Tag: sky

Parliament Building

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

Almost two years ago, I was invited to accompany Nikhil into our Parliament Buildings to do some photography, this being the first time I had stepped foot onto these premises, I was very excited.

And I think, like my first time at the Falls at Kato, I may have been too excited, too excited to properly take in what I was seeing and translate it into photographs.

When I first started processing these two years ago I was very excited and began with my HDR image of the grand staircase which I showcased in my blog-post “Into the Halls of Power”.  After that the rest paled somewhat by comparison and I only went back to them recently.

I started off with my “Mail Drop Box” image that I had posted to my Facebook page, then a second HDR, of the Parliament Chamber, which I did a blog about.

After going through them all, I think that I’ve finally accepted what I had as better than I had thought, and I have processed my favourites from the set and uploaded them to a Gallery on my site.

I think I’d like to do a complete photo essay of this building one day, but for now I have a small selection to show; these include a few exterior shots, a few views of the famous Stabroek Market tower as seen from Parliament, a few corridor shots and even one that includes the St. Andrew’s Kirk.

If I had included a small version of each photo, this blog-post would be longer and have more space allocated to photographs then for words, so I’ve done a small graphical “film strip” with a few select images, and encourage you to click on the film strip to visit the Gallery and see the collection over on the site.

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.

Old(er)

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

Age is a relative thing, something (or someone) is either younger (or newer) or older than another by a certain amount of time, whether it is by minutes, days, years, decades, centuries, etc.

I’ve grown up knowing the Hand-in-Hand Insurance Building (and others of its time) and they’ve become landmarks to me, that makes them old, or older than the stuff that went up in the last decade anyway.

They may not be of the Victorian era, so their architectural aesthetics may be less appealing, but they are certainly a lot more appealing than many of the concrete boxes that are being erected these days.

The Hand-in-Hand building always reminded me of a concrete and stone attempt to look Victorian, or maybe semi-Greco-Roman, but I’m not an architect and my terms may be far off the mark.

I had always admired its arches, the wrought-iron fence, the wrought-iron “fret-work” that created the arches between the columns, the low-sprawling style of the building.

When I took this photo I never intended to process it in Sepia tone, yet that is what appealed to me when I began processing, and to help the age along a bit, I added a light vignette (hopefully not too noticeable)

So this building is Newer than Victorian, but probably older than I am 🙂

Hand-in-Hand – 7216

2012 Deck – Week 16

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography5 Comments
By The Manatee Pond

I’ve been staring at this photo for weeks, and finding the right words to accompany it in the blog seems to be hard…

It’s a great spot, it has the Kissing Bridge, popular with brides and lovers, photographers and kids who like to run over it back and forth.  The pond has the manatees, where kids come to feed them on afternoons, there are little spots where families picnic and relax, and it’s where budding artists sit and sketch simply because there is so much of interest around.

Does it have too much?  is the photo crowded?  Am I just being hard on myself?  Who knows….  but this is the photo for Week 16  🙂

Click on the photo for a much better view in the Gallery

2012 Deck – Week 15

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography5 Comments

Easter Week.  I suppose that the easiest thing to try to get photographs of for Easter Week is of children flying their kites (at least in Guyana, anyway).  On Easter Monday we went to the seashore near Annandale (someone referred to the spot as “Friendship”), on the Easy Coast of Demerara.

I was taking a photo of a spot where an old Koker (sluice) once stood, and my daughter and her cousin came over to play/annoy/get in the way and so I made good use of them as they were already in the scene  🙂

For a better view of the photo, please click on the image above to see it in the Gallery.

2012 Deck – Week 14

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography1 Comment

I am still going through my photos from the 2012 Pakaraima Mountain Safari, there are lots of photos of vehicles and mountains, and I think I’ll save those for my post about the Safari (I really have to get around to that!)

On the way back from Orinduik after a very gruelling drive through “Rock World” we stopped for a breather and for the other vehicles to make it safely through.  I think that after making it through Rock World, if you smoke, you need a nice long pull on a cigarette, and if you drink, then you’d probably need a really stiff shot of something or a nice cold beer, and if neither option is available to you, then you need to go find something to just relax your mind and body and say “I’m alive!”

I grabbed my camera after I had gotten my legs to co-operate with general mobility, and went looking for things to shoot  🙂

This image was taken intentionally like this, also in post processing, the contrast slider in Lightroom was used liberally 🙂

As always, click on the image above for a better view in the Gallery  🙂

2012 Deck – Week 13

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography6 Comments

The thirteenth week of this year found me on the road trail, heading into the Pakaraima mountains towards Orinduik Falls on the Ireng River that borders Guyana and Brazil.

Although I took quite a few photographs, I had not been able to fully go through and process them, this week I did manage to do some narrowing down.

I have lots of photos of mountains and vehicles from the trip, not too many people, but I decided to go against the flow and choose one of a person…

When I took this photo I noticed the “look” in the eyes, Naseem had that Clint Eastwood stare, and with the hat and the general scene I was reminded of the spaghetti westerns.

Its not a Spaghetti Western, maybe we can call it a Macaroni Western, starring The Great N, and we’ll title it “A Neckful of Straps” 🙂  And the catchphrase could be “Mister, I’m watching you, one of these straps has your name on it.”  🙂

Although I was tempted to try for a “Technicolor” processing, I went for a copper-tone instead  🙂  As always, please click on the image to get a better view in the Gallery.

Palm Sunday 2012

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

This year I was away from town for Holy Week.  I was on the tenth Pakaraima Mountain Safari, and although I have not yet sorted all my photos from the trip, nor written any sort of account, I did choose this image for Palm Sunday to share.

It was taken at “58 Mile”, an area known for being 58 miles out of Linden, and for the “pit stop” establishment there know as “Peter and Ruth”, anyone heading to Lethem, or Kurupukari, or Mahdia usually stops here.

The photo is not of Peter & Ruth’s establishment, but of a little church opposite  🙂

Co-incidentally I was back in this spot on Good Friday at 3pm (most Catholics will know the significance of that) 🙂

So, although I got a lot of flak for not covering the Palm Sunday Mass (it seems there are some who look forward to my photos from that), I did manage a fairly nice shot that day anyway  🙂

Please click on the image to see it larger in the Gallery.

2012 Deck – Week 12

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

There was a competition in the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group on Colonial Architecture, it was getting very close to the deadline and there were very few entries, I “hurriedly” entered one that I took in passing, not a good shot by any standards, and regretted it immediately after.

Even if I am putting up a photo to “fill up space”, I should pay more attention, I have been less focused recently (no pun intended) , I can’t seem to get myself, the camera and the subjects to comply, to align properly.

I was out with Nikhil on a walk to get a photo for his 365 (366) Project and as we were wrapping up I saw this house and thought I should get a few snaps of it, and I knew right then that I had a better photograph than what I had recently dropped into the competition.

It was heavily overcast, and I deliberately composed it with lots of headroom.

As always, click on the image to see it larger in the Gallery  🙂