Week 8: I've never met an alley I didn't like

Alleys catch my eye more than any other thing when I'm wandering around with my camera. Most of them are usually neglected, not often traveled down, and as a result pretty quiet. I've never had anyone bug me for taking pictures in an alley, mostly because there's never anyone else there.

This shot is from an alley that's in between two rather busy streets. It's kinda funny that you can have fast flowing traffic on either end of this little side street and hardly no foot traffic at all even during busy times of the day.

In my mental notebook I'm logging this alley as a place to get back to during or right after a good rain storm. The little amount of water on the street and sidewalk add a lot to this shot, so I can't imagine what it would look like totally drenched.

From the Canon Rebel 2000 35mm loaded with Ilford FP4+ 125
shot through the Canon 17-40mm at 17mm

Thinking about spring and fujichrome

On an almost daily basis during the work week I have been out wandering around taking pictures. I've been slowly exploring all the streets and little alleys within a 10 block radius of my work. It's been a lot of fun, but it's also been a lot of cold.

I was scanning through some film last night when I came across a roll I had taken last spring while out on one of these walks. This was probably from late spring judging by the blooms on the tree. It made me wish spring would get here sooner. Not only does the warmer weather make the walking around more enjoyable, the bright sky and vibrant colors make shooting fujichrome worthwhile. No sense in wasting such vibrant film when it's grey and dreary outside.

So here's a couple shots from last year to entice spring to arrive sooner. Taken from Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood:

From the top of a Boston parking garage

So I found a new place to shoot from with a lot of really interesting things to look at. This is from the top level of the Pi Alley parking garage in Boston, pretty close to work. Over the past few weeks I've wandered only about 4 blocks away from my building, in only three different directions, and there's still so many places I haven't seen that probably have great things to photograph.

There's gotta be a project in there somewhere.

From the Yashica Mat 124g loaded with Ilford FP4+ 125

Week 7: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

An eye sore to some, magnificent to others. This is Boston's City Hall, about a block away from where I work. It's not always that pretty to look at, but if you find the right angles it can be pretty eye catching.

Canon 17-40mm f/4 @40mm on the 30D
1/100sec exposure at f/7.1, ISO 640

It's rumored that when the design was first unveiled someone said, "What the hell is that?" while others gasped. It's the product of a trio of Columbia University professors: Gerhard Kallmann, Noel McKinnell, and Edward Knowles.

Columbia, as almost everyone knows, is a university in New York City which begs the question - was this a legit design, or was it the product of the longstanding Yankees/Red Sox rivalry?

The 4am project - round 2

Last April 4th I woke up a few minutes before 4am and took this picture:




You might be wondering why I woke up at that hour. Why would I get up at 4am just to take a picture? It wasn't necessarily for the shot, it was to take part in a 'round the world event called the 4am project.


You can read more about my experience last year at this older post: It's 4am, do you know where your camera is? As I mentioned last year this project was started by Karen Strunks to "gather a collection of photos from around the world at the magical time of 4am."


My first photo for the 4am project was a setup shot taken out of my window at a nearby streetlight. This year my goal is to scout out a spot ahead of time and head out away from my house to capture the image. It's not gonna be easy. 4am is a tough our to get up at.


Anyway, I have a month and a half to figure out what I'll capture, so if you have any ideas leave them in the comments. Until then, let the countdown begin:

Week 6: 24 hr. Parking

One of those scenes that you catch out of the corner of your eye. Just kinda stopped me in my tracks as I was on the way to my favorite set of fire escapes in Boston. This parking garage is on Devonshire between Water and State streets, right near the Old State House - on the west side of the street.

The set of fire escapes is just north east of here, and while that was really what I was out to capture I keep going back to this image when I look at the collection of pictures I took today. Something about the descending ramp and the signs above suck me into the frame.

Anywho, here is week #6:

Canon 17-40mm f/4 @40mm on the 30D

1/80sec exposure at f/5.6, ISO 400

Week 5: The late assignment

A little over a year ago I started a photo group at work. I was involved in one at my previous job and liked it so much I thought it would be fun to do where I work now. We've got a core group of about 10 or so people who participate.

On a monthly basis we have a shooting assignment - a theme to take pictures for. The theme for this past month was Holiday, and like everyone else in the group I put off taking the photo for a while. I ended up running out of time and the week before the meeting I had to create a shot for the theme. Since all my lights were taken down from Xmas about a month ago I ended up taking some out of the decoration box and stringing them up in the basement.

In my head I had envisioned putting the lights up downstairs and playing around with a glowstick drawing a christmas tree in the foreground. It was a bit trickier than I thought. Not so much on the exposure side, but on the positioning side.

I took probably 20 different shots, and this one is the best of the bunch. I wanted the tree centered, but it just did not happen. Something about a dark basement lit only by the soft glow of christmas lights and a green glow stick makes it tough to line things up just right.

Canon 50mm f/1.4 on the 30D

30sec exposure at f/4.5, ISO 100