Photography; I shoot what I like, and sometimes people like what I shoot. All photos are copyright to Michael C. Lam unless explicitly stated otherwise.
This week, the seawall continues its pull on me, when the “feeling” for photography is not with you, go somewhere that relaxes you, even if just for a few minutes. A short walk along the wall and you either come away relaxed or relaxed and with a few photos that were worth the walk 🙂
This week’s shot may not be the best technically, but it captured a “moment”, and that’s what I liked about it. People go to the seawall for many reasons, one of the customary ones is exercise, you feel the fresh air blowing over you and you feel rejuvenated, and you can run or walk, and like this guy, exercise your wrists 🙂
Although when I first started trying my hand at Photography (you know, snapshots that looked awesome, even though they were probably mediocre) I was never inclined to monochromatic images; the black and whites and the sepia-toned images, but as I learnt more about the art, and as I came to appreciate the works of others, there has always been scenes that seem to render better in monochrome than in vivid colour.
I have found recently that I like to work in “special” fields of photo processing, I like playing with Panoramas, HDR (High Dynamic Range) images, tone-mapped images (using the same HDR software but on a single image and not using bracketed images as in a true HDR), and monochromatic images, more towards black and white or sepia-toned images rather than cyanotypes and the other tones available.
At any given period of my photography, you’ll probably notice a certain “type” of image popping up, so don’t be surprised by today’s monochrome. This was taken on the Georgetown Seawall towards the Kitty pump station, the building is Celina Atlantic Resort (I am not sure how the word resort got in the name, but its more a Restaurant and Bar)
I thought to myself this week that maybe I should just put up as good a photo as I could get up to today before I let another week pass by and then I would be behind again in this project… and since I went with Nikhil to the Kingston Promenade yesterday photo-hunting, I came back with a few decent shots, so here’s to the twentieth week of the year.
It was one of those uninspiring afternoons, nothing seemed to leap out at you, at least not photographically. I did get a shot of a crab before he scampered back into his “hole” (is there a name for those?), but he isn’t super-sharp, I may yet post it up. The beach was littered as usual, and the sun was shining so brightly I almost couldn’t look eastwards, and the glare off the water and sand wasn’t helping any either.
Fortunately I did manage to see through the glare enough to spot a youngster playing near the waves, as it turned out I got more than I thought 🙂
I’m still playing “catch-up”, still a week behind in the blog, and months behind in reading 🙂 Today marks one year since I actually registered as a WordPress user, although I didn’t start blogging until one week later, so I feel compelled to at least update the blog today, so I’ve managed to choose a photo from Week 18 of this year, processed it in one of my favourite ways, HDR, and even uploaded it 🙂
On the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo, Arrival Day, or whatever you want to call it, I went with Naseem and Nikhil for a drive and photo-jaunt between Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara and Rosignol at the mouth of the Berbice River (West Coast Berbice), needless to say we took a lot of photographs.
Our first stop was at the village of Enmore, we were going to go see the Enmore Martyr’s Monument, but the bridge we were planning on using was unusable, opposite that bridge there was a nice scene, so we took some time to “grok” it (as Nik would say) and even took some photos, I took a set of bracketed shots to use for an HDR rendition, and that’s what I present to you today. All the original images came out dark and desaturated as I expected, since I was shooting into the sun, but since I planned on using them in an HDR, that was OK 🙂
Early Morn at Enmore
As an HDR, I really suggest you click on it to see it at the Gallery!
It seems that there is seldom enough hours in a day, either that or I’m getting lazy 🙂 Saturday was a little rough, and I didn’t get around to posting my regular Deck blog-post, so it was left for today. SO, I’m squeezing in a few minutes to write this and post it.
In between being busy and being lazy, there are times when I just want to sit and stare at a scene that makes me feel at peace. to forget that there is war in the middle east, tragedy in Japan, injustices in Africa, crazy weather in North America, every country in the world has its problems, and we have impending elections here in Guyana; disasters every one of these thoughts.
