End of an Era

On September 13, 2010September 13, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Commentary, Photography15 Comments

I doubt if I have all the facts, but I think I have the general gist of the thing. For as many years as I can remember, and probably for as many years as I have existed, there have been three “Gas Stations” on Vlissengen Road, right next to one another; from north to south it was Texaco, then Esso and then Shell. I think most Guyanese grew up calling these places Gas Stations, instead of the more internationally acceptable “Petrol Station” or “Service Station”. At Mashramani time, these stations were always popular meeting places, and even “drinking places”.

A few years ago, the Shell service stations were purchased by Sol, and are operated under the Shell brand/franchise, shortly after that Sol also bought out the Esso service stations, these now operate either unbranded or as Sol service stations. So at this point Sol had two service station competing with each other, right next door to each other, on Vlissengen Road. I figure that it was only a matter of time before one had to close down.

The Esso service Station was known by many as the KC Correia Service Station, and it has been under that management for more years than I care to count. I was told that it is now closing its doors. That is sad, but changes are inevitable and we must either change with it or be left behind. It seems that the old Esso Station was chosen to close its doors over the more modern Shell Station.

I took this photo last Friday, not knowing when I would get the chance again.

Fence Topper

On September 11, 2010September 11, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography9 Comments

One of my favourite photographs is one that I did twice 🙂 You know, so nice I did it twice? Anyway, I took it originally when I shot with the Canon PowerShot S5, a beauty of a camera, bigger than a compact, but a super-zoom with amazing results, and then when I moved onto shooting an SLR, I tried again to shoot a similar shot, similar because you can never get the same shot twice, not really. That was my “Fleur de Lis Fence Toppers“, and although I was less pleased the second time around, it was probably because I was expecting more.

Recently I took another shot of a Fence Topper and did a monochromatic rendering, several of them had already “disappeared” off the fence, so instead of trying to catch several of them I concentrated on one and tried to get a nice background, nice not as in scenery, but complimentary.

The Deck – Week 36

On September 10, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography5 Comments

It wasn’t a very good week for me as photography goes, but of the few good ones I did put aside, I had a hard choice as to which one I would be using for this week’s Deck photo. What I ended up doing was displaying them all on the screen and see which one jumped out at me, whether it was just different because of colour, composition, content, or if it was just very different to what I’ve taken recently, this shot stood out from the rest.

It is simple, but I like it 🙂 In Guyana, this is called “Bora”, taken at one of the stalls on Merriman’s Mall by Bourda Market.

The sojourn continues

On September 8, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography14 Comments

I had first created a Sepia album when I frequently uploaded to WebShots (I slowed down because of their whole “captcha” usage for putting comments, too many people complained), and I had called it Sojourn in Sepia, I like the alliterative title. As I gained confidence in my photography I found that I was taking more and more images geared toward monochromatic post-processing, so the sojourn continues with this one that I took last week.

The latest addition to the Sepia album is one I tried on a walk down Brickdam, I was standing back waiting for Nikhil to take some shots when I looked up and noticed this stair and landing framed by the trunk of the tree.

On another note, all along I’ve been using the WordPress.com as the main blogging address, and I’ve also been using the sub domain as a forwarder although it wasn’t being treated as a full sub-domain, today I made it into a fully applicable sub domain, so all the blog address are now blog.themichaellamcollection.com addresses with sub-folders etc. The sojourn continues. 🙂

Also Ran

On September 7, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography10 Comments

So, I’m figuring that if it’s not a photograph for The Deck, or something thematic like Monochromes, what do I do with the photographs? Nikhil came up with a brilliant idea for his blog, he started a weekly review of his photos for his 365 Project. That gave me an idea for these photographs that don’t fit into my regular type of blog post, here’s the ones that did not make it onto The Deck 🙂

First up is this image taken in the Gardens, I was off to get the photograph of the Kissing Bridge when I found this corner of the bridge interesting, so I shot it, I still can’t quite put my finger on the reason it interests me, it just does, so I tried my best to frame it right and get a decent photograph of it.

Corner column, Kissing Bridge, Botanical Gardens

Then, of course, there is the bridge itself! Although I preferred the one I used that week for the deck which was in Black and White, I did take one in portrait orientation that I quite liked as well, so I dropped that one into my “Georgetown,Guyana” album, and here it is 🙂

I used to take a lot of photographs of flowers, that was when I shot with a Canon PowerShot S3 and S5, it seems that since I moved onto an SLR my focus has changed (excuse the pun), but every once in a while I still catch one in my viewfinder and get a fairly decent shot of it, like this one I saw on Brickdam.

And then, of course, there’s one of my favourite areas to photograph things, the Seawall. I often just thought of the seawall as just the Georgetown Seawall, but it extends along most of our coastline, these two were taken up near the village of Montrose, which is known most for the Starlite Drive-in, although I am not certain when it was exactly the they last showed a movie there.

Well, now that I have gotten that off my chest, I can rest knowing that these have not been ignored 🙂 I hope you enjoy one or more.

Three for the weekend

On September 4, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography9 Comments

I really really thought long and hard for a title for this post, and couldn’t come up with a single thing worth using, so here’s three for the weekend…. Three photos, that is; this is a blog about my photographs after all.

