Chaos in a Sea of Order
Smack dab in the middle of one of the most drab and charmless higher learning campuses, MIT, is this. The symbolism is obvious and in your face. MIT is very boxy, its finest decorative materials are concrete and black steel and it’s so ordered that their buildings are not named, but numbered. But it’s MIT! Of course they are! I suspect they understood this and made and effort to tip the scale when they commissioned Frank Gehry to build the deconstructivist Stata Center. Of course, it’s run into its share of opposition and controversy as most Gehry projects have. But I say who would expect anything less with such an ambitious design?
WASHINