2011 Deck – Week 9

On March 4, 2011March 4, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography22 Comments

This week I almost didn’t have anything to upload, and I almost went for Sasi’s idea of using the eggs 🙂 Fortunately, Nikhil had a desire to go check out the Kingston Promenade again, so we took a few minutes and went.

I started out with my Tamron telephoto lens but quickly switched to the ultra-wide Sigma 10-20, I had noticed the skies were nice, some clouds, some patches of blue showing, some streaky areas, and some heavily clouded areas, so I thought something good can come of that.

I got a few keepers from the shoot, but this one stands out, somehow a coconut got wedged or nestled into the hollow of a tree trunk on the beach… Nature’s “hole-in-one” 🙂

Click on the image for a larger viewing in the Gallery.

Cricket, lovely Cricket!

On March 1, 2011March 1, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography14 Comments

In the Caribbean and Guyana, this is our game, Cricket! Played by more countries than baseball, but less recognised by the “west”, the only thing played more and enjoyed by more around the world is probably football, NO, not that thing played by Americans, where they hardly use their feet except to run (with amazing speed actually), I’m referring to the real football, also called Soccer worldwide.

In cricket there’s variations of the game,there’s the one called Test Cricket, where everything is tested from the players endurance to the spectators’ patience over several days, usually five but it could be seven, then there’s the One-day Cricket, or standard 50-over matches, the World Cup for which is actually being played now. The newest forms of the game have been Twenty 20, or a twenty over form of the game, shorter and more exciting, and adopted by the governing cricket body, the ICC, as a new standard form, and here in Guyana, we have the yearly 10/10 games now sponsored by local telecommunications company GT&T. But those are the structured forms, as children growing up, other than the usual school-yard cricket we knew of three types of cricket, Cricket-in-the-street, Cricket-in-the-rain and the one that none of us could play but loved through the Dave Martins and the Tradewinds song, Cricket-in-the-Jungle!

As much as I’d love to catch a photograph of Monkey batting, the Elephant bowling, the umpire Parrot and the rest, I have to settle for the ones I can find, and I was fortunate to recently see a group of youngsters playing Cricket in the Street, in the Rain! Can’t beat that combination! I would have gone down to get closer photographs, but two things held me back, the camera isn’t weather-sealer and I hadn’t walked with the zip-lock bag as suggested by others, and if they saw me taking photos, it would lose some of the natural feel to it.

As always, click on the photo to see it on the site larger!

2011 Deck – Week 6

On February 12, 2011February 12, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography18 Comments

Strange enough I had a totally different image in mind for this week’s Deck Photo, I hadn’t processed the images as yet, but I had sorted out in my mind the images I had taken and had somewhat settled on a particular image. On importing the photos into Lightroom, I saw one that I had dismissed mentally, it was taken hastily and I did not think that I had captured what I wanted. As I looked at it I realised that it had some merit, and as I processed the image it grew on me to the point that I haven’t bothered to process the rest until I finish this blog post 🙂

It was a nice lazy afternoon at Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara, and I was probably on my fourth Cuba Libre, and I saw them coming down the street, barely time to put down my glass (carefully), go for my camera bag, take out the camera, frame up and shoot. There was no second take, just the one shot.

Soaring over the Seawall in September

On February 8, 2011February 8, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography26 Comments

The sky that day was a photographer’s dream, nice variety of clouds, a slowly setting sun, as Nikhil mentioned once “even a monkey could have gotten good photos that day”. I’m not entirely sure about the monkey, but I know we came away with some good ones.

For me, I liked this one because of the clouds, and then there’s the lone man walking along the wall, and the lone bird soaring in the sky.

On the corner

On February 7, 2011February 9, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography20 Comments

Although Nikhil is no longer pressured on a daily basis for a photograph since he completed his first 365 project, we still manage to go for a photo-walk every now and again. One of those walks took us into Campbelville, and although it was mostly for him to get some Nas-inspried photographs, I came away with a few goodies 🙂

One was also somewhat inspired by an image I once saw from a controversial photographer called Ken, although my photographs may never become as “professional” as Ken’s I learnt a lot from reading his blogs and rants 🙂 So, I titled this one “Ken”, it was taken at the corner of DeAbrue and Duncan Streets (north-west corner)

The second one, I wish I had spent more time on, the scene reminded me of a photograph I once saw from Errol Ross Brewster, and I am ashamed I let the rain chase me away from this spot without getting more out of it, but there you go, the Canon T1i isn’t weather-sealed. This is at the corner of William and Middleton Streets (north-east corner), it is a single image, but I used HDR Efex Pro to recover some detail in the clouds, in the shot it was totally blown out.

Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái

On February 3, 2011February 3, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography22 Comments

Happy New Year! Today is Chinese New Year, the year of the Rabbit! To anyone of the Elmer Fudd persuasion, leave the Wabbits alone, go Duck hunting 🙂

Last night there was a display of Festive Lanterns, or Khom Fai, to mark the occasion in Guyana, and it was a very nice display, if you got there in time. And when I say in time I mean before the time that was originally advertised. Originally billed for a 7pm start (even one of the organisers Facebook page has it that way still) there was apparently a change during the day and it was moved up, anyone reaching for 7pm would have missed it (almost entirely), I arrived 15 minutes before seven and almost missed it 🙂 Maybe next year I’ll camp out an hour before hand. It was held at the Parade Ground, Georgetown.