The first is a building that I have had my eye on for some time, I seldom ever see it without a few to several vehicles in front of it, and I didn’t want the vehicles in the photograph, at least not this photograph, I wanted the building. Of course getting a nice composition is challenging, especially with the many wires crisscrossing the street in front of the building. Whenever I saw it nice and clear, the lighting would not be optimal, and whenever the lighting was right, the place was very very busy, well I finally saw it clear and with a nice morning light.

It only takes a small rain shower to ensure that pedestrians walk on the roads instead of the pavement, especially on Avenue of the Republic, it probably only rained for about ten minutes the morning I took this, normally I wouldn’t be tempted to take a photograph, but the sun had come out and the colours were popping and it was even evident in the reflections in the water 🙂

Two days ago, Nikhil did a very nice close up shot for his 365 Project, and while I was also captured by the colours of the structures, I decided to wait and see what else about the scene would capture my attention, as it turns out I liked the house and tree more than the structures 🙂 This is also a move away from the norm for me, I usually do proportionate cropping if I crop the image, but in this case I found a square crop to be optimal for the image (that and I really needed to crop out the other buildings on the left without losing some of the elements in the shot)

Hadfield Street and Brumell Place (taken while standing in Louisa Row)

It seems I forgot to mention that all three are in Georgetown, Guyana. Three different days and three very different images of Georgetown 🙂

August Monochromes

On August 30, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography12 Comments

I had a few images that I rendered in monochrome this month, these were the results of three walks I did with Nikhil, I got a few nice coloured images, but more that I processed in monochrome, which is unusual for me. I have a few friends who always love my monochromatic work, so I think that they will like these images 🙂

I know that the title “monochromes” cover more than just black & white and sepia images, but I have not quite gotten around to expressing myself in the other formats as yet, although some of my black & white images are actually more of a selenium tone rather than pure black & white. I tend to lean towards the idea that if it is close to black & white, then that’s where I will categorize it, even if it does have a slight tinge of another colour. If the effect is more obvious, then I will rethink its category.

To start it off I have two Sepia images, one from the shore at the Kingston Promenade seawall and the second from the Manatee Pond at the Botanical Gardens, Georgetown.

And now for the Black and Whites, I have four new added to the album; and they go like this:

I have found a fondness for monochromatic images, now all I have to do is learn how to represent them better and better, each time I try one I find something new, sometimes I want lots of detail and other times I want high contrast with starkness, sometime I want a bit of both. Hopefully I am learning all the time 🙂

Two from the Shore

On August 28, 2010August 28, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography12 Comments

I was going to title this post “Two from the Seawall” but since the seawall itself does not feature prominently in either of the photos, I changed my mind.

I had taken these since the 20th of this month, but never moved them to the Seawall album, nor blogged it until now, my Deck photo that week took precedence and these fell by the wayside (so to speak).

Of course, I prefer one over the other, and I suppose everyone will have a preference, but I have found that when it comes to photography, there is never a time when everyone can agree on which photograph is the “better” one. When I first started taking photographs, I had often tried to upload photographs that I thought others would like, then quickly realized that this didn’t work for me. Now, I upload what I think are good photos, even if there are two or three that look similar, if I like them enough, up they will go. By doing this, I have found that there is a great diversity in the “likes” and “dislikes” of those viewing my images, some that one group will like another will dislike and so forth.

Afternoon Cardio - 5723 — Afternoon Cardio

I wanted to try out a poll on my blog and this seemed as good a time to try it as any, so take a second and just let me know, which do you prefer?

The Deck – Week 34

On August 27, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography13 Comments

I have always been fascinated by the “Kissing Bridges” in the Botanical Gardens, ever since I was a child and saw paintings of it on someone’s wall or prints in the old GTC telephone directories. These bridges have been photographed and painted for decades and I find it hard to do a current photograph of it, I have tried a few times and never been satisfied with what I came away with.

It may also have to do with the time of day that I’ve tried 🙂 recently it has always been midday, I really should try an early morning or afternoon and see what comes of it.

I was back in there again this week with Nikhil, trying to get his photo for his 365 Project, and there I was faced with the bridge again. This time, I came away with something that I was happy with, it may not be the iconic images that live on in my memory and on canvas, but I think it speaks for itself.

My photo for the 2010 Deck for the thirty-fourth week of the year: The Kissing Bridge

Kissing Bridge - 5732 — Kissing Bridge, Botanical Gardens, Georgetown, Guyana.

The Deck – Week 33

On August 20, 2010August 28, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography8 Comments

At the risk of looking like a total idiot, I went onto the road at midday yesterday for this week’s Deck photograph, walked under a few of the trees lining Avenue of the Republic, stood as close to centre under each as I could get and pointed the camera upwards. Needless to say, I drew a few stares, lots of people wondering if the chinaman had finally lost all his marbles, or if there was a cat up the tree (we don’t see many cats up trees in Guyana, must be a northern thing)

This was one of the few “planned” shots, I usually wing it, go out and see what there is to see, but this was something I genuinely wanted to try out, so I took several photographs under the trees, trying to get the composition that was in my mind’s eye. This is why I do not plan these things, you never get what the mind’s eye conjures up. After several tries I got what I thought was the one I was looking for. I still went out later with Nikhil, to take a walk and see what else I might get for the day, unfortunately the light was not co-operating with us at all yesterday, if you are one of those people unfortunate enough to get my personal email updates you’ll see some of the other image I retrieved from the day 🙂

Now, without boring you with too much chatter about the other images I took, here’s this week’s photo for the 2010 Deck: