South to North

On July 19, 2012July 23, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

Before departing from the Kingston Area to begin the Family Reunion in Ocho Rios, my dad thought that getting a photograph of everyone who were in the Kingston area would be a good idea, so after everyone had eaten some breakfast, packed their bags and were ready to go, we all got together for the group photo.

I was hoping to do some photography whilst on the drive over, but the high grasses after the recent rains and a few other adverse conditions made that a bit impractical 🙂 I did manage to snag a photo of a vendor’s stand with some of the fruits out front during a brief stop.

One of the areas we drove through was Fern Gulley, but photographs can’t tell that story, you have to take the drive through yourself, but I took one of the curving road and the enclosing ferns to give the general idea, this spot had a nice window in the canopy above for extra light, many other sections did not, the ferns would enclose the road and create a lovely rainforest feel.

Once at the hotel, we checked in, went for lunch, then to find our rooms, We had chosen the mountain view option rather than the ocean view rooms, just to save a few dollars 🙂 This is part of the view from our room, not too bad 🙂

After some afternoon swimming (or more like wading in the pool), we were taking a walk to see the Gazebo at the ocean’s edge and I snagged a few more photos, after that it was dinner and bed 🙂 Not a bad day overall.

2012 Deck – Week 26

On July 9, 2012July 9, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Nikhil does more unusual cropping than I do, often times he’ll use the cropping to help emphasise the subject, and this is something I don’t often do, usually when I crop I try to keep the same proportions as the original image, and I try to crop very little, usually only as a corrective method (to rotate the image correctly of to remove something at the edge(s) that shouldn’t be included). I often forget that I can crop for emphasis and to strengthen the composition.

This week’s image is such an example, I originally thought that it was a good image, but for some reason it wasn’t as strong as I’d originally thought, so after some monochrome work on it I tried an unusual crop, and I think it worked.

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.

2012 Deck – Week 25

On July 5, 2012July 5, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography2 Comments

For many students in the trimester system, it is now the end of the school year, the end of projects and assignments, the end of homework, the last of the tests and exams until the next academic year begins.

I find it fitting that the image I chose reflects some of this; hands raised in joy as the sun sets on another day. The end of one thing usually marks the beginning of another, soon we begin the “August” or summer holidays, although those in the semester system have already begun theirs 🙂

Walk and Talk

On June 25, 2012June 25, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn Commentary, Photography4 Comments

I was processing this photo from 2009 and the title that immediately sprung to mind was “Walk and Talk”, obviously because that’s what the girl was doing; walking leisurely on the jetty, and talking on her cell phone (or mobile phone, or cellular phone, depending on your custom).

Then, of course, being a Caribbean Man, the song from “reggae great” Pluto Shervington popped into my mind as well; that would be “Ram Goat Liver”

As I am fairly certain that not many people outside of the Caribbean would know the song, I’m including the lyrics from the chorus:

Ram goat liver good fi mek mannish water
Billy goat teeth mek the earring for you daughter
Curried goat lunch put de bite in your bark
It mek you daughter … It mek you daughter walk and talk

I think that it is a good bet that the young lady in the photograph may likely be of East Indian descent, so the idea that she might have had Curried for lunch would not be too far fetched, and she can certainly walk and talk 🙂

Walk and Talk.
A cropped telephoto image. Click on it to see it better in the Gallery.

These days I have to wonder if the cell phone is more of a convenience or an intrusion. As it is, they are now more than just phones, they’re basically what was once your home computer, now in the palm of your hand. I remember when I owned a PC with a 386 processor that had an 80MB Hard Drive and at the time, that was considered large; now my smartphone has more than that amount of memory built-in and an additional card that can hold an additional 8GB of data.

But I digress. It is convenient to have a phone always with you, rather than being tied to a land-line. It is convenient to be able to check your e-mail, your Facebook and Twitter accounts, check stock trades and the latest news, and so much more. There are, however, times when you can do without the constant interruptions, the unpredictable yet persistent “ping” or “bleep” or whatever “ring-tone” you’ve chosen to notify you of every event that the phone is now capable of alerting you to. After weighing the Pros and Cons, I came to a decision that the mobile phone is as much as a convenience as you want it to be, and conversely, as much of an inconvenience as you want it to be.

My phone goes on silent when I go to Church, to meetings and to various functions where I prefer not to be disturbed, I feel the vibrations and I am aware that when I finish whatever it is I am doing that, after the hour or two, I will have a few (or quite more than a few) messages to read and maybe calls to return. But I am the master of the phone, it is not the master of me, and quite frankly, that is how it should be.

Now I’m hungry for some Curried Goat!

2012 Deck – Week 19

On June 13, 2012June 13, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

This week almost passed without me having taken any photos. I had some slim pickings, but I think I got a nice one.

Nikhil has often used the word “Grok” especially as relating to “grokking the scene”. It has become more important to grok the scene if you want to capture and express through the photograph what it is the scene says to you.

Even though I thought I had heard the word before, no one lese I know has ever used it as often as he does.

I check it up on Wikipedia and then thought to myself, “that’s where it came from!”, apparently coined by the author Robert Heinlein in his novel “Stranger in a Strange Land”. I love the definition given for it in the novel (keep inmind that it is a Science Fiction novel set on Mars)

Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.

Can we understand a scene so completely that we become as one with it? That is probably something to aim for, to achieve it would be great,

Here’s a photo of Nikhil, Grokking the scene 🙂

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery, and if you haven’t seen the other entries for the Deck project they’re all over there in the Gallery.

200

On March 19, 2012March 19, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography4 Comments

Just over a year I took this photo, I wasn’t very satisfied with it then, but then there was another image that had pulled most of my attention away from that same day. There’s just something about fishing boats that pulls your attention though, for this image I had wanted to incorporate the rocks, the boats, the heavily clouded sky, try as I might I could not get all the lines parallel, so I went for an image of divergent lines.

This post will mark the 200th post for this blog (I think that counts the “Hello World” post as well. I suppose if I did a daily photo project and blogged each one I’d be way ahead in count 🙂 For me, its not enough to just post a photo, I want something else to go along with it, some of my thoughts, or insights (or lack of)

There were some little things that I liked about this image; the water pulling away from the area just in front of the rocks, the waves breaking on the lower wall, the two boats at rest and, of course, the clouds 🙂

Be sure to lick on the image above for a much better view in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 40

On December 14, 2011December 14, 2011 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 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 38

On December 12, 2011December 12, 2011 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.

2011 Deck – Week 25

On June 25, 2011June 25, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography14 Comments

This week, the seawall continues its pull on me, when the “feeling” for photography is not with you, go somewhere that relaxes you, even if just for a few minutes. A short walk along the wall and you either come away relaxed or relaxed and with a few photos that were worth the walk 🙂

This week’s shot may not be the best technically, but it captured a “moment”, and that’s what I liked about it. People go to the seawall for many reasons, one of the customary ones is exercise, you feel the fresh air blowing over you and you feel rejuvenated, and you can run or walk, and like this guy, exercise your wrists 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 20

On May 20, 2011May 20, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography6 Comments

I thought to myself this week that maybe I should just put up as good a photo as I could get up to today before I let another week pass by and then I would be behind again in this project… and since I went with Nikhil to the Kingston Promenade yesterday photo-hunting, I came back with a few decent shots, so here’s to the twentieth week of the year.

It was one of those uninspiring afternoons, nothing seemed to leap out at you, at least not photographically. I did get a shot of a crab before he scampered back into his “hole” (is there a name for those?), but he isn’t super-sharp, I may yet post it up. The beach was littered as usual, and the sun was shining so brightly I almost couldn’t look eastwards, and the glare off the water and sand wasn’t helping any either.

Fortunately I did manage to see through the glare enough to spot a youngster playing near the waves, as it turned out I got more than I thought 🙂