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.
One of the first things I tell people asking me about getting better at their photography is to get to know their camera, regardless what camera it is, and I tell them that one of the ways to do this is to “read the manual”, you don’t have to understand all of it at one go, just read it 🙂
Each manual has some safety precautions that they list, one of them is “Don’t shoot directly at the sun!”. My friend Nikhil repeatedly tells me that you have to know the rules and understand them, so that you’ll know when to break them 🙂
I hope this was one of those instances where it worked since I totally ignored that rule about the sun… and I even liked the lens flare I got in the process.
Click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with the previous images in the Deck Project for this year.
Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.
– Hiroshi Sugimoto
In 1980 Sugimoto began working on a series of Seascapes from around the world, he uses different exposure times (sometimes up to three hours) and he composes them with the horizon bisecting the photograph. Oh, he uses an old-fashioned large format camera to do this, serious stuff!
Sugimoto I’m not, but his reflection on how the view of the sea affects him made me thing of all the times I’ve visited our own Seawall, and even when the tide is high and the waves are rough, there’s a sense of sereneness that permeates me, calms me and makes me forget my worries. His last phrase there also reminds me of how we often stand (or sit) and face the waters and stare out to sea, as if in a daydream, “on a voyage of seeing”.
I won’t try to mimic his work, but the simplicity of his work made me wonder if I could try a simple seascape, something without the occasional boat or human element, or the rocks along a shore.
This image was taken in the afternoon, and I processed it using Nik Silver Efex, with an orange filter for effect.
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery, along with others in the Black and White series.
I was driving up the East Coast Demerara Public Road and noticed the lovely blue skies, as I was alongside the seawall, I decided to stop and just take a look over the wall to see if there was anything that might catch my eye, that would make a good photo. Although I thought that I already had a good photo for the week, I still wanted to see, and I think I was lucky, I was down on the other side looking at a very clear ocean, with just a few poles sticking out of the mud and thought that I had better jump back in the car, when I noticed the coconut,
I switched lenses to the ultra-wide Sigma 10-20, and tried out a few shots, and this one appealed to me. I hope it pleases some of you too 🙂
For a better view, click on the image to see it in the Gallery, along with many other photos, this one is in the Seawall Gallery 🙂
Most times when I experiment with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, it is usually a static scene, with very little chance of movement between exposures, in as little of the scene as possible, like my recent Bamboo Grove image, this is to reduce ghosting and blurring in the final image, however, I do sometimes go for some scenes where there is movement, but these don’t always work out.
Last year I tried one and liked the results enough to use it for my Deck Project for the 19th Week, and whilst in Barbados I tried one down at the beach. At the beach there was more movement that I’d have liked, with “everyone” in the water moving about. As usual, I don’t try to be too ambitious, so I stuck with my usual three exposures for an HDR, each at about 2ev difference.
Using Nik HDR Efex Pro, I manipulated the ghost reduction feature until I had as little ghosting from the bobbing heads in the water that was possible 🙂 There’s really only one reason I chose this scene to try an HDR, the clouds! 🙂
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.
You can follow me on Facebook as well, I won’t refuse any “Likes” on my page 🙂
After all that scenery and strange sights of Jamaica and Barbados, you would think that I would come back to Guyana with an eye for more landscapes and such, but my first morning back and I see a photo opportunity that was perfect for Nikhil, but since he wasn’t around I thought I’d give it a shot, I’m not very good at lining up my images in the eyepiece, something to do with my eyesight and spectacles, but after some attempts and a bit of correction in post-process I think I got a decent shot out of it.
While we were away, this weed decided to grow up through the grill over the hole in our bridge, tiny aquatic plant-life covered the water, and the morning sun helped to cast nice shadows to bring some dimension to it all 🙂
As always, click on the image for a better view in the Gallery
At the close of the thirtieth week of the year, I was in Barbados, and my sister and her husband had decided to carry us on a whirlwind of a tour of Barbados’ scenic points, I’m surprised I could remember where I took this one.
I think we almost circled the entire island that day, starting from almost the southernmost point of the island and going eastwards around the coastline.
If my memory serves me correctly, this one was taken at North Point, from the name it’s likely the northernmost part of Barbados, and I was very engrossed with the view, but I managed to get some photographs in while admiring it.
This is an HDR from three exposures, I hope you like it.
The last week here in Jamaica was very uneventful, except for the many drives down the hill and back up the hill, the amazing meals we had each and every day, and the comfort and kindness of our Jamaican family! The last full day saw us heading downtown for some shopping (obviously I wasn’t shopping), and we were the tourists, seeing the place, and taking photos 🙂
Jamaica is famous for its Reggae music and for the legendary Bob Marley, so we stopped to see the statue erected in his honour.
