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phics at then at Caribbean Containers Inc, where he has been for the last four years. Since 2014, he has only done photography part-time and is one of the administrators for Guyana Photographers on Facebook.
All of his inspiration is from local photographers: Fidal Bassier, Nikhil Ramkarran, Amanda Richards, Saajid Husani and Michael Lam. “We have a range of photography styles in Guyana. Saajid has a certain style and to be honest a lot of young photographers gravitate towards it because they think by editing my images to look like Saajid’s I would get the same effect and viewership that he got but it’s nothing like that. Saajid understand composition, he understands photography and you can’t just take an image and colour-grade it and expect it to look good,” Michael enthused.
“As soon as you see Fidal’s photo you know that it belongs to him. Fidal has a certain finesse. Michael Lam and his black and white… Michael is a sky lover. He is a sky fanatic and I’ve gravitated towards that. I see how he executes his landscapes, how he uses the sky to tell a story and to add to the image and for my black and white landscapes I gravitate a lot towards that. Nikhil has his own style. Amanda, she does a lot of events and she has her own style as well. People would go after a certain style. They want this type of photography or they want that type. It’s a good thing that we have a variety of styles. I would encourage any photographer to try it, experiment, try to find yourself. Try my style, try Fidal’s style, try Nikhil’s, try Michael’s, try Amanda’s, try Saajid’s… You’ll eventually find that none of these styles actually suit you and you’ll begin to do something different and when you start doing that kind of different, that’s going to become your style. You’ll see that it doesn’t look like anybody else’s and immediately you’re going to start differentiating your photography from the others.
“Photography basically started as a hobby and I started posting photos on Facebook and people started seeing them and would reach out to me and ask me if I covered weddings and other events. At first, I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t want to take on a job and I had no idea of how to execute it. I did a lot of free work at first. I went around with a few photographers before I began taking on my own weddings. When you do weddings, you would often come across ‘the drunken uncle’ and the ‘talkative aunt’. The ‘talkative aunt’ would be like ‘tek this picture, tek that picture. Make sure you got this one and that one’. You as a photographer would know what you have to do but they are there. Then there’s the drunken uncle who has a bunch of friends and he constantly wants photos of him and his friends. I think you need to have a positive mindset and a still tongue because people will push you to the limit where you just want to pick up all your equipment and walk out but it’s not their event, you do this for the bride and the groom or the birthday individual or if it’s a corporate event, then for the company of whoever it is so you really need to know how to communicate with people.”
To date Michael has covered approximately 70 weddings and it did not take him very long into covering events to recognize what goes on at them. Prior to the wedding, Michael would have a sit down with the bride and groom to let them know what to expect. In addition, he would talk to them about just being themselves and enjoying their special day together. The photographer noted that there are times when the bridge might forget this and to make her relax, he would show her a candid photo of her looking beautiful.
Because of his dedication, he has covered events for many reputable companies such as Macorp, Gafoors, Caribbean Container Inc, Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, the Ophthalmology Society of the West Indies and many others.
In this digital age, photography has moved from the days of film where persons paid for each photo that was washed; today they pay per hour. There have been persons, Michael shared, who approached him to take 10 to 15 photographs of their wedding but expected him to stay most of the day and could not understand why he wanted to be paid per hour when he was only taking a dozen photos. Photographers, he said, have come to value their time more. A client that pays by the hour