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.
Following on the previous post, I just wanted to share a few more images from that day. The market is a place rich in colour, activity, people, culture, and so much more.
Some times I feel that I get too many similar shots, so many go unshared, often unprocessed, but here’s a few that made it past the processing and into the sharing category 🙂
Click on the images to see them in the Gallery “In the Streets” along with other images. Keep Shooting.
Sometimes even images I select in a seemingly random way often tend to have a theme of sorts running through them. I was processing these and uploading, when I noticed a theme of sorts, or maybe I was just stretching it 🙂
I took these in 2020, for us that would have been considered first wave COVID-19 I suppose.
Time to checkout, click on the images to see them in the Gallery along with other Street Photography
Depending on where you source your information from, some places are saying that wearing masks will help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease, some are saying the masks won’t help prevent you getting it, but if you have symptoms, then you should wear a mask in public… regardless, in some places in Guyana, masks are starting to appear with more frequency.
Before I myself am sent into lockdown, I think I’ll keep trying to capture street scenes.
Many supermarkets, staying open to supply us with our necessities, are mandating that their staff be masked, some are assisting with sanitisers as you enter, one I went into even gave me a mask to wear while in their store.
Taking no chances, this Chinese man masks up in the market, probably getting some fresh produce for his restaurant. Some Chinese restaurants have taken to doing Take-Away only, through a window, helping to limit exposure while still serving their customers
At a shopping “mall” – even though this isn’t the sharpest image, I’ve always found that for Street Photography, the story matters more than the technical perfection of the image.
Take every precaution possible. Be informed, beware of fake “cures and remedies”.
Tech giant Google has created a COVID-19 Information and Resource page.
And the World Health Organisation (WHO) is a trusted source of anything health related, including COVID-19, Keep checking their page for Updated information and guidance; here’s a link to their COVID-19 Advice page.
Please desist from spreading via social media (especially WhatsApp, unconfirmed data or things you’ve heard; be informed, be safe, be responsible.
Click on the images to see them in the Gallery, along with other images “In the Streets”
In my previous post, I showed what would have been my “select 5” images from a walk in Mon Repos Market, select as in those I’d choose to enter into the VISIONS Exhibition 2020 (were I to submit). Today I’d like to share another five images from that walk.
Any place where people are involved with activities of interaction or even just on the move, are places where you can find a treasure trove of Street Photographs 🙂
Some people make shopping look fun, getting a smile on the face of someone fetching several bags, priceless 🙂
These guys are using a blow-torch to sear the outsides of the poultry, never saw this before.
One of the few that I felt should be left in colour.
The dynamics around this stall caught my eye, not sure I got what I wanted but I got a decent one either way 🙂
This lone young girl at this stall right at one of the exits also caught my eye, another angle that I took was better, but the image quality was not, so this one works 🙂
Click on the images to see them in the gallery along with other images “In the Streets”
With unrest in town since the General and Regional Elections as well as less people in town due to the COVID-19 arrival on our shores, I had a Saturday morning off, and went into the Mon Repos market for a short walk.
Mon Repos is a village on the East Coast of Demerara, not too far before the large Lusignan Village. Saturday is Market Day at Mon Repos, and while I’ve walked in there a few times, this time I think I came away with a few good shots. whilst processing them, I couldn’t help but think that if I were submitting images for this year’s intended VISIONS Exhibition 2020, I might actually choose from these. In that spirit, I went through the ones I had earmarked as keepers and chose five to share,
VISIONS allows photographers of Guyanese descent or even non-Guyanese who live and work in Guyana, to submit three to five photographs; the photographs should be chosen with a theme in mind, a theme of the photographer’s own choosing. The submitted photographs are then collected by the curator (or curatorial panel) and viewed together as an entire collection of images from a variety of photographers, and naturally, there will be a variety of genres as well as themes. From this collection a narrative (or narratives) emerge, and it is this narrative that the curator works towards telling with the images chosen for the purpose.
Since it isn’t a competition, many excellent images are not included, but be assured that all those that are used are not only well suited to the narrative, but are also exemplary works by the photographers who submitted them.
I’m not much of a Street Tog (photographer), but these would be my picks for VISIONS is I were submitting. Quite a switch from my usual seascapes 🙂
To see them in the Gallery “ In the Streets”, click on the images, you’ll see them there along with other images in that Gallery.