It’s not a great photo, but it gives you the idea of what went on!

Festive Lanterns. Handheld, 0.3s, f/3.5, ISO 3200

Terminal

On February 1, 2011February 1, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography22 Comments

While other parts of the world are attempting to record every bit of information for Historical reference, and digging up (sometimes literally) any old records and references to people and places long dead and almost forgotten, I find that in Guyana, there are few records of places and people from our historical past (at least easily accessible records), whether of the recent past or a few generations back.

With the current alarming rate at which the older buildings, some with lots of history and character, are disappearing, I fear that a lot of the history and folklore that may be attached to those buildings will also disappear.

Much of what I know of Georgetown, was “told” to me by family and friends or teachers or just people who had something to say.

I was born after the trains disappeared from our shores, but I was told that this building was the Terminal (of course, there’s not much of a building left, so all I took was the side of it that has nice palm trees along the trench). It also served as the Bus Terminal after the train no longer ran. I vaguely remember the “Big Buses” that once were “the public transportation” of Georgetown, or as we grew up calling them; the Tata Buses.

This building also either houses or housed a foreign mission office, I remember seeing a crest or coat-of-arms on the High Street side some years ago.

Lamaha Street, looking down from the High Street end.

The Calm – LBI HDR

On January 25, 2011January 25, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography24 Comments

For anyone who has followed my through my blogging, you’ll have seen Nikhil’s name popping up with some regularity, we’re friends, and he’s also my photo-buddy. In September of last year he came out with a spectacular image which has since been used by Kriti in their publication of the 2011 Scotiabank (Guyana) Calendar, it’s an amazing image, he titled it Resting Drama (if you click on the name you’ll see it on his site).

I was left stunned with his image and had not processed any of my images from that day, they will all pale in comparison. Today I decided to process one, (I’ll get to the others eventually) this one was a three image HDR, whilst he faced north, I faced east, into the slowly setting sun.

I want to explain a few things; firstly, it’s a three image HDR (High Dynamic Range) trying to get the most detail out of the scene. Secondly, it’s about the scene as it is depicted, I tried as much as possible to keep the image as “natural” as possible, sometimes HDRs can go overboard and look over-processed or even cartoonish.

The sky was cloudy, so we were in a shadowed setting with some cloud coverage overhead, heavier as you looked eastward,but far towards the east the sun was setting, and fewer clouds were in the sky that far east giving the sunlight entrance to the scene. The sunlight bathed the seawall mildly or gently, You can see the wetness towards the sea reflecting the light, even the grass shoreward was lit to a degree.

I think I may be using too many words, I should just let the photo speak for itself.

The Calm - La Bonne Intention, East Coast Demerara. 3 Image HDR, 27mm, ISO 200

The Parallel Project – Starburst

On January 24, 2011January 24, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, The Parallel Project20 Comments

There are special filters that you can buy to create those “star-burst” effects from very bright points of light, but you can also do this by using a small aperture, the aperture rings in the lens will help to produce this same star-burst effect without you going out and buying those filters. Of course, the filters do give some very neat effects 🙂

I had intended this experiment for a night scene, but as I was in the park accompanying Nikhil, I thought I’d try it out using the sun as my source of bright light. (I even took shots with a larger aperture to make sure it was working as it should)

The Tree in the Park. 1/30s, f/16, ISO 400, 18mm

100

On January 21, 2011January 21, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography13 Comments

Normally on a Friday, I post the newest photo for the Deck Project, but I will have to post that tomorrow. This is my one-hundredth post since starting this blog, so I was looking for something special to do to mark it.

I decided to go through the photos that I’ve taken since using this current camera, the Canon EOS Rebel T1i, and I found three images that I thought would mark the occasion nicely.

Firstly, an image taken on the one-hundredth day of 2010, I only took photos on one subject that day, so I had to choose one from those, and one that I had not already uploaded. I may never see Washington DC (especially when the Cherry Blossoms are blooming) so this tree is our Guyanese version 🙂

Secondly, the one-hundredth photograph, or more specifically the one-hundredth shutter-activation of the T1i. This was from a project I did for Banks DIH, they were soon to open the new fine-dining restaurant and bar now known as OMG! This scene is from inside the restaurant, This is among the first experiences I’ve had with a Digital SLR camera.

Thirdly, I had reached and surpassed nine-thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine shutter actuations on the camera, and the numbering had started over, so the next photo is the second one hundredth image by number on the camera, so technically it’s the ten thousand and one hundredth image.

I started this blog with a post called “Before Our God”, with an image taken at the funeral of my maternal grand-mother, coincidentally on the one-hundredth post, an image from that same day is numbered 100.

For all those who have gone before us, those with us and those to come after us, most of us eventually realize that photography is more than just clicking the shutter-release button, it’s about the Moment, the Memory and the Meaning of the scene you have captured.