Tag: sun

Coastal Sunrise

On By themichaellamcollectionIn PhotographyLeave a comment

One of those so-called “Rules” about using your camera correctly is that you should not point your camera directly towards the sun. Other than the obvious effect of probably blinding you, its also to protect your gear, but sometimes, you have to just ignore that. In order to get a decent Sundog photo, you have no choice.

Likewise with Sunrises and even sunsets, sometimes you compose with the sun off-centre, other times you may think the centrally placed sun works better.

A rising sun on a reasonable clear morning can be very bright when seen through the viewfinder of a DSLR 🙂

Rio Sol – 20-7859
An East Coast Sunrise

The tide was out that morning, so I was able to get down to the seashore level.

Most areas where there’s a Koker (Sluice), even at an early morning hour, you’ll find some people at various tasks, whether they be fishermen, devotees come to do a Puja, someone washing articles of clothing, or just folks out to enjoy the sunrise.

Fisherman Sunrise – 20-7852

Of course, there’s always the nutcases like us who were out there to take photographs, sometimes we come away with just good memories, and other times we come away with a few images we’d like to share.

Click on the images to see them in the Gallery along with other images that I dropped into an Album called “Up East”.

Footprints and the Flag

On By themichaellamcollectionIn PhotographyLeave a comment

I typed the Title line at the top of this post and could not help thinking about the Insurrection in America almost a year ago. I was looking at the photo I am sharing and saw the footprints in the sand/mud that led away from the boat in the distance and headed towards shore using the Jhandi flag as a point of reference and a mark to aim for and pass, without disturbing it, and I think of some of the scenes I saw on television of that insurrection, of the trampling of people, ideals, decency and the flag. I didn’t intend to mention anything that political, but it came to mind, so I put it into words.

This scene is from an area on the East Coast of Demerara, past the large Koker at Hope, its referred to as Hope Lowlands, in the early morning the sandflies and mosquitoes eat you alive (or at least the morning we had visited, later in the morning its better, at least it was this time that I took this photo, I was out there with Fidal from 55 Photography, always good to have a photo-buddy, and the diversity in images from other folks on a walk are always great to see.

Hope Lowlands, East Coast Demerara, Guyana, South America

Hoping I get out more this year to get some photos in, my finger has been itching 😉 Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with others from my Black and White album

Jump

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

Finding Treasure.  That’s what it feels like when you pop a memory card into your camera and realize that it is full of images from a year ago, it was a 4GB card, but it was full of RAW files.

I don’t recall how it is that I never copied off the images, but given that it was not one of the cards I normally use, but more of a backup or emergency use card, it seems that I forgot that I had used it for a few days of shooting.

As is usual for me, it will take time to get to the images, but here is one that I spotted and wanted to share.

Canon EOS 60D | Sigma 10-20 | Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, Guyana

Click on the image to see it in the collection along with others in the People Gallery

Bask

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, PoetryLeave a comment

In going over older photographs, I usually have an easy time of picking out the ones I want to keep and those that I either will never use or would come back to later (eventually).

This one sort of nagged me.  I don’t think it’s a particularly great shot, but I kept going back to it, I decided yesterday to process it and see what developed, and although I still think it’s just a photo of a rock on the seashore, I’m partial to it.

Click on the photo to see it in the gallery along with others in the Black and White Collection.

Bask

Battered by the pounding waves
at times of high water,
stood upon as a refuge
from the swirling foam…
pinched by crabs as an anchor
from the pull of the receding waters,
Covered by shifting sands,
and uncovered by the waves,
ebb tide is past and
the waters are gone
basking in the warmth
of the sun, this fine dawn.

2014 Deck – Week 07

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Many readers assume that my photo for the Deck Project for each week is the “best” photo from that week, while sometimes this might be true, it is not always so.  The photo I choose is usually one that can, by itself, make a contribution to the 52 photos that comprise the Deck Project, and it can often have meaning or relevance as a photo to myself more than to readers / viewers.

This photo that I chose for this week may very well fall into that category of not necessarily being the best, but to me it stood out among others from the Children’s Mashramani Parade, this young lady had lots of energy and I liked how her darker skin contrasted with the white costume, and how the touches of coloured glitter accented ever so slightly the celebratory nature of the event.

She was part of the Smalta sponsored band from Chateau Margot Primary School, their main costume was depicting their theme “Princess of Peace and Purity” which they entered in the Ages 8-10 Fantasy Category.  This young lady was not the “Princess” or the main costume, she was one of the banner or standard bearers at the front of the “band”.

