Tag: water

2012 Deck – Week 6

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography19 Comments

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 🙂

Yonder Isle

2012 Deck – Week 5

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography10 Comments

There are some weeks when you have a number of photographs, many that are technically better than others, yet you keep going back to one in particular which, although not the best composed, or the best exposed, nor the best focused image, it seems to demand from you that extra bit of attention.

This image is one such image for me, I had a few that were better, nicer, prettier, more appealing generally, but this one I liked more.  The focus was not on the “obvious” subject, and for that reason I almost decided not to use it, but it appeals to me, it is an image that says something more than the others that I took this week.

If it speaks to you, then I am happy, if it doesn’t, then I fully understand 🙂

Sands... and Time

2012 Deck – Week 1

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography14 Comments

After two years of doing this, I think that this is what keeps me intrigued in photography, the weekly search for a photograph.  While Nikhil has embarked upon his Daily Photography project this year (I hope he goes the full 366) I know my limitations, I won’t be trying that anytime soon.

I think that this image is somewhat appropriate to the year, the crazy Armageddon stories and to my photography.  If you believe the Mayan Calendar theorists and many of the other Doomsday predictions regarding the year 2012, then you’re probably hoping, like myself, that I get some really good photographs this year! 🙂

This was taken on New Year’s Day, because of my interests in HDR, I thought that I would try another Black and White HDR, this one was taken at midday, I think the originals were 2ev apart.

It was a breezy day (forgot my tripod again, so this was hand-held for all three exposures), and very overcast, lots of clouds as you can see.

2012

Intentional Under-Exposure

On By themichaellamcollectionIn One Way to Do it, Photography2 Comments

There was a challenge recently in the Guyana Photographer’s FaceBook page, it was about silhouettes, while there seemed to be various interpretations on the theme, I noticed that not everyone had the same idea of a silhouette.

Although many dictionaries seem to have similar definitions, they usually go back to the original meaning, referring to “cut-outs”, the explanation that I like the best I came across on Wikipedia (yes, I know, not always the most reliable of sources, but its accurate here), “A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black”.  I think this explanation covers the idea of a silhouette regardless of the medium used to illustrate it.

This image I intentionally under-exposed when I took it to capture more detail in the sky and less in the foreground and objects between myself and the horizon, although I did under-expose I apparently didn’t do so enough since I still had to adjust the black levels to get what I wanted 🙂

Although the tree-line takes prominence in this image, the real interest is the child on the wall walking into the sunset.  Intentionally under-exposing the photograph is one way I know of getting the silhouettes that we try for in images like this.  Getting the right exposure is important, goodness knows I’m still trying with that, but learning when to over-expose the photograph and when to under-expose it can create those moments that are more memorable than an average exposure 🙂

The Walk Home

For a better look, click on the image to see it in the Gallery.

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2011 Deck – Week 51

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography4 Comments

I had shortlisted four images for this blog-post, two of them were too much in keeping with the general theme of the last few weeks, so I discarded those (for later publication) and one was somehow reminiscent of photos I’ve seen from Nikhil and some other local photogs, so I ended up with this one.

I titled it “Ritual at Dawn” because I had inadvertently caught some people in the frame, I think they may have been Hindus out to perform a seaside ritual (I think I should enquire more about this)

I was a bit dissatisfied with the original capture, but was taken enough by the scene to try to “salvage” the image.  I tried a single image HDR tone-mapping, but that didn’t work out as I expected.  I then decided to go for a pseudo-HDR, since I hadn’t actually taken multiple exposures, I created the multiple exposures in Lightroom (using a 1.5ev on the original image) In the image with the +1.5ev I wanted to get more detail from the rocks on the shore, so I used a gradient to adjust the exposure in that area.  Using the three new exposures I did an HDR process in Nik HDR Efex Pro, and although the full-coloured resulting image was OK, I thought that in this instance I would get a better image using a black and white HDR rendering.

Ritual at Dawn

2011 Deck – Week 40

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Sometimes we just take a walk out to the seawall for, well, a walk  🙂  We go to see the boats, walk in the water, enjoy the breeze… well, the children go walking in the water anyway.

This photo was taken on one of those walks, there’s a spot at Lusignan where the boats that have finished their day’s fishing are moored, the fishermen are finishing up their day’s work, where the catch of the day is off-loaded and packed for sale, it was at this spot we walked to, my daughter and her cousin are down at the water’s edge, and I’m walking ahead to look back and, or course, snap some photographs  🙂

I could try saying a lot more, but I think in this instance the photo can speak for itself  🙂

At Play

2011 Deck – Week 38

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

On this week, I only went out to take photos on one occasion, and on that occasion I took 45 photos, and I was way odd that afternoon, most were very underexposed.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling in the mood, I was fairly enthusiastic, I was enjoying the fresh air, the brief walk, and the scenery, but I never once looked down at the screen to check my photos, no chimping.

I was fairly disappointed but one of them had to work 🙂  I chose one that appealed to me in a general sense and felt that it would work well in monochrome, after playing with the processing for a while I found I wasn’t getting what I felt the scene needed, so I took the file into Nik’s HDR Efex to try a single image BW tone-mapping, and amazingly got what I thought was a good final processed image.  I would never consider this a true HDR, since I only used one image, but the tone-mapping of the HDR software helped bring out the details that I wanted in this image.

Walking West

2011 Deck – Week 36

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Since the members of the Guyana Photographers (Facebook Group) started doing PhotoWalks it has provided me with other opportunities to get out and do some photography, as well as to see and admire the photos emerging in the group from these walks,  there truly is a lot of enthusiasm and talent among the members.

On one of those walks (this one was to the villages of Good Hope and Triumph, I got what I thought were good shots, then I saw what others put up and realized that mine were all just OK  🙂

I fell into the trap set by all the enthusiasm and put my better shots onto the Group’s Page, without thinking to reserve at least one for this post, so a-hunting I went through my images for one that I could use.   You can check out some of the photos from the group in the  3rd Photo Walk album Facebook.

...beyond the shore

2011 Deck – Week 34

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography8 Comments

Although I had quite a variety of shots in this week, I couldn’t help but do a Sunset, a variant of one I had uploaded to the Guyana Photographers FB Group for a Photo Walk  🙂

This was an evening when I was heading into Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara, as I crossed the bridge into “Good Hope South” I noticed the sunset down the canal, so I decided I’d stop and try a few photos.  I had often noticed sunsets or similar scenes in the evening, but because its one of the only ways into the village it is always busy and I never stopped.  This time, I determinedly stopped the car, grabbed the camera and walked to the bridge. The bridge is wide enough to hold a car and a pedestrian to either side 🙂  As I stood on the bridge, vehicles passed by and I was hand-holding a low-light shot, it took some patience, but I think I came away with one or two good shots  🙂

2011 Deck – Week 30

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography9 Comments

It is not every week that I can come up with something that pleases everyone, so this week don’t expect something that pleases you  🙂  but if it does, hooray!

I went to the Essequibo Coast a few weekends back for a wedding (photos from which I don’t have permission to share as yet), I took photos other than wedding ones, so here is one from the first day there, which happened to be the last day of the 30th Week of 2011.

It seems that from the North-West region to the Corentyne Coast there is a common theme on the shores of our land, Jhandi Flags!  You can’t seem to walk the beaches, sea-walls or the coastline in general without seeing them.