St George’s Panorama – June 2010

On June 28, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

Georgetown Guyana, St George's Cathedral

I have always been fascinated by Panoramic photographs, and I’ve tried a few over the last few years, this is the first one since I started by site or the blog. We had an opportunity to go to the top of the new NBS head office (under construction) and take a few photographs, and I thought I would try a panorama from up there. So far it is also the only thing I have processed from that day, very bad of me, but time is a very scarce commodity it seems.

Saint George’s Cathedral is probably one of the most photographed buildings in Guyana, it is not only a beautiful piece of Architecture, but is also imposing in it’s surroundings. It is an island unto itself, surrounded by a “roundabout” (North Road splits and reconverges on the other side), it faces oncoming traffic from four sides (if you count Church Street) and is one of the tallest wooden structures in the world.

Some people like these wide panoramas, some don’t. I think that the problem with wide panoramas is that there should be something eye-catching in it or about it that will make it more than just a bunch of images stitched together. I have a few that are not spectacular, simply because it just looks sort of plain, but I like them anyway. This Panorama, however, is punctuated by the St George’s Cathedral and makes it more appealing than some of the others that I have tried. It is a compilation of twenty images taken in “portrait orientation” to get the most of the sky and foreground. Each photo was taken at the widest on the lens (18mm) at 1/320 shutter speed and f/10 aperture, even though Canon has a stitching software I actually prefer Adobe Photoshop’s stitching (don’t tell anyone, since I am not a big Photoshop fan and most people know it).

If you click on the image above it will carry you to the site where (depending on your monitor) you can see a larger version.

666

On June 23, 2010June 24, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Commentary, Photography4 Comments

Growing up, we were always enthralled by the Bandstands that were a part of scenic Georgetown, back then there would even be Bands playing in those bandstands. You can find these at the Promenade Gardens, the Botanical Gardens and at the Georgetown Seawall.

What prompted this post was a conversation that we had today with a gentleman (probably more accurately described as a concerned citizen), at the seawalls. He saw us with cameras in hand and wondered if we were members of the local (or maybe international) media, since he wanted to highlight the destruction being carried out on the Seawall Bandstand by others. One railing is completely removed, apparently sold as scrap iron, and he also claims that other portions of it are removed by others for their personal gain in one way or another.

Other than the vandalism, it is sad to see another part of our Historical Georgetown being neglected by the relevant authorities, at this stage I am not sure who is in charge of something like this. Does it fall under the National Parks Commission? City Hall? The Guyana Government? Would the Guyana Heritage Society consider a decades old (most likely more than a century old actually) structure of enough historical importance to come to its aid?

I would even dare suggest that the Pegasus Hotel assist in some small way to the restoration and maintenance of this landmark, it is on their doorstep and an attraction for tourists. Consider it a bit of social responsibility.

What we found funny, not necessarily ironic, and I don’t mean laughable funny, is that this bandstand is part of the scenery NEXT to the Felix Austin Police College, I believe that many policemen live in this portion facing the seawall, so vandalism, theft, and destruction of property is being committed right under their noses.

Before everyone thinks that all the bandstands are falling to pieces (well, at least the ones in Georgetown), they’re not. The one in the Botanical gardens is very well kept, and thanks to Republic Bank in their collaborative effort with the Mayor and City Council, the entire Promenade Gardens is very well kept, including the Bandstand that is a centrepiece for that Garden.

So, what is with the title of this post? Why call it 666? I wanted to say something about this image that I posted here, and as fate would have it, the walk today and the conversation with the concerned citizen provided just the idea for the post, but the title of the post comes from the fact that this image is the six hundred and sixty-sixth image that I uploaded to my site. That’s all it is, just a number, nothing more or less significant than that. Someone asked how many images I had uploaded to the site and I thought the milestone worth mentioning 🙂

Sitting in the Rain

On June 5, 2010June 5, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

I seem to live in a location where the “city” meets the “country“, do they call that the suburbs?

One benefit of living here is that I get to see a little bit of both, I have family living in both sections, as it were. On occasion, when I am leaving home for work, I would see some birds, usually too far off for me to photograph, but sometimes, they’ll be perched on a nearby fence, or post, or wire (you get the drift) and if I carefully lift my camera I may even get to photograph them without scaring them away first.

Sitting in the Rain — On Graham Hall Road, Cummingslodge, Georgetown.

My favourites are the various hawks that prey on snails from the gutters and trenches in the area, anyone who has seen my photographs would have seen these quite a few times over the years 🙂 I probably need to try and capture those in new ways, even I am getting tired of just seeing them staring at me 🙂 Quite common, in our area are some types of white birds… OK, I just noticed that I know nothing of bird nomenclature, if anyone knows where Waldyke Prince is, tell him I need help in this area. Anyway, back to what I was saying… there are these white birds, and once in a while they’ll pose just like the hawks.

I have also found that I don’t take enough photos in the rain, this may have to do with the fact that my camera is now weather-sealed, but still, I don’t do it enough. My favourite rain shot is still my Fleur de Lis Gate Toppers, which I did twice, once when I used a Canon Powershot S5 and then recently with the Canon Rebel T1i, anyway, enough advertising for Canon, here is that white bird sitting in the rain 🙂

Of course, if anyone knows the name, common and scientific, I would be grateful for the knowledge.

A Trip to Bamboo Landing

On June 4, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

Back in March of this year, we were fortunate enough to get an invitation to go along with my brother to visit a forestry concession in the Berbice area, the main location was at Bamboo Landing, where we visited the first day, then we traveled onto the base camp at Charabaru where we spent the night.

One of the main reasons for going was to see a Harpy Eagle in its natural habitat, Rommel (who runs the concession) explained that they had found at least two sites in the concession where there were Harpy nests and they had stopped all work in those areas to preserve the habitats. It is nice to find that type of thinking in this age when more and more people think only of the dollar.

We were hopeful of seeing the Harpy eagle, but not too optimistic, since we had heard stories of people looking for hours and not seeing one. We were luck, we saw two of them,

TWO! And then I realized that I am not equipped for Bird photography, I need a sponsor for bigger lenses 🙂 But, as someone once pointed out to me, a

Harpy Eagle

poor photograph is better than none, so I can proudly proclaim that I have photographs of the Harpy Eagle in its natural habitat.

The concession also has its own farming areas, so the photographs in the album on my site reflect quite a diversity of images. I have already used some images from that trip in previous posts in the blog, those covered monochromes and HDRs, these are strictly general type photographs, no special post-processing.

The Harpy eagles were sighted in the early morning and, as chance would have it, the only way we could see him, was facing due east, towards the morning sun, I guess you really can’t have everything, at least we saw them.

I hope to get another chance sometime to visit the area again, it really is very nice and peaceful and full of opportunities.

Visit the album at A Trip to Bamboo Landing

The Deck – Week 22

On June 4, 2010August 28, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2010 Deck, Photography2 Comments

On Wednesday last (June 2nd), my friend launched his Blog “Bad Light, Good Light” (http://badlightgoodlight.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/origin-of-a-name/) with a post regarding the origin of the name of his blog. It just happens that the image he used to illustrate the point he was making in the post was one from a walk we went on the day before, and on that walk I took what would become my photo for the 2010 Deck for this week, and it is of the same location as his, although I’ll admit his image had a lot more artistic merit. 🙂

I’ve always been told “don’t shoot towards the sun”, and, by and large, this is usually good advice, but there are times when doing just that results in some nicely silhouetted images that have their own appeal. What I particularly liked about this scene was the portion of land to the right with the vegetation and the two boats anchored to the left, these made excellent silhouetted areas that contrasted nicely with the mostly clear sky, the low clouds were nicely “haloed” by the afternoon sun and that pretty much competed the scene for me.

I have always been an admirer of paintings by a local artist named V. C. Budhram, his renditions of water ans skies were always impressive, for that reason alone the ripples in the water reminds my of his work. His compositions, of course, were never like this, always more vibrant, full of life, and far more colourful.

This weeks entry for the Deck: Serene.