainage of water caught behind the walls, the holes are called Weeping Holes.
From Newcastle, we moved onto Holywell, where there is a camping ground, there were quite a number of youths there camping and playing. The air is crisp and cool,and the views are pretty:
And if you want to just sit and enjoy the view, here’s the chair:
After Holywell, we went to visit an old abandoned Coffee Mill, from somewhere back in the colonial days. Some of the building(s) is still intact, and the mill mechanism can still be seen there, what I was impressed to see was the waterwheel that drove the mill, I had never seen one before and I was excited about it, especially when Alexis tried to push it and it actually turned!
There was an archway in the rear wall to access the “Tennis Courts” and to see the building from the side with the water wheel. I think that archway would make a pretty nice night-time photo 🙂
I realised that this post suddenly had a lot of images, so I decides to split it, so this is it for the first part, we actually left this building and went down to the stream/creek behind it to have our lunch; KFC, stale bread and liquid refreshment (in my case a bottle of Coconut Water) 🙂
A Drive up the Rupert Craig Highway carries you past the villages of Plaisance and Sparendaam on the East Coast of Demerara. My dad had once pointed out that what most people referred to as the “Catholic Church in Plaisance” was actually situated in Sparendaam (this would be the Church of St John the Baptist), and I couldn’t help but notice that the Saint Paul’s Anglican Church at Plaisance is also in Sparendaam.
I suppose that quibbling about the name of the location is minor since the street that marks the division of the two villages is the same street that both churches are on. Now the street, that has name issues of its own…
As with most of the place names in Guyana, they reflect our past colonisations and our change from Colonial rule to Independence, the name Plaisance is of French origin, and Sparendaam comes from the Dutch. Our last colonial masters were the British, when our country was known as British Guiana, and the two main streets running the length of Plaisance were (and to some extent still are) Queen Victoria Road and Prince William Drive.
During the “Burnham years”, one of the changes (some might call it an attempt to eradicate our history) was to rename streets that held “colonial names” to names that were more meaningful to a country emerging from colonial rule and striving for successful Independence. In Georgetown one of the more notable changes was the renaming of Murray Street to Quamina Street. John Murray was the Lieutenant Governor of Demerara from 1813 to 1824, Quamina was a slave involved in one of the largest slave revolts in Demerara during that time (in 1823 actually).
In Plaisance, Queen Victoria Road was renamed to Ben Profitt Drive, and Prince William Street was renamed to Andries Noble Avenue. Ben Profitt was a notable village chairman of Plaisance, and Andries Noble is touted to be one of the best midwives of Guyana, there’s probably very few people over the age of 35 from Plaisance and Sparendaam whom she didn’t help bring into this world.
Although the name changes were made more than a couple of decades ago, the streets are still referred to by many using the original names, although most people who have grown up in the villages know them by both names, So St Paul’s Anglican Church is sometimes referred to as being on Queen Victoria Road, and sometimes on Ben Profitt Drive, likewise it is also sometimes referred to as being in Sparendaam, as well as being in Plaisance..
I started this blog post just wanting to say something about St Paul’s Anglican Church other than “Here is a photo of the church with it’s cemetery as seen through a gate in its fence”, one thing led to another and now the post is almost 500 words long.
Without further ado; “Here is a photo of the church with it’s cemetery as seen through a gate in its fence” 🙂
Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery, along with other images from this year’s Deck Project.
With the sun far past its zenith and fast approaching the horizon, long shadows are cast upon the ground. Although I knew that I wouldn’t get what I wanted, I simply had to try. The sun was still a bit too high, and it cast a fiery glow to the edge of the roof, but the shadows created by the posts drew me in and I simply HAD to take a photograph.
In the dirt there are furrows from bicycles or possibly wheel-barrows and scattered across are flower petals from a nearby tree.
Promenade Gardens, August, 2011. Click on the image for a much better view in the Gallery.
OK, for those of you who have watched way too many sequels and prequels (and even re-makes) of Nightmare on Elm Street, yes, the three “long” shadows did put me in mind of Freddy reaching from the world of dreams and darkness into our dimension.
Almost two years ago, I was invited to accompany Nikhil into our Parliament Buildings to do some photography, this being the first time I had stepped foot onto these premises, I was very excited.
And I think, like my first time at the Falls at Kato, I may have been too excited, too excited to properly take in what I was seeing and translate it into photographs.
When I first started processing these two years ago I was very excited and began with my HDR image of the grand staircase which I showcased in my blog-post “Into the Halls of Power”. After that the rest paled somewhat by comparison and I only went back to them recently.
I started off with my “Mail Drop Box” image that I had posted to my Facebook page, then a second HDR, of the Parliament Chamber, which I did a blog about.
After going through them all, I think that I’ve finally accepted what I had as better than I had thought, and I have processed my favourites from the set and uploaded them to a Gallery on my site.
I think I’d like to do a complete photo essay of this building one day, but for now I have a small selection to show; these include a few exterior shots, a few views of the famous Stabroek Market tower as seen from Parliament, a few corridor shots and even one that includes the St. Andrew’s Kirk.
If I had included a small version of each photo, this blog-post would be longer and have more space allocated to photographs then for words, so I’ve done a small graphical “film strip” with a few select images, and encourage you to click on the film strip to visit the Gallery and see the collection over on the site.
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