I hope you like it 🙂

Canon EOS 60D  |  Canon EF55-200mm Lens  |  1/500s @ f/7.1, ISO100, 200mm

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

For a Small selection of the Images from the Children’s Mash Parade, check the Children’s Mash 2014 Select album.

Mashramani Children’s Parade 2014

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography3 Comments

Although I am much behind in my current Deck Project, I thought it prudent to choose and process photos from last weekend’s Children’s Mashramani Parade.

As usual, I am seldom disappointed with the parade itself, the Children are always great to see, I often say it is better than the Adult’s Parade…

I will be making a shortlist of these photos soon, but for now you can click on the image below to see the current images in the Gallery

Mash - Kids 2014

2014 Deck – Week 02

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography3 Comments

I selected one of the images I took from the recent Guyana Photographers’ Photowalk to the Conservancy via Canal #2 for my Deck Photo for this week.

While I’ve never swum or plunged into the Conservancy, I do remember the many outings to creeks and diving off of a tree at the side, even after being warned that it was either shallow or may have stumps unseen under the water.

This shot reminded me of those days.  Many other photographers on the walk captured this moment, one even at, what appeared to be, the same moment, but it still remains one of my favourite images from the walk.  When I noticed what was occurring, I knew I didn’t have time to stop, bring the camera to my eye, compose and shoot, so I shot it from the hip 🙂

Canon 60D, Sigma 17-50mm  |  17mm, ISO 100, 1/400s, f/9

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

A Walk on the Conservancy

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

We recently had a Photowalk  for willing members of the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group, it was ostensibly called “Canal #2 Photowalk”, that just meant we met at the western end of Canal #2 on the West Bank of Demerara, right where it meets the Conservancy, from there we chose a direction to walk (by default we headed North).  Each member is initially allowed three images to upload to the album on the group, and Fidal Bassier wanted us to put some emphasis on “Composition” for this PhotoWalk, so there was some discussion about it… and I chose these three photos for certain reasons.

First image:  House  – 14-1649

I was mentioning to someone at the beginning of the walk (or a few someones) that it is important to know what makes a good composition, read as much as you can on things like the Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines, and other compositional aids, rules and guides.  Once you know these things it makes composing a decent image all the easier, but it also allows you to realize that some scenes will allow you to “break” those rules.

For this image I pretty much threw the Rule of Thirds away… the main compositional aid being a Leading Line – the bridge leading you to the house, but even this is muted a bit by the shadow across the early portion of the bridge.

Second image:  Sit – 14-1654

Initially the impulse was to zoom in to avoid all the clutter in the photo to simplify the scene down to the man, the boat and the conservancy behind him; but I thought that including the rough woodwork and using the low sun as a backlight would make for a nice silhouette shot or at least a more inclusive rather than exclusive composition.  The low-hanging branch also helped enclose that corner of the frame.  Shooting into the sun naturally desaturates a scene, and I used this to advantage in the colouring of the image.  I also again ignored the Rule of Thirds and relied on the leading lines of the wood and the bright sun to lead you to the subject.

Third image:  Prelude to Sunset – 14-1698

It seemed that although a few of us wanted to stick around to see the sunset, others preferred to get going… so I took a Prelude to Sunset photo.  When I first started taking photos, I would be happy with just a plain nice sunset, but as I began to appreciate some more the images that actually made me look twice at them, I came to realize that some Sunset images (and most landscape ones, come to think of it) needed a foreground object in the composition to hold your attention as well, so I tried to include a portion  of a rusty pontoon.  I exposed for the sky and had already decided that I would be doing some post-process fill-light to regain some detail in the pontoon.

I hope I didn’t bore anyone with all of that… overall, I think it was a good Photowalk.  Click on the images above to see them in the Gallery along with other images in the “Out and About” album.

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

2013 Deck – Week 39

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2013 Deck, Photography4 Comments

The Main Street Avenue is one of the few tree-lined avenues left in Georgetown, offices like the GRA and others believe that parking is more important than trees, shade, cooling and the beauty of the avenues, I believe that the “parking preparations that they have done to Waterloo street will result in those trees that remain there dying sooner rather than later.

Often, when walking down the avenue, I’d glance up at the lacy canopy and admire the shapes and patterns, and a few of those times, I’d even take a photo; this is one of those photos.

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery