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.
There’s a place called Kato, that has a Waterfall that’s very beautiful to a traveller, I was so enthralled and excited that I have to admit to taking very lousy photographs of it.
In this photo you can see some of the travellers enjoying the refreshing waters of the falls, this is a short drop, there was a larger one not too far off (not too large though 🙂 )
There were various refueling spots on the trail, and one of them was set on a lonely spot just off of Monkey Mountain.
As we were refueling, I took a moment to take a few photos of the scene.
I liked the loneliness of the scene, the discarded fuel drum, the hut and the distant mountains.
I was on the “Safari” in 2009, and I will present a series of images from that trip in the next few blog-posts.
This is an HDR Image of a view from the Oasis at Annai, this is a famous stop along the Lethem Trail, and in the distance you can see the foothills of the Pakaraima Mountains, and the trail that leads through them on the way to Lethem.
I try not to do single image HDRs, that is, using a single exposure and tone-mapping it for greater detail throughout the scene, but sometimes I can never quite seem to get the processing on an image quite right in colour, and sometimes its an image that I would prefer not to use as a monochrome, so then I tone-map it in an HDR software to bring out that detail that I know is there.
This photo is of the Moravian Church in Queenstown, Guyana. It is more than a hundred years old.
It stands at the junction of Anira Street and New Garden Street, and there are utility posts and wires on two sides of it, I composed this to minimise the effect of those wires.
Although I am a Catholic, I have always been fascinated by the old myths and legends of ancient civilizations, so sometimes that comes through in my art 🙂
As Selene departs, another night done
She comes charging, the day’s begun
Sky aglow from her robes of saffron
As her mighty steeds keep galloping on.
Firebright and Daybright in the cool early morn
together they pull her Chariot along
the harbringer of Helios; the master of day
she dispels the night with her soft golden rays
Mother of the winds and the Morning Star
lighten the darkness, let night leave no scar
Upon a world of cold night chills
bring warmth, bring light, bring what you will
The Dawn-bringer comes, her tears on the flowers
creatures of dark, well should you cower
I stand on a mountain in the far distant west
And patiently await the touch of the Goddess.
Please click on the photos in this post to see them larger at the Gallery, I think the small sizes here may do them an injustice.
The mighty Kaieteur, the largest single drop waterfall (by volume) in the world. Let’s not get confused, it’s NOT the tallest single drop waterfall in the world, but when you’re comparing the sheer volume of water flowing over it, it is the largest single drop waterfall in the world, make note of that distinction. It has a single drop of 226 meters (741 feet), and averages about 663 cubic meters of water per second (23,400 cubic feet per second). It is awesome!
For you Canadians and Americans, it’s about five times the height of Niagara,
You can read more about the falls and its history on other sites, I’m not about to go regurgitating all that data here 🙂
For years I’ve always avoided flying into Kaieteur because I could always say that my money would be better spent (in terms of distance and longevity) in going to one of the Caribbean Islands, it was cheaper to go to Trinidad (and stay for a week or two) than to go to Kaieteur and spend two hours.
My first visit to Kaieteur was in 2009, and if I could give up my day-job and become a guide for a tour company just so I could see Kaieteur every week, I’d do it, but then again, I like my job 🙂
This photo was resurrected from my files recently, I had taken three exposures for an HDR, and I decided to re-process those files and see what happens. It won’t be great (especially to enlarge it), it was taken with the Canon PowerShot S5 IS bridge camera with a Raynox 0.66x wide angle adapter attached, You can probably see some of the lens distortion at the edges.
This is my favourite view of Kaieteur (other than the views from the airplane, of course) This is known as Johnson’s View, it’s the furthest view from the falls and gives a beautiful view on the vista.
Definitely, click on the image here to see it better in the gallery.
When I got my hands on the first DSLR that I could say was “mine to use”, you know; not borrowed for a short time, I decided that I wanted the first exposure (or the first frame) to count, to mean something, or at the very least, to be a special photo 🙂
I had just gotten my hands on the Canon Digital Rebel T1i (500D), and I had not too recently been viewing some photos by Dwayne Hackett, and there was one that had inspired me, it was of St. George’s Cathedral, and I decided that I wanted that to be my first shot. As it turned out, even though I tried to time it right, a vehicle sped into the frame just as I clicked, so the second actuation was my photo instead.
I have now gotten my hands on an upgrade, so I thought I’d do the same thing, try for a special photograph. Week after week I pass the St Philips’ Green and think about how I would photograph the Church there (under renovation), but I am usually afraid to stop because of the type of desolate area it is. They had just finished clearing the area close to the road and the Church was quite visible from the road across the cleared land, and the branches from the trees helped to frame it nicely, so that was to be my first actuation on the Canon 60D.
I have to begin by apologising for the amount of photographs in the album on the site… I normally go just for fairly close shots, but I thought that this year I’d try to get some of the whole shots with the costumes, I’m not too good at it, but I’ve been asked many times about why I don’t have the nice big costumes. Also, the Children’s parade this year was very engaging and the costumes very nice, and I think there were more of them too 🙂
Every year I think that the Children’s Parade is better to attend than the Adult’s Parade, it is shorter, even though the amount of entrants might be on par, even though they don’t speed down the road, they seem to be more organised and better managed, and this results in a very good flow of groups and floats down the street.
The sides of the street is also less crowded so as a spectator, I can enjoy it more and as a Photographer, I can get the photographs easier 🙂 without being elbowed and shoved, and possibly trampled.
I know it may be a lot of photographs, but I think you may find at least a few that appeal to you 🙂 Click on the image below to see the entire collection in the Gallery. Or just click this TOP 25 link for a select 25 images.
I am a Photographer.
After years of trying to avoid the label, I have to accept what I am, and I can say I am proud of the journey and what I have achieved so far with the help of everyone I know, not a single person has ever tried to tell me that my photographs are bad, many said they were good (and worth improving many times), mostly these were family and friends, so they are expected to say that 🙂
Today, 16th February 2012, I will stand beside one of my best friends and fellow Photographer, Nikhil, as our work goes on display at the National Gallery, Castellani House. It will be a month-long show, ending on March 17th, 2012. The Gallery will feature at least 20 pieces from each of us, and we are proud of our work. (he exhibition is open to the public from tomorrow through the 17th March)
Although in the beginnings of my photographic journey I seldom saw the call of monochrome photos, I seem to have changed quite a bit in that respect, the majority of my photographs on display are monochromatic. Many years ago I was well known by my friends for detesting heavy cloud coverage in the skies as I loved blue skies in my photographs, that has also changed, most of the landscape images on display show dramatic clouds and tumultuous skies.
I encourage anyone with a few minutes to spare to stop in at Castellani House and take a look, I’d hate to be known as the exhibition that no one bothered to go see 🙂
This week, I give you an image taken on a PhotoWalk with the Guyana Photographer’s Group, my more spectacular images were posted to the group (I hope to share them here later), this one I saved for use here, I was planning a post on the effective use of vignettes, but I don’t have that much to say on the subject yet, so here’s how I used a vignette in post-processing an image, and it’s a sepia (monochrome) image, and there are clouds in the sky, no true blue skies for me that day either 🙂
Often enough, I happen to see a beautiful sunset when I’m in the middle of a housing area or similar, with lots of utility posts and wires mangling the view, or a very plain area with nothing of interest other than the sky itself.
Last week, it happened again, and as I was driving out I decided to stop at the closest thing approximating to a “nice” scene, and get a shot including part of the sunset that day. 🙂
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