BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – Up before dawn to catch a sunrise from the World Trade Center Pier in Boston. Ironically this old, Calvinist city seems to be speaking to me in color.
Tuesday November 17, 2009
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – Another day with the M9 and 35mm Summicron. I took the shuttle to Boston in the early morning and managed a walk around for an hour or two before a day of meetings. Here’s what Wikipedia says about Dorchester Street and the Dorchester Street Bridge:
The Boston South Bridge over Fort Point Channel, on the site of today’s West Fourth Street Bridge, opened on October 1, 1805 as the first bridge connecting downtown to South Boston. Until it was sold to the city of Boston on April 19, 1832, it was a toll bridge. The Dorchester Turnpike Corporation (sometimes called the South Boston Turnpike) was created by the state legislature on March 4, 1805, to build a turnpike from the east end of the Boston South Bridge (Nook Point) to Milton Bridge over the Neponset River, on the other side of which the Blue Hill Turnpike later continued. Construction cost more than expected, and thus high tolls were charged, so many travelers took the old longer route through Roxbury. Despite that, the Dorchester Turnpike was one of the most profitable turnpikes, with earnings steadily climbing to a peak in 1838. When the parallel Old Colony Railroad opened in 1844, earnings quickly fell. The North Free Bridge, on the site of today’s Dorchester Avenue Bridge, opened in 1826, providing a more direct route form the north end of the turnpike to Dewey Square downtown.[1] On April 22, 1854, the turnpike became a free public road, named Dorchester Avenue. The name was changed to Federal Street in 1856, as it provided a continuation of that street from downtown Boston (via the North Free Bridge), but it became Dorchester Avenue again in 1870.”
Monday November 16, 2009
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – 919 Third Avenue, where my office is located. Got this walking to the office this morning in brilliant, encompassing late fail light. For the week of November 14 through 21 I’m using a single camera and lens: a Leica M9 with a 35mm Summicron Asph. This is a wonderfully flexible combination. When I need wider I shoot to stitch multiple frames together. I rarely need longer. 919 Third Avenue is a Skidmore Owings & Merrill building completed in 1970. It closely resembles an earlier Mies van der Rohe design.
Sunday November 15, 2009
NEW PRESTON, CONNECTICUT – Lois Conner, a friend and teacher, told me never to photograph in cemeteries. This image exploits the lovely rendering of the out of focus portions of the image possible with the lens that I’m using: the Lecia M 35mm Summicron. Here’s a link to a listing of everyone who is interred in this cemetery: Interred in New Preston
Saturday November 14, 2009
WASHINGTON, CONNECTICUT – A gray rainy day with a high, flat, unappetizing sky. I fussed with the late fall landscape, but finally settled on this from a visit to a friend’s construction site.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Diana Fisketjon’s birthday party.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I walked around Grand Central Terminal with a small sensor camera, a Ricoh GRD 3, using it as a sketchpad. I’ll come back and shoot infrared once I understand the site better. Â This is another architectural icon. Â I found myself gravitating toward details.