This might help explain my choice for this week’s Deck photo 🙂
Sit back, relax, clear your mind, and just stare towards the setting sun…
It’s been a while since I touched a Panorama, or a stitched image 🙂 This one is old (last year) but I never got around to stitching and processing it until now. Originally intended as a six image Panorama, it seems the last two in the sequence refused to be stitched in (I may try a different software later) so I ended up with a four image stitched together Panorama.
This is from the Roundhouse on the Kingston Promenade on the Georgetown Seawall, facing west, the sun isn’t quite setting but it the exposure gave it a little darkness and added to the mood. At full size you can see that there are people on the Jetty (pier) in the distance. and even someone on the rocks in the foreground.
I encourage you to click on the image for a better view at the Gallery, but unless you have a very wide monitor, it won’t help too much 🙂 Try this link to see an 1100 pixel wide version.
Today was supposed to be the day the trial began for the two men who attacked and robbed both Nikhil and I last September, but true to these types of cases there were some problems with the case and it has been postponed for a few weeks, but this revelation did not happen until we had been in the court for nearly three hours.
I was looking back at the photos I took that day, only two of which I had processed and decided to process another one. Looking back, I think that this image has some merit, I love silhouettes, and while it wasn’t quite sunset as yet, the sky was lovely, and the Pegasus silhouetted against the sky appealed to me.
A Silhouette of Pegasus
And as usual, please click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.
Well, I had to title it something and this sounded apt enough. Both photos have a sea-vessel and the water they traverse upon, so “Ships at Sea” it is, even though I am not sure they would call it the Sea… I’ve always been confused by that.
Growing up it was always the Sea, and protecting us from it was the Seawall, made sense…. now technically, the water to the horizon northwards from our shores is the Atlantic Ocean, I don’t think it is still the Caribbean Sea, and since I am being technical, both photos are not pointing Northwards but more West by North West, making that particular area of water the mouth of the Demerara River.
Aye, my head hurts from trying to sort that one out, so Sea or Ocean or River, its got a boat on the water. They’ve both been done in monochrome to emphasise the clouds and the water, taken on different days but in generally the same location, on the stretch of beach along the Kingston shore.
Only one day of shooting photos this week, terrible! But I did get a very nice one (at least one), and it is somewhat in keeping with my last post “A fascination with skies”.
Both Nik and I needed to get out and get something, as the week had progressed without much photography being done, it was raining and we thought that we might have to abandon the idea (at least for me, since the camera wasn’t going to handle the rain too well), but as we drove the rain eased for a bit and we decided to stop at the Koker at Ogle and see what was there for the offering.
A good thing we decided to stop, I got a few and I am sure Nik got more than I did :-), and as we headed back to “town” the rains decided that we’d had enough of a break and continued its work.
I hope you like this one, it’s another “seawall” shot, and another monochrome 🙂
Overcast at Ogle
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.
Many of my favourite images have had some amount of sky in it, I usually get very “miffed” when shooting landscape or even people and building shots and the sky is just a drab gray, I like blue skies, plain blue, hues of blue, I just really like blue skies, if there are errant clouds then all the better, but a sky fully covered with clouds usually gets to me, I found a way to deal with that over time, I look for a good scene that will process better as a monochromatic image.
Fibre in the Sand
While I have gotten better at that, I still like the blue, and I like dramatic skies, streaming clouds, or clouds spotting the vista to the horizon. The last Deck photo was taken on a day that had a nice variation of clouds in the sky, and I got a few others that I thought were worth sharing.
These were taken with the full intent of getting as much out of the sky as possible while still retaining some foreground interest. All were taken with the Sigma 10-20 Ultrawide Lens. I hope you like one or all 🙂
The temptation to render any of the three images into monochrome was great, but I resisted, barely. I felt that the colours in the sky and the foreground were more truly representative of the “feel” of the afternoon, than a monochrome would express, although I think I could probably have gotten more drama out of the images in monochrome 🙂
Inland Bound
Click on the images to see them larger in the Gallery, I think I may have to print the one title “Inland Bound” larger for better scrutiny myself 🙂
The Michael Lam Collection's Blog 