And its a good thing that the only erection involved in the Emancipation monument / statues was the act of putting up the statues:
Downtown I saw an old abandoned building with a painted sign that reminded me so much of home 🙂
Another building had two coconuts lying on the steps
On the way back up to Gordon Town, we stopped for a photo at what was once a Lookout Point but is now a Lookout Community 🙂
And finally, a self-portrait; thinking about the people I’ve met, the places I’ve seen and the things I’ve done; and wondering about the next brief stop on my trip 🙂
By the fourth day of the reunion I had gotten so far into the Family mode that as I was hunting through the photos from that day I noticed that I had only taken three photos that were not of the family at the reunion 🙂 So that’s what you’ll see today, those three photographs.
There’s a bridge that crosses a pool area between the “entertainment” section of the hotel and the “dining “ area of the hotel, it’s a Genuine Rope bridge, but with wide wooden planks for the base to walk on, many of the children (yes, and some adults too) quite enjoyed bouncing across the bridge to have it sway a bit 🙂
For some reason I took a photograph of a portion of a Palm Tree’s trunk, with the rock formations in the background, I blame Nikhil, he does this kind of stuff all the time, juxtaposing one thing in front of the other!
That evening we were sitting near the poolside and I took a photo just “to take a photo”, This area photographed is the general area where we sat and ate most of our meals, it is part of the buffet dining area, where every meal was a spread!
Third day of the full reunion, we visited the famous Dunn’s River Falls, and the tour guides split us up into two groups (we were apparently too large a number to keep together, especially with other tourists there too 🙂 ) In their introduction the guides said that there were two famous waterfalls in the world, Niagara Falls and Dunn’s River Falls, ALL the Guyanese in the group said without hesitation “KAIETEUR FALLS”, after giving us a look that could curdle milk in the goat, he ignored us and carried on with his “talk” 🙂
I didn’t mind a talk about safety on the falls, but when I have to start chanting “hot hot hot” and “wet wet wet”, and have to answer tour guides questions on camera, when all I want to do is enjoy the climb, I can get testy, I didn’t go for the Kumbaya and to make the guides look good on camera, especially when all the notices going down had a number of warnings for climbers and at the very top was “Anyone climbing the Falls to so at their own risk”, so kept thinking to myself “back off Rasta, and let me climb”
The guides were only interested in getting photos and video of their groups to “sell” to you after the climb, safety was the last thing on their mind. Our group got separated numerous times, members fell, and even had slight injuries.
At the beginning of the climb, from the bottom of the falls, there were at least five groups of people trying to climb the same section, simultaneously… The first stop they made was at a “pool” in the falls where they got small groups (families etc) to get in (it was fun!) and smile and wave for the camera 🙂 It was all for their camera, this was the photo they’d try to sell you when you reached the top! Yes I’m complaining, and I’m a photographer! Here’s one Andre took at that point 🙂
An Andre Lam photo
I prefer his photo, not because it is better (which it is), but because he didn’t twist my arm to take it, and he didn’t twist my other arm to buy it 🙂
Remember I mentioned the groups of people trying to climb simultaneously? Here’s a photo of a (relatively) calm spot, now go pick out the groups, remember that each group has two “guides”, one has on a blue shirt (he’s the official guide) and the other has on a yellow shirt (he’s the one with the video camera, who will disappear halfway up to go make the DVD) 🙂
Somewhere before this point (after my daughter had fallen and was saved by my cousin Nyuk-Lan in true action hero fashion, and my father had fallen twice, a few of us departed the falls, and I took over Andre’s camera to get some shots in, I really have to get more experience on strange cameras, I got fewer good ones than I’d hoped 🙂
Being totally fed-up with the guides, Nyuk-Lan led a team of rebels on their own merry way up the falls, including a section that was obviously being avoided by the guides and their groups, and it made for a few lovely photos 🙂
After all that, getting back to the hotel and it’s pools was relaxing 🙂 Joan had made reservations at La Diva Italian Restaurant, while waiting for dinner we noticed what was going to be a lovely sunset, both Andre and I headed out (while the servers were serving the appetizers) to take a few photos. The sight of the two of us taking photos seemed to have spurred numerous diners in other restaurants to do the same, and heading back to the restaurant, Andre noticed numerous people on their room balconies with their cameras too 🙂
From my seat in the restaurant, I noticed the colour of the sky contrasting nicely with the lighting in the restaurant area 🙂
The Michael Lam Collection's Blog 