Today we honour one of the more famous of the Street Photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson (born August 22, 1908). I won’t try to mimic or even come close to his type and style of street photography… but here’s a Georgetown Scene for you.
Morning Munchies
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with some other Street Photographs.
I never really liked the whole Kite-flying thing… don’t get me wrong, the idea always appealed, but the fascination wore off minutes after the kite was actually airborne. As Easter approached each year (when I was somewhat younger, anyway) I would look forward to the whole idea of visiting relatives, flying kites, picnicking and so forth, but in hindsight, it was the totality of the experiences that made Easter special, not just kite-flying.
One of the fun parts for us as kids was helping to decorate the kite, finding magazines to cut things out of, or gift paper, or any printed matter with an image on it, that was to add to whatever fancy snow-flake pattern a parent, aunt or uncle had already cut out of coloured paper to stick as the centre-piece.
I thought of that as I saw this kite-vendor choosing pre-printed stickers to apply to his kites, was the child who got the kite going to think that he /she missed an opportunity to decorate their own kite, or would they be happy that they got one already prettied up and ready to fly?
Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF40mm f2.8 STM | 1/250s, f/8.0, ISO 200
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery
Yesterday we took a drive down the hill to go get some fruits and some tea bags. Our route would carry us to pass by the house where I walked for the first time (not made my first steps, but actually walk), it was in Princess Alice Drive, the house itself had changed, so although I took a photo of it I didn’t bother to post it, I sufficed with a photo of the street sign:
On our way to the market we next made a drive through the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, to see the University Chapel where many of my family who grew up in Jamaica got married (according to my cousin) 🙂
Then we finally made it to the market in Papine, where we wandered around for a bit while Nyuk Lan bought some fruits:
Of course, before we left to head back home Alexis insisted we stop at Tastee to buy Jammie Patties and Coco Bread. I have to admit that I prefer the Jamaican Patties from Tastee over those from Juici, but will eat either 🙂 The Coco Bread is very similar to what we call Butterflaps in Guyana.
It recently dawned on me that there may be only one functional cinema left in Georgetown, possibly only one left in Guyana. While the television and computers, handheld media players and the internet have certainly impacted on how we watch our movies, the cinema has always had a big draw for people, however the cinemas in Guyana have steadily gone into disrepair and certainly some have disappeared. While we can place a lot of blame of the modernisation of media viewing, the owners and promoters of our cinemas have to take some of the blame, even when I was much younger, and the cinemas were full of moviegoers, I remember the sordid states of the seats, the persevering smell of urine, and the sound of the rodents running around the aisles.
They never did the little things that made you WANT to go to the cinema, why suffer through all that when you could wait a few months and see it in the comfort of your home? It was the experience, it was the “event” of going to the cinema with family or friends to watch a new (or old) movie in the company of others there to enjoy the experience, the camaraderie, the joy of the big silver screen, unfortunately the experience was not always a good one. And the cinemas are disappearing, one by one, by one…
I was re-reading an article written by Godfrey Chin on the Rise and Fall of Guyana’s Cinemas, I believe this was part of his “Nostalgias”, and while I am not old enough to know of some of the cinemas or even the movies he mentions, it hits home. He, of course, goes back to even before we gained our Independence, back to the days of British Guiana, and he brings us into the modern era, where instead of Cinemas modernising to keep up, they just kept going, stagnated in time, except for the titles of the movie releases 🙂
What prompted this blog-post was the sudden nostalgia I got (I am probably getting like Godfrey) when I was processing a photo I took of the partly demolished “Globe Cinema” and an image of the abandoned Starlite Cinema. Both of those images are included in this post. As the Astor is the last remaining cinema, I think that I should make an effort to get permission to do some photography in that establishment before it too disappears.
There are at least two other Cinemas that I know of which have been converted into places of worship, it seems to be the thing to do 🙂
Click on each image to see them larger in their respective galleries.
I’m a bit under the weather, so just a quick one to tide me over.
In almost every village area in Guyana, you either have walking, riding or driving vendors crying out their “wares”, I think some of the famous ones are “Broom Here!!!”, “Papers! Papers!, Kaieteur, Chronicle, Stabroek, Times! Papers!” and of course “Chips! Chips! Chips!, fresh chips!”
Maybe I’ll get the others another time, but for now here’s one of the Chips salesmen 🙂
Click on the image to see it larger on the site, and of course, browse the sight at will 🙂
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