Cricket, lovely Cricket!

On March 1, 2011March 1, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography14 Comments

In the Caribbean and Guyana, this is our game, Cricket! Played by more countries than baseball, but less recognised by the “west”, the only thing played more and enjoyed by more around the world is probably football, NO, not that thing played by Americans, where they hardly use their feet except to run (with amazing speed actually), I’m referring to the real football, also called Soccer worldwide.

In cricket there’s variations of the game,there’s the one called Test Cricket, where everything is tested from the players endurance to the spectators’ patience over several days, usually five but it could be seven, then there’s the One-day Cricket, or standard 50-over matches, the World Cup for which is actually being played now. The newest forms of the game have been Twenty 20, or a twenty over form of the game, shorter and more exciting, and adopted by the governing cricket body, the ICC, as a new standard form, and here in Guyana, we have the yearly 10/10 games now sponsored by local telecommunications company GT&T. But those are the structured forms, as children growing up, other than the usual school-yard cricket we knew of three types of cricket, Cricket-in-the-street, Cricket-in-the-rain and the one that none of us could play but loved through the Dave Martins and the Tradewinds song, Cricket-in-the-Jungle!

As much as I’d love to catch a photograph of Monkey batting, the Elephant bowling, the umpire Parrot and the rest, I have to settle for the ones I can find, and I was fortunate to recently see a group of youngsters playing Cricket in the Street, in the Rain! Can’t beat that combination! I would have gone down to get closer photographs, but two things held me back, the camera isn’t weather-sealer and I hadn’t walked with the zip-lock bag as suggested by others, and if they saw me taking photos, it would lose some of the natural feel to it.

As always, click on the photo to see it on the site larger!

2011 Deck – Week 6

On February 12, 2011February 12, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography18 Comments

Strange enough I had a totally different image in mind for this week’s Deck Photo, I hadn’t processed the images as yet, but I had sorted out in my mind the images I had taken and had somewhat settled on a particular image. On importing the photos into Lightroom, I saw one that I had dismissed mentally, it was taken hastily and I did not think that I had captured what I wanted. As I looked at it I realised that it had some merit, and as I processed the image it grew on me to the point that I haven’t bothered to process the rest until I finish this blog post 🙂

It was a nice lazy afternoon at Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara, and I was probably on my fourth Cuba Libre, and I saw them coming down the street, barely time to put down my glass (carefully), go for my camera bag, take out the camera, frame up and shoot. There was no second take, just the one shot.

Compton

On January 20, 2011January 20, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography15 Comments

I recently put this image on Flickr, and I got some favourable responses, and because I haven’t blogged in a few days I thought I should put it here as well 🙂

I was sitting in the vehicle waiting for my wife to finish up in a Supermarket on Regent Street, I was reading on my phone (at this time it was “The Witching Hour” by Anne Rice), and in my peripheral vision I say some movement in the distance. Yes, it’s a busy street, but I’m sure you get my point.

His name is probably not Compton, but amidst the multitude of things adorning his attire is a name-tag proclaiming him to be Compton. He is a colourful character, and you seldom see past the spectrum of colours, the purposeful stride and the “insane” air about him.

I hurriedly put the phone down, reached into the back-seat for the camera, and quickly composed and clicked to get my shot. I had to wait two seconds while the camera took the shot since I had forgotten to reset the timer from the previous night, so he is two seconds out-of-focus.

The Rock and The Church

On August 13, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography5 Comments

I had just finished processing two photographs from my recent trip to Sint Maarten, and as I processed them I knew that I would be including both in one blog-post, then as soon as I put the title into the post I was reminded of a bible quote:

And I say to you: That you are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (From the Gospel according to Matthew, 16:18)

Now the post, nor this blog-post has nothing to do with that quotation, it merely sprang to mind as I gave the post it’s title. Some portions of Back Street (and Front Street), Philipsburg have nicely rendered cast-iron stump columns that mark the end of the pedestrian pavement and the beginning of the vehicular roadway, but there are a few spots along the street where these do not exist, at some of these spots, they have put large (maybe medium is a better description) rocks to keep the vehicles off the pedestrian walkway. One of these intrigued me and that’s the photograph that I want to share first:

As a pedestrian on these streets, I was very hopeful that this rock, like Peter, would prevail against an errant vehicle if not the Gates of Hell.

Farther down Front Street, Philipsburg, past the Jewelery Shops and Casinos, there lies the Roman Catholic church of Saint Martin of Tours, it extends from Front Street onto the Boardwalk facing the Great Bay. I have to assume that either the hurricanes don’t hit too hard here or this church was built to prevail. I took the opportunity to take some multiple exposures with the intent to try an HDR image. The pews are stained a deep reddish wood colour and this is very evident in the photograph. The few people who go to pray during the day must be accustomed to crazy tourists snapping photographs since it didn’t seem to bother them as I took my time getting this shot, of course, I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, but that quite hard for a man of Chinese descent with a rather large camera in hand.

St Martin of Tours Catholic Church, Philipsburg, Sint Maarten

This HDR is a composite of three exposures, 0ev, +2ev and -2ev, I still have some issues with alignment, but I think I am getting the hang of it.

Back Street

On July 27, 2010 By themichaellamcollectionIn PhotographyLeave a comment

In Philipsburg, Sint Maarten there’s a street called Back Street, my wife was so excited to go there I was all but dragged along on the first “working” day of the week down this particular street. It is the second street after the waterfront in Philipsburg, the first street has Casinos, Jewelery shops and the like, but Back Street has the deals. Philips burg is so picturesque, I could stroll it for hours, actually we did stroll Back Street for hours 🙂

I got a few nice ones and more on the site. Click on the images to go to the site with the Sint Maarten Collection, as of this blog-post, there are 20 new images from yesterday’s walk.

Backstreet looks to be part of the “Old St Maarten”, the road is actually asphalt cobbles, not laid asphalt like most roads, some of the architecture is new, but you can still see the older architecture in some of the buildings of Philipsburg. I could try to describe things, but I’m no architect, and even things on the roads and pavements may defy my descriptive powers, and I certainly don’t know the names of some of them.

I’ll let the photographs do the talking.