Trip To Boston

So again it has taken to long to get these images out,  but I have the pleasure of going to my Brother's wedding in Boston over the Memorial Weekend. It was a great trip and I got to see a lot of the family that I have not been able to see in long time. Before the weekend started I told myself and just about everyone else there that I would not take pictures of the ceremony. They had gotten a Wedding Photographer I was going to do my best to stay out of their way and allow them work. It wasn't until after the morning after the incredible ceremony and reception that I took the camera out for a test spin of the city. Doing so I did capture just a few family images while people were still around. 

I wanted to go out exploring and hang out the family, so the first day I just checked out what was around, making mental notes of places I wanted to come back and shoot. I had wanted to try and get some night skyline shots but I couldn’t find a vantage point I liked and for an odd reason I was going to bed and waking up early so my timing was off. Those who know will know that is odd and out of my norm. But, it was cool to see the city and its amazing history everywhere you turn. I could actually go back for a couple weeks and shoot multiple themes throughout the city. One theme could be Statues! I have never seen so many statues in a single city, I could fill a book with just statues throughout the city.

That is a glimpse of a few statues that I happened to come across. With History and Memorials seemingly around every turn, we came across this Holocaust Memorial while walking around. Each of the towers where made of metal and glasses and had fog coming up through vents to symbolize the gas in the gas chambers. On each Pane of glass were serial numbers that the Nazi’s used to serialize Jews as they came into the camps. In the one image of the glass pane you can see the layers of writing and the white rows are the serial numbers going from the bottom to the top of the towers. Looking at the size and scale of the towers in comparison to the font size of the numbers you can imagine the scale that the mass killing massive loss of human life during the conflict. Inside were quotes from survivors of the Holocaust, they are powerful statements that express the hardships decision and really the randomness of the mass deaths. I really recommend checking it out if you are in town and have never seen it .

I have posted a couple of these on Facebook already, but here are some shots from Boston's North End. I caught it early on a sunday morning, maybe 7-8 am before people where sober enough to be up and about the narrow roads of the area. With that I was about to get some shots that would normally be very difficult to achieve making the area look almost empty when it is normally packed with people. Needless to say that having a vehicle in this area would be more of a hassle than a benefit with how narrow the road are. I didn't get any pictures but there were a lot of cars with damage on the bumpers and missing side mirrors. In any event it was an awesome area to see and with the home of Paul Revere in the middle of it how can you miss out?  

The Zakim Bridge was on the opposite side of the North End from where I was staying. I actually found it on accident as I came out of the winding, tight streets of the North End. If nothing else it definitely catches your attention as you almost leave the old world for the contemporary styling of the bridge. As I was hitting late morning and mid day sun there where harsh shadows that play better when placed into black and white with the steep contrasts. As I walked around I was looking for a cool vantage point to take a night shot of the bridge but it seemed I would have to know someone to access to an apartment balcony or bridge viewing window.  There was construction and large buildings on the Boston side and few higher vantage points on the opposite side. I walked on both sides and even under it. I was an amazing looking bridge, almost a functional piece of Art connecting Boston to the suburbs .

As I got to the other side crossing the lock system for the river to bay access, it was awesome to see how to solve a difference in water leaves. I walked a short distance further and made my way to the USS Constitution. As it was Memorial day weekend  it was pretty busy. I am in the Navy but I had no interest in going on board the ship as I try to go on them in real life as well. But I got some decent shots from a short distance away. Ol' Ironsides still looked to be in pristine condition as she should. I am sure I may catch some crap for not going on but, it isn't all that important to me. I would rather capture some good images from distance than step foot on it. But that is me.  

I finished up at the Constitution by taking the Panoramic shot of the city from the end of the pier. It was a 8 shot Panoramic and in rendering it I crashed my computer twice as the file became roughly 6 Gbs. The result is if you zoom in on the full size image you can clearly see people walking there dogs along the water front. It can be made to ridicules size big, covering an entire wall if you desire....

At this point I needed a break so I made my way back to the hotel, downloaded the images I had taken thus far, grab a bit to eat and prepped to head the other direction. As you walk around Boston you can't help but see it is a city that miss the new with the old. Next to churches that were guilt in the 17-1800's you will see glass covered Buildings. It is interesting to see the reflections of old building in the glass windows of new structures. I think another interesting image book for Boston would be reflections and the contrasts between new and old. But I made my down toward the Prudential building near my brothers place to try and get some different shots from near where he lives. I tried to play with perspective in some of the images to give more or less impact to aspects of the images. It is definitely a cool city I want to go back and visit for some more time.

As it was the Memorial Day weekend this commons had flags for every person from the state killed in a conflict from the Revolution to modern day Afghanistan.  The scale of that many flags was pretty crazy to see and i tried to give a sense of how many flags it actually was. Then while in the North End was a memorial of Dog tags that symbolized the losses of US service members in Iraq and Afghanistan. They hung free dancing and singing in the wind symbolizing a memory of a person who had past on during these two recent conflicts. 

Over all the trip was awesome and I am glad that my brother found such a cool woman to spend the rest of his life with. I am sorry it took so long to get these up. I will do better in the future. 

Cheers

Danny

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