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.
When the new owners of the Central Garage building began their renovation works, I asked permission to take a few photographs inside the building and also from the roof. Although I took quite a few, this one always nagged at the back of my mind (I’ve yet to process that set completely).
The front of the building was windowed in sections, and at the time of my visit the windows and their frames had been removed from the eastern wall, this wall has now been remodelled and houses large glass panels, so the view may be similar 🙂
I had originally thought that the new owners would remove the old building and replace it, but they chose to retain the existing steel structure, remove and replace the old wooden and asbestos outer walls. Although they changed more of the facade than I’d have wished, they retained more of the original building than was expected 🙂
This view shows mainly City Hall, which itself is in danger of crumbling, you can also see part of the ACME building, and part of the Victoria Law Courts. I liked the contrast between the darker interior of the building and the brightly lit City, framed by windowless orifices.
Please click on the image for a better view in the Gallery, this Gallery also holds other photos from around Georgetown, Guyana.
I’ve often wondered at the diversity, and often strangeness, of the photographs that are taken by people It is sometimes good to let the mind wander and indulge in thoughts and theorems about what prompts a photographer to photograph a particular subject, or to do so in a particular way, and then to further process it in a particular style.
What makes a photographer chose to render his image in monochrome rather than colour, what made them choose to use the “rule of thirds” or break them? What would make a person (of relative sanity) walk the streets of Georgetown to take up Street Photography, or spend months in the Rupununi areas of the interior?
As each photographer takes more photographs they tend to develop a style, a particular slant to their work, some are even known for creating Genres, Nikhil says I have a “style” although I find it hard to identify, and I can usually identify his photographs (except where he deviates from his norm)… so… where does this photo fit in? 🙂 I know it’s mine, would you have said it was?
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery
Recently, one of the younger photo enthusiasts in the Guyana Photographers FB group, uploaded a photo and mentioned that she was “Adding to the clothes-clips shot collection”, and it carried me back several years to one of my earlier photos (back when almost everything was a family snapshot). It was one of the earliest photos that Nikhil thought has some artistic merit, or as Naseem might say “artsy”.
For me, photography was “I shoot what I like”, but as the years went by it became more about trying to shoot what I like “a little better”, pay more attention to composition, to the elements in the photo and to the way I process and present the photograph.
So here is the photo from 2007, back when I had started shooting the Canon PowerShot S3 IS, although it is not an SLR, it gave me more control than a compact point and shoot (although at the time it didn’t seem to matter that much to me, it was just fun)
A Drive up the Rupert Craig Highway carries you past the villages of Plaisance and Sparendaam on the East Coast of Demerara. My dad had once pointed out that what most people referred to as the “Catholic Church in Plaisance” was actually situated in Sparendaam (this would be the Church of St John the Baptist), and I couldn’t help but notice that the Saint Paul’s Anglican Church at Plaisance is also in Sparendaam.
I suppose that quibbling about the name of the location is minor since the street that marks the division of the two villages is the same street that both churches are on. Now the street, that has name issues of its own…
As with most of the place names in Guyana, they reflect our past colonisations and our change from Colonial rule to Independence, the name Plaisance is of French origin, and Sparendaam comes from the Dutch. Our last colonial masters were the British, when our country was known as British Guiana, and the two main streets running the length of Plaisance were (and to some extent still are) Queen Victoria Road and Prince William Drive.
During the “Burnham years”, one of the changes (some might call it an attempt to eradicate our history) was to rename streets that held “colonial names” to names that were more meaningful to a country emerging from colonial rule and striving for successful Independence. In Georgetown one of the more notable changes was the renaming of Murray Street to Quamina Street. John Murray was the Lieutenant Governor of Demerara from 1813 to 1824, Quamina was a slave involved in one of the largest slave revolts in Demerara during that time (in 1823 actually).
In Plaisance, Queen Victoria Road was renamed to Ben Profitt Drive, and Prince William Street was renamed to Andries Noble Avenue. Ben Profitt was a notable village chairman of Plaisance, and Andries Noble is touted to be one of the best midwives of Guyana, there’s probably very few people over the age of 35 from Plaisance and Sparendaam whom she didn’t help bring into this world.
Although the name changes were made more than a couple of decades ago, the streets are still referred to by many using the original names, although most people who have grown up in the villages know them by both names, So St Paul’s Anglican Church is sometimes referred to as being on Queen Victoria Road, and sometimes on Ben Profitt Drive, likewise it is also sometimes referred to as being in Sparendaam, as well as being in Plaisance..
I started this blog post just wanting to say something about St Paul’s Anglican Church other than “Here is a photo of the church with it’s cemetery as seen through a gate in its fence”, one thing led to another and now the post is almost 500 words long.
Without further ado; “Here is a photo of the church with it’s cemetery as seen through a gate in its fence” 🙂
St. Paul’s Anglican Church
Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery, along with other images from this year’s Deck Project.
With the sun far past its zenith and fast approaching the horizon, long shadows are cast upon the ground. Although I knew that I wouldn’t get what I wanted, I simply had to try. The sun was still a bit too high, and it cast a fiery glow to the edge of the roof, but the shadows created by the posts drew me in and I simply HAD to take a photograph.
In the dirt there are furrows from bicycles or possibly wheel-barrows and scattered across are flower petals from a nearby tree.
Promenade Gardens, August, 2011. Click on the image for a much better view in the Gallery.
OK, for those of you who have watched way too many sequels and prequels (and even re-makes) of Nightmare on Elm Street, yes, the three “long” shadows did put me in mind of Freddy reaching from the world of dreams and darkness into our dimension.
Aday.org had come up with an idea to present “A day in the world” through photographs, they wanted photographers worldwide, from amateurs to professionals, basically anyone with a camera, to take a few photos on May 15th and upload them to their site. They had so many uploads they quickly got problems handling it and I am still not sure if my photos are there and if they are eligible for the final project, I think a lot of the information went AWOL during the upload. At the time of writing this blog-post, they are still sorting out everything to relaunch the website.
I took a few photos within the city to contribute, and I am choosing one of those to share as my photograph for Week 20 of this year.
Its a very familiar scene in Georgetown, this was “after-work” and these people are most likely workers on their way from their jobs to get transportation home, and I used City Hall as a backdrop for some added familiarity 🙂
Click on the image to see it better in the Gallery.
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.
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
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 🙂
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.
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