Tag: sand

2012 Deck – Week 35

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography10 Comments

In June of this year Imran Khan had done an article on the new insurgence of young (and not so young) Photographers in Guyana in the form of the Facebook Group Guyana Photographers, this was recently re-blogged on the GuyanaPhotographers.com site.  In it he mentioned that the Seawalls seem to be a favourite or default location for their “treks”, this is very true.

With most of the population of Guyana living on the Atlantic coast, this is inevitable; with the majority of (accessible) roads meandering along the coast, this is inevitable; with the majority of the coastland given over to farming (and now housing) leaving the only scenic areas being the seawalls stretching from east to west along the coast, this is inevitable.

I’m not saying that there aren’t more places that would make nice photographs, there are, they are just not as “easy” to get to.  You can read “easy” as being “not too expensive to get to”, “not too arduous to get to”, “not needing to plan a trip weeks in advance” and  ‘not requiring a four wheel drive vehicle with a winch and hi-lift” to get there.  🙂

So, for someone who has a full-time job but would still like to get a nice photograph, as Imran so accurately pointed out, the Seawall becomes the “default” location  🙂

With that said… here’s a pair of Jhandi Flags… on the sea shore, just in front of the Seawall

Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery, along with all the other entries for this year’s Deck Project.

Rent

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, Poetry4 Comments

Under clouds of gloom, tread lightly in fear,

unknown dangers may lurk quite near

Yet onward walk, for we must see

what lies upon yonder sea

It is our goal, our sole intent

today to capture the coming rent

in clouds that cover, yet soon shall show

upon the sea a hopeful glow

for but a moment shall it be

a fleeting time, then it too shall flee

as the sun continues its descent

we try to capture the fleeting rent.

2012 Deck – Week 32

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography6 Comments

I was driving up the East Coast Demerara Public Road and noticed the lovely blue skies, as I was alongside the seawall, I decided to stop and just take a look over the wall to see if there was anything that might catch my eye, that would make a good photo.  Although I thought that I already had a good photo for the week, I still wanted to see, and I think I was lucky, I was down on the other side looking at a very clear ocean, with just a few poles sticking out of the mud and thought that I had better jump back in the car, when I noticed the coconut,

I switched lenses to the ultra-wide Sigma 10-20, and tried out a few shots, and this one appealed to me.  I hope it pleases some of you too  🙂

For a better view, click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with many other photos, this one is in the Seawall Gallery  🙂

Exposures on the Beach

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

Most times when I experiment with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, it is usually a static scene, with very little chance of movement between exposures, in as little of the scene as possible, like my recent Bamboo Grove image, this is to reduce ghosting and blurring in the final image, however, I do sometimes go for some scenes where there is movement, but these don’t always work out.

Last year I tried one and liked the results enough to use it for my Deck Project for the 19th Week, and whilst in Barbados I tried one down at the beach.  At the beach there was more movement that I’d have liked, with “everyone” in the water moving about.  As usual, I don’t try to be too ambitious, so I stuck with my usual three exposures for an HDR, each at about 2ev difference.

Using Nik HDR Efex Pro, I manipulated the ghost reduction feature until I had as little ghosting from the bobbing heads in the water that was possible  🙂  There’s really only one reason I chose this scene to try an HDR, the clouds!  🙂

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

You can follow me on Facebook as well, I won’t refuse any “Likes” on my page  🙂

https://www.facebook.com/TheMichaelLamCollection

2012 Deck – Week 30

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography2 Comments

At the close of the thirtieth week of the year, I was in Barbados, and my sister and her husband had decided to carry us on a whirlwind of a tour of Barbados’ scenic points, I’m surprised I could remember where I took this one.

I think we almost circled the entire island that day, starting from almost the southernmost point of the island and going eastwards around the coastline.

If my memory serves me correctly, this one was taken at North Point, from the name it’s likely the northernmost part of Barbados, and I was very engrossed with the view, but I managed to get some photographs in while admiring it.

This is an HDR from three exposures, I hope you like it.

South to North

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

Before departing from the Kingston Area to begin the Family Reunion in Ocho Rios, my dad thought that getting a photograph of everyone who were in the Kingston area would be a good idea, so after everyone had eaten some breakfast, packed their bags and were ready to go, we all got together for the group photo.

I was hoping to do some photography whilst on the drive over, but the high grasses after the recent rains and a few other adverse conditions made that a bit impractical  🙂  I did manage to snag a photo of a vendor’s stand with some of the fruits out front during a brief stop.

One of the areas we drove through was Fern Gulley, but photographs can’t tell that story, you have to take the drive through yourself, but I took one of the curving road and the enclosing ferns to give the general idea, this spot had a nice window in the canopy above for extra light, many other sections did not, the ferns would enclose the road and create a lovely rainforest feel.

Once at the hotel, we checked in, went for lunch, then to find our rooms, We had chosen the mountain view option rather than the ocean view rooms, just to save a few dollars  🙂  This is part of the view from our room, not too bad  🙂

After some afternoon swimming (or more like wading in the pool), we were taking a walk to see the Gazebo at the ocean’s edge and I snagged a few more photos, after that it was dinner and bed 🙂  Not a bad day overall.

2012 Deck – Week 27

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography7 Comments
Gone Fishing?

Getting out to take photographs seems harder recently, but living on the coast means that there is always the seawall  🙂  I took a drive up to Enterprise to pick up something and thought I’d just drive up to the wall and see what, if anything, there was to photograph.  There were a couple boats out there, but it didn’t move me, but there were two bicycles left near/on the wall where two boys had left them to go over the seawall.

This posting is somewhat appropriate as I (that is, my family and I) are about to go to a family reunion.  So, while we will be leaving the comforts of our home, the familiarity of other family and friends near to us, we do so knowing that the material things we leave temporarily are being taken care of by people we know, and the people we leave behind have their own family and friends to keep them occupied while we’re away 🙂

The Long Shadows

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

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.

2012 Deck – Week 19

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

This week almost passed without me having taken any photos.  I had some slim pickings, but I think I got a nice one.

Nikhil has often used the word “Grok” especially as relating to “grokking the scene”.  It has become more important to grok the scene if you want to capture and express through the photograph what it is the scene says to you.

Even though I thought I had heard the word before, no one lese I know has ever used it as often as he does.

I check it up on Wikipedia and then thought to myself, “that’s where it came from!”, apparently coined by the author Robert Heinlein in his novel “Stranger in a Strange Land”.  I love the definition given for it in the novel (keep inmind that it is a Science Fiction novel set on Mars)

Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.

Can we understand a scene so completely that we become as one with it?  That is probably something to aim for, to achieve it would be great,

Here’s a photo of Nikhil, Grokking the scene  🙂

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery, and if you haven’t seen the other entries for the Deck project they’re all over there in the Gallery.

2012 Deck – Week 18

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Lunar Perigee and the 2012 Supermoon

In 2011 and 2012 there was much reference to the term Supermoon, which is an astrological term, as opposed to the Astronomical term Perigee.  What was so Super about it? Well, I was out there and it looked like a regular full moon, but we’d all love to believe that we could see it larger and brighter than at other times 🙂

Perigee is the time at which the moon is closest in its orbit to the earth (doesn’t matter what phase it’s in), while the Supermoon refers to a New or Full moon that occurs when the moon is within 90% of its closest approach to the earth in its orbit.  So I suppose that the perfect Supermoon would be a Full moon at Perigee  🙂  (incidentally, the time when the moon is furthest away from the earth in its orbit is called Apogee)

The Perigee varies from around 357,000km to 369,000km (in roundish figures), and while a difference of 12,000km sounds like a lot, the difference to the naked eye is negligible.

On May 5th, the moon was at its fullest at 1 minute to its perigee, so that’s about as perfect a Supermoon as we can get I suppose.

Anyway… on May 5th this year, I was up the coast near Lusignan when this year’s “Supermoon” was supposed to occur, two things happened (well, more than two, but two that are relevant to this post); I had lent out my telephoto lens, so getting a close-up was out of the question, and the clouds were conspiring against me, So I ended up with a wide shot full of clouds  🙂

After playing hide-and-seek with the moon for several minutes I gave up and headed out, one that I took would work, so this is one that worked  🙂

Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery.