Tag: seawall

Perception

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, thoughts1 Comment

Lately, I’ve been very busy, although depending on your point-of-view I might also have been giving priorities to the “wrong” things; for my myself, I say I’ve been busy.

I tell people that I’ve been busy, so I haven’t updated this blog, and updated the Deck Project, they look at me askance and think I’m either lying or stretching the truth, but it’s a matter of perception I suppose.

Often, what we see in a photograph is also a matter of perception, this image is one I overlooked when choosing my photo for week 9 of the Deck Project this year; when I say “overlooked”, I mean that I did not see then the potential that I saw when going back through the images the second time.

I was looking at a photograph recently of what appeared to be a woman holding a young girl lying limp across her arms, I later realized that it was a young man in her arms, but the combination of dark hair and a dark material near the head gave the long hair I usually associate (firstly) with girls, the features of the youth were very smooth and “pretty”, and he was attired in a hospital gown, all adding together to skew my perception.

I’ve also been trying to look at scenes differently and change my perspective, also altering my perception of the scene itself.  Anyway, all of this preamble is just to introduce you tot he image that I had also titled “Perception” 🙂

12:55 pm  |  Red filter  |  Canon 60D, Sigma 10-20mm lens

1/320s, f/11, ISO 100, 10mm  –  Processed in Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex

Click on the image to see it larger in the Black and White Gallery of the Collection.

Midday Meditation

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

If I had the time in the middle of the day, I’d probably be doing just like this fellow in the photograph… sit and just stare out to sea for a while; but I was taking a walk and taking some photographs 🙂  (The walk ostensibly for health reasons and the photos for my sanity) I’ve photographed this spot many times, I was going through an old album when I came across this one and thought that a square crop would work nicely, then I saw the faint details of the clouds and thought that some tone-mapping would give me more detail and a monochrome version might just look nice, and voila!  I got a bit of haloing, but I can live with that 🙂

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images in my Sepia Collection

2014 Deck – Week 09

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography2 Comments

The fascination with all things coastal continues!  Of course, it’s more like searching for images that I like and since most of my time seems spent on the coast, that’s what you’ll get 🙂

The fishing boats at Lusignan, always seem to compel me to take a few photos, even if I never use them, but this one worked well for me, I think my processing went a tad overboard (no pun intended) but at the end of it all I still liked the final image.

I was considering a Dutch title for the image since the word Moored comes from the Dutch word Meren (according to some dictionary I was reading), but then the name Lusignan was from France, so I went with a French title instead (not that anyone really cares) 😀

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm  |  1/250s, f/10, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with the other images for this year’s Deck Project

2014 Deck – Week 06

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography, Poetry4 Comments

The day this photo was taken did not turn out to be a happy day, so you’ll excuse me if the post seems depressing… even morbid.

That being said, I do believe that the photo was chosen not based on that but on it’s own merits.  I rather liked how this one came out.  I was using my Sigma 17-50mm, mostly to take photos of the scenery (not much of it that day) and some snapshots of my daughter.  I was pleased that this came out as good as it did, considering that most times I would have tried this with my ultra-wide Sigma 10-20mm.

The reason the day was a bad one is that shortly after taking these photos, I returned to my vehicle to realise that someone had gotten into it and stolen my bags, which included my laptop computer, and all my camera gear barring the camera and lens in my hand, the Sigma 10-20mm which a friend had borrowed, and the tripod which they left on the floor of the car.

Sadly, the police have neither found nor recovered any of the items (and have no idea who might have done it)

Now onto the photo…  and you can ignore the poem that follows 🙂

Canon EOS 60D | Sigma 17-50mm  |  1/320s at f/6.3, ISO 100, 50mm

Click on the Image to see it in the Gallery

Caught in the nets,
prisoners from the deep
dragged into the air,
I’d cry, but fish don’t weep…

Tossed into a boat,
tormented by the sun
gasping for breath
the boat; shorewards run…

Sorted by calloused hands,
most onto the ice,
I upon the ground;
apparently I’m not nice…

Upon the hard ground,
I flounder, I try…
On land, beneath the sun
I dry, I die.

For those curious people who will ask 🙂  Here’s a shortlist of some of the Camera related gear that was stolen:

1 LowePro Backpack Camera Bag
1 Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash
Serial Number: 611144
1 Canon EOS Rebel T1i Camera
Serial number: 0370111906
1 Tamron Di II 18-270mm Lens
Serial Number: 096584
1 Tamron AF 18-270mm Lens
Serial Number: 061042
1 Canon EF50mm f/1.8 II Lens
Lens No: 2514A003[BA]
1 Canon EF40mm f/2.8 STM Lens
Lens No: 6310B002[AA]
1 Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens
1 Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens

The list is very long, but most of the rest is camera related accessories and paraphernalia, oh, and my Kindle Fire which I really really miss… I hadn’t realized how much I read until it was gone.

2014 Deck – Week 03

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Even though I don’t get out too often to take the landscape photos I yearn for, I do enjoy picking my daughter up from her Saturday “Revision Classes” on a Saturday and heading out to the seawall, she goes hunting for rocks and shells, and I hunt for photos.

This tyre with it’s bright paint caught my eye, and I was going for a simple photo then my daughter began running on the far side… resulting in an even better photo 🙂

I’ve been working in LightZone again for this one, and I really believe that it has a lot of potential, I really miss the gradient tool that I’ve become accustomed to in Lightroom, but it’s just like switching cameras, you just need to use the tools at hand to achieve a finished product that you can be satisfied with.

I used two localised masks in this one just to see how that would work, and it did a good job, I wanted some more clarity on the tyre itself without affecting the entire image, and I wanted to make local adjustments to the sky (I didn’t have a polarizer on the lens)

I hope you like it.

Clink on the image to see it in the Gallery.

Singed

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, thoughts2 Comments

Have you ever latched onto a word with unusual fascination?  When I first read or heard certain words, there was an undue fascination that I got for them, one of those was “singed”…  No, it has nothing to do with singing, so no funny quips about that 🙂  Another one was “chaos”, that one was simply because I’d read it in a book and had formed this pronounciation in my head that turned out to be completely wrong.

So… back to “singed”

It was the first week of 2014, and I was walking the seawall looking for a few photographs when I came across the piece of singed wood… it was laying across another piece of wood forming a cruciform shape, the harsh midday sun cast a strong shadow and I decided that it might make a decent photograph 🙂

I also took the opportunity to try out LightZone to process it from start to end… I finally found how to straighten the horizon in it… using the crop tool just like in LightRoom (silly me couldn’t find it the first time I was processing an image in it).  I must say, that while there are some things I miss from this piece of software, it is a very powerful application, and the integration of the changes into the saved file (JPG or TIF) makes it easy to go back and adjust the processing.

LightZone also professes to be able to work as a plugin to LightRoom, so if you just want some of the neat features in LZ, you can try it as a plugin.  For an OpenSource (read that as FREE) software, it is powerful and user-friendly, this is not a stripped down software, but a full fledged product for RAW image processing.

Now… to the image.  It probably won’t rank as a great photograph, but I liked it and it gave me a good opportunity to try out LightZone

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm  |  1/160s, f/9, 10mm, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images in the Black and White collection

Bob

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

I was walking along the seawall last year when I spotted these three birds on the rocks near the waterline, I was fortunate enough to get off one photo of them together before they separated further (in no small part to my approach)

Whenever I see three birds together I always think of Brother Bob, Bob Marley, simply because of those words in the song… “Three little birds, Pitch by my doorstep”

The song was actually called “Three Little Birds”, but most everyone I know refers to it as “Don’t Worry” or “Every Little thing’s Gonna be alright”

So these aren’t exactly little birds, and they certainly weren’t singing sweet songs, but they still reminded me of the song.

Hope you like it:

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-55mm  |  1/500s, f/8, 50mm, ISO 100

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other Bird photos

2014 Deck – Week 01

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography4 Comments

Welcome back to my Deck Project, a photography project of one photo for every week of the year, giving me 52 photos for the year. (and there are 52 cards in a Deck of normal standard cards, not counting Jokers, hence the name Deck Project)

I start the year at a very familiar place, the seawalls, living on the coastland of Guyana gives us easy access to the sea and the extensive shoreline.

Recently there was a discussion about how Guyanese (among many others) prefer to use pirated software instead of paying.  This has primarily to do with a difference in income levels and the cost of many software can easily exceed the salaries of the average or even above-average Guyanese.  The cost of such popular photo-processing software as Adobe Lightroom and Corel AfterShot Pro has declined in recent years making it more affordable, but the habit of acquiring pirated copies persists.  After this discussion I remembered Nikhil posting about an Open Source photo-processing software called LightZone, and I decided to give it a good try (even though I do own and use Adobe Lightroom)

This photo for the first week of the 2014 Deck Project was processed primarily in LightZone (but since I use Lightroom to interface with my website, I used Lightroom to tag/keyword and upload the image)  LightZone is surprisingly versatile and powerful, I think I’ll be using it  a bit more to experiment with some features as well as to encourage those who can’t afford Lightroom or AfterShot to try something that’s Free but also pretty powerful.

Canon 60D, Sigma 10-20mm  |  1/125s, f/8, ISO100, 10mm

Seawalls near Thomaslands, Georgetown

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

Pier

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, Poetry4 Comments

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with many others in the Black and White Collection

Standing posts, by day’s light
Beaten by the waves
bleached by the relentless sun
Dwelt upon by snails

By moonlight, a ghostly pier
Appears ‘neath the moon
A vision that’s never seen
In day’s high noon

Stretching out into the deep
Walked upon by wraiths
boats with ancient passengers,
On the pier he waits…

Eyeing all who step ashore
Some will never leave,
Captain of his merchant ship,
Lord of the seas

Each night he walks the pier
Beneath the moon’s light
Each night the slaves come again
Reliving ghostly plight

The wraiths leave with the dawn
At peace once more
Until the rising moon
Brings them back to shore.