Tag: windows

Tree of Knowledge

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography, Poetry4 Comments

Tree of Knowledge – 13-0493  |  Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-50mm

There was no good nor bad, just life
to this only man, and his given wife,
Days would pass, nights would fly,
animals their friends, of earth and sky;
Everything existed, no rhyme nor reason,
their world, their life, through every season,
All that would change with an admonition,
“Taste not the fruit of the tree, this one”,
All else permitted, this was forbade,
why not partake, why else was it made?
A question asked, a quest begun,
why shouldn’t they eat of this one?
A search for an answer, the first defiance,
revelations shattered the silence,
An answer found, more questions arise,
the world now seen through opened eyes.
The tree of knowledge, a planted seed,
And now it grows, it blossoms… indeed!

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

© Photograph and Poem by Michael C. Lam, All Rights Reserved

1888

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

I took this photo 5 years ago. (November 03, 2011, 5:06pm)

It’s one of those photos you take at the time, then just put aside; at the time it was just part of several images I took while walking along the northern and then the western side of City Hall, none of which were ever processed or shown to anyone.

I found a few dates about the building to be interesting; proposals for the construction of a Town Hall were endorsed in 1886, a design was chosen in 1887, and works completed in 1889, yet in the wrought iron fretwork design above this northern doorway is the year “1888”.

1888 – 11-6453  |  City Hall, Georgetown, Guyana  |  2011

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

Goodbye Unity

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography8 Comments

Robb Street begins in Robbstown, down on the “waterfront” by the John Fernandes’ wharf area, both the ward and the street got their names from the man who designed the area in terms of the building lots and landscape, it ends at the famous Bourda Cricket Ground (Georgetown Cricket Club), on what is now Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, renamed to honour the achievements of one of Guyana’s great cricketers of the 1990s into the first decade and a half of the new millennia.  The original name of Shiv Chanderpaul Drive was New Garden Street, because Robb Street was to originally end at the new Botanical Gardens, but that was pushed back a further block (an area that is home to the Georgetown Cricket Club, Georgetown Football Club, Ministry of Agriculture, and Office of the President.)

At the end of Robb Street, on the northern corner, is the Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church (if you’re a Portuguese language speaker, you may want to check out their Portuguese language mass that caters to our growing latin/spanish/Brazillian population), in the southern corner is (or, in a few days/weeks, was) Unity House, a three story wooden house.

I don’t know enough of it’s history, but it once housed the chapel in which Holy Mass was celebrated while the church across the road was being built (on the middle floor), and for many years it was the headquarters of the United Force, a political party which has held parliamentary seats in Guyana up until two elections ago.   Prior to the last elections, also, there was some in-fighting among the executives, primarily as to who would lead the party, but that’s just politics.  As I write this the building is being torn down, let’s hope the party can last a bit longer 🙂

I was processing a photo that I had taken near the gate, but that would not enlighten anyone as to the structure of the building, so I went on to process a wider photo for elucidation 🙂

 

Closed – 15-9996  |  2015  |  Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm

Unity House – 15-9986  |  2015  |  Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm

Click on the images to see them in their respective Galleries.

A Dream

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography6 Comments

The idea that someday, someone in power would choose to make the decision to fix the beautiful structure that is Georgetown’s City Hall is likely a dream, one that may remain unfulfilled.

As it is, most of us can see that is makes more financial sense to let it fall to pieces and then put up a square unattractive concrete block of a building with no character and no appeal, probably all because of years of neglect, and the squandering of taxpayers monies.

Should it be fixed?  That depends on your view I suppose.  Guyana’s tourism depends largely on natural wonders like Kaieteur and the animals of the rainforest, as well as upon the old-world Victorian/Colonial architecture that is still evident in many structures along the “Heritage Trail”, but are our tourist numbers enough to justify spending millions of dollars on rehabilitating this beautiful building?

What would I know?  I’m just a citizen 🙂

Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20mm  |  City Hall, Georgetown, Guyana. 2015

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

2015 Deck – Week 35

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, PhotographyLeave a comment

There are times when you take a photo and know right away that you’ll love it; whether anyone else might, that’s a different question, but so far this one has turned out to be pretty well liked.

For those of us still living here and for many of those Guyanese living abroad… this is probably iconic of some areas of Georgetown.

Cummings’ Street Car Wash  |  Instagram  |  Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery

2015 Deck – Week 32

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Georgetown, Guyana.

The French called it Longchamps, the Dutch called it Stabroek, the British named it after King George III, Georgetown.  Each generation always seem to wish for the “good old days”, but as I’ve aged and seen this edifice that I pass daily age as well, I think that City Hall has indeed seen its Glory Days, unless something radical is done quickly.

I look at the photo and the phrase that comes to mind is “everything looks better in the morning light”

 

City Hall, Georgetown, Guyana.  Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 10-20 Lens

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with other images from the 2015 Deck Project

2015 Deck – Week 15

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2015 Deck, Photography1 Comment

Other than being in the Guyana Photographers’ Facebook Group, I’m also a member of a few other Facebook photography groups…  one of them is the Guyana Mobile Photographers, which focuses on photographs taken with mobile devices, such as my phone.  There was a suggestion of there being “challenges” for the members to push themselves, I had just walked out of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on a Sunday morning when Avinash suggested to the group to use “worship” as the theme, I quickly ran back inside with the phone in hand to see what I could snap…  I couldn’t believe my luck at this scene.

From the time I uploaded it I knew that I’d be using it as the Deck Photo for that week…

Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Duos  |  Instagram

Click the image to see it in the Gallery, you can also check out how my experiment with mobile photography is going over on Instagram.

Stride

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography2 Comments

This is Georgetown, Guyana, if you walk through the streets, you’re bound to come across a few characters before you walk a few city blocks, photographing them is a whole different story.

Most people are very wary of cameras, they believe you’re either some foreigner trying to “make money off their image” or “from the papers”, apparently people just being photographers who do it for fun or for art isn’t something they’ve quite gotten used to as yet.

When Nikhil pointed out this man to me, we were walking toward the curb, and I quickly snapped photos from the hip… almost like a spray and pray technique 🙂

I had the Canon EOS 60D with the Canon 40mm pancake lens on, as I never did get the “shoot from the hip” method quite right, this one had to have some rotational cropping done to make it presentable, but I really wanted one to share as there was something about this fellow that made a photo compelling.

Seen large, he’s wearing a t-shirt (or vest) under that shirt that has USA emblazoned across the chest… 🙂

2015  |  Canon EOS 60D, Canon 40mm Pancake Lens

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery along with some other attempts at street photography

2014 Deck – Week 33

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2014 Deck, Photography1 Comment

Christ Church was doing some fund-raising, a friend of mine asked me to take a few photos of the church to use in the press release.  The only time I had to make a pass by the church was an early morning on the way to work.

I was thinking that it’s only for a press release, so it doesn’t have to be that good, right?

I was in a bit of a hurry, but I snapped a few, then jumped back in the car and headed to work.  There was some nice clouds behind the church from one angle, and kept remembering this as I downloaded the images to process, I knew that my attitude toward the shot was less than optimal and I had deliberately exposed for the building and not the skies (since it was just for the press), as the sun was rising behind the church, all that detail would be blown out.

I thought that this would be a good time to experiment with what I had read about prior to acquiring a full-frame camera, that it can capture a very wide dynamic range in one exposure.

True enough, the entire sky was blown out in the exposure when I downloaded it.

IMG_2724

But remembering what I had just seen in the sky, I worked the sliders to see what sky detail I could retrieve from the RAW file:

IMG_2724-2

And I was amazed, so I decided to process it better than I had originally intended.  I made slight adjustments in Lightroom to bring some detail back in the sky while retaining the detail and brightness of the building.  Then I took the image into Nik HDR Efex with the express intent to use a single exposure black-and-white tone mapping technique on it, and the results were great.  After a few minor adjustments once I took it back to Lightroom, this was the result:

Christ Church, Waterloo St., Georgetown, Guyana

Someone asked me it I “photoshopped” it, well, I didn’t use photoshop, I used no masks, no layers, nothing like that, just what I described above.  Everything I needed was in the RAW file, if I weren’t in such a hurry and treating the action of taking the photo so lacklustrely, then I may have actually taken multiple exposures for a proper HDR  🙂

Click on the image to see it in the Gallery.