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.
Today we honour one of the more famous of the Street Photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson (born August 22, 1908). I won’t try to mimic or even come close to his type and style of street photography… but here’s a Georgetown Scene for you.
Morning Munchies
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with some other Street Photographs.
The Art of Photography and Photography as Art
2015 – Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm
This blog post is a milestone of sorts, it marks my five hundredth blog post. It began on a sad note, with a photo from my maternal grandmother’s funeral, it has been more of a photo journey rather than a photo blog, more about myself and the photos than about the photos themselves I suppose, so it’s rather like a journal…almost… of sorts.
On this journey I’ve learnt a lot, with still much more to learn, I’ve met many other people with a passion for photography, and many who love to look at beautiful imagery.
I have learnt that there is a difference between the Art of Photography and Photography as Art, and I believe that it is a realization that comes to most of us who pursue it with an aim for creating “art”.
2010 – Canon T1i, Sigma 18-270mm
It sounds presumptuous even to my own ears to refer to anything that I produce with the camera as “art”, but people like my friend Nikhil would thump me behind the head for even saying that. Not everything I take can be considered as art, so I humbly submit that I have a few that may be taken into consideration by those who are more knowledgeable than myself and more in-tune with the art world to be judged and pronounced as art.
Nikhil would also tell me that I have had work exhibited once at the National Gallery of Art (Castellani House) and have also been among the finalists in two of the recent Guyana Visual Arts Competitions, so I can’t get away with trying to play modest about being called an “artist”.
2011 – Canon Rebel T1i – Tamron 18-270mm
I began as most of us probably did with learning to use the camera and just snapping away at anything and everything that caught my eye.
After a while it began to be more important to learn and understand the art of photography, to understand how light plays an important part, where paying attention to composition results in a much better photo of the same subject. The art of photography is to know your camera (whether it’s a mobile device such as cellphones or a larger DSLR) to learn what it can and cannot do, and to know how to use it to accomplish what you want. Like any craftsman worth his salt, the art of the craft is the union of the person and the tools at hand.
It is good to learn different techniques, different approaches, different styles; that can be part of your arsenal, but it need not define the photograph you take.
2012 – Canon T1i, Tamron 18-270mm
The photograph is an extension of your self, it is a product of your own thoughts and skills, when the photograph stops being just a snapshot and becomes an expression of an idea, a concept, more than just a moment frozen in time, then it is possible that you have created a piece of art.
Photography as Art has to be more than just a pretty photo of a pretty scene or even a technically perfect photo of a dilapidated house, for a photograph to be Art it should have soul, it should convey an idea, elicit a reaction from the viewer, it has to be seen, talked about, appreciated or ridiculed even.
2013 – Canon EOS 60D, Tamron 18-270mm
Not many of us in Guyana can successfully claim to be original in our photographs, most of it has been done before and by better artists than ourselves, Photography as an Art has to overcome the fact that everyone now has access to a device that captures images, and in the maelstrom of images swirling around the internet we have to produce a piece that stands out, that makes people stop and look, but also to have them remember it afterwards, to recall it and speak about it.
Art is subjective, that’s basically saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it is not enough for the creator of the piece to want it to be art, the viewer has to appreciate the piece, not necessarily from the perspective of the creator but from how it affects them.
2014 – Canon EOS 6D, Canon 24-105mm
All the images in this post are “new to you”, they are from the six years than span this blog, 2010 to 2015, one from each calendar year. I went through the files looking for images that I have overlooked, or just not processed, not looking for any subject in particular, but for images I think worth processing, worth sharing and reflect what I would like to show others.
I hope that at least one strikes your fancy.
Click on each one to see them in their respective galleries in the Collection. Thank you for being a part of my journey so far.
Each week it is hard to make a choice of a photo for the Deck Project, mostly because its hard to separate the emotion involved with the image at the time of it’s being taken and the merits of the image itself, but for Week 8 of 2015, I think it’s mostly because I think to myself that I came away from that week, which was mostly Mashramani images, with what I thought of as very uninspiring and “average” images.
Seven weeks later and I was finally able to look at them and chose one that I felt was different, or maybe just not the “usual” of the crop.
Am I happy with it? Yes. There are quite a few that I’m happy with, but it seems to me that I now want a little “more” from my images than just the “pretty picture”. I’m not there yet, but I’ll keep trying.
Context: this reveler was very close up behind the truck, it was 3 in the afternoon, although the sky was partially overcast, the sun was shining nicely down on the parade at this point.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF24-105mm f/4L
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
Each year I normally do a post on the Children’s Parade, then follow up with one that I’d choose for the Deck, this year, call it laziness, or expediency, or simply a desire to show the one that I was excited about, I will do it all in one post.
This year’s parade was marred by some rain, and when I say marred, I mean for me and my equipment, most of the children seemed to quite enjoy themselves in the changing weather 🙂
I got a few good photos, more than a few “eh” photos and maybe one or two better than average ones…
The one I chose for the Deck may not have the same impact on the viewer as it had on me as I am still fresh with the emotion and excitement of the moment… the rain was still falling, my sister Mary was trying to hover near me with an umbrella (she knows how expensive camera gear is) and the young man who was pulling the main float of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs had seen me and was dancing and heading straight for me performing all the way.
I don’t normally chimp, but soon after he had passed and there was a short lull in the parade I scrolled back to see if I got anything that was usable, and even on the on-camera screen I could tell, it was about 85% good. 🙂
Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, 2015
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with the other images for this year’s Deck Project.
The other images I have from the Children’s Parade are in the Mashramani 2015 – Children’s Parade Gallery, click on the image below to see them all in the Gallery
For this week I actually had quite a few photos to choose from, mostly along the seawalls. Fidal Bassier had invited me along to shoot with him, he was doing part of a photo-shoot for Miss Earth Guyana, Ms Stacy Ramcharran, and even though I was late getting there, I decided to stop anyway and see what was going on.
The talented team from Bravo Arts under the direction of Steve Bravo had already done an amazing job of the body paint etc., and Stacy’s entourage were well in attendance and assisting her with all the necessaries.
Fidal was setting up on a mound on the southern side of the National Park, the winds had picked up a bit and he asked me to help hold one soft-box in position while I was there… but I’m a photographer, and I just couldn’t resist the urge to click the shutter button.
Whilst holding the soft-box in one hand (the wind was trying very hard to tug it out of position and out of my hands), I slung my backpack to the side and extracted the camera with one hand, the lens on the camera would have to work… it was the Sigma 10-20mm, so I suspected that cropping after was most likely.
I took only two photos, mainly because Fidal decided at that moment to switch locations, and by the time we had set up at the next spot, it was time for me to say adieu. One photo I had cropped and sent to Stacy, she ended up using it as the Cover image for the official Facebook Page for Miss Earth Guyana 2014:
The second one, I did not crop, it was the one I preferred, and I had decided since then that I would likely use it for the Deck project, so here it is:
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images from this year’s Deck Project
All-in-all, it was educational to watch these folks at work, and that I clicked the shutter twice, and got two photos that were usable, I feel good 🙂
This week was the week of our Republic Celebrations in Guyana, which I’ve shared photos from already, as is my custom, I look through those to choose one for the Deck Project.
This year there was no one image that stood out to me as much as this one did. I had processed it in Black and White and had decided not to include it in the original upload, I was still not sure anyone else would like it.
I like it, it seemed to me to be a moment frozen in time… something more sensual than what was occurring all around… maybe that is why I converted it to monochrome, to remove the distractions.
I hope you see something other than a Mash Photo 🙂
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery 🙂
I’m not sure I ever come out of these events with the right photos… but I think I usually get a few that are nice, and once in a while, one that is very nice.
Mashramani was on a Sunday this year, making the following day a holiday, so it was more relaxed for me in a way, there were a few bands fewer as well, so the last band came earlier than normal, which is good, I always get a bit peeved when the last band comes and the sun is already getting low in the sky
I was without my flash this year, and shooting into the sun without fill-flash was a different experience for me. Also without my Tamron 18-270mm I felt a bit lost, but I stuck to my plan of attempting it with a borrowed Canon 55-200mm, and I think I did a fairly decent job of it.
I usually cull the set much more than this, but I think that these are fairly representative of the day, and I decided to keep almost all of the first draft.
Click on the image above to see the Gallery on the site for the full set, I will try to do a Select collection soon.
Most of my photographs from the recent Mashramani parade for Georgetown were of one particular style, but somewhere in the middle of all the fast flying shots that I took I managed to capture one that was quite different from the wide shots of the floats or the half-body close-ups of the revellers
I don’t know if it’s the photography book I have been going through, but for some reason this image stands out from the plethora of photographs that I took on Mash Day.
The book is “Through the Lens – National Geographic Greatest Photographs”, and it contains some truly amazing photographs. I am certainly not claiming that any of mine can class with anything from National Geographic, far from it, but the “feeling” that I got from this one was different from the rest, and I think that it is a better photo for that.
You have to see it large, please click on the image to see it in the Gallery.
For me, this shows a woman lost in the moment; it’s just her, the music, the rhythm, the motion… alone in a crowd, part of the band bu apart from the band all at once. This is “the moment” for Mashramani 2013. I hope you like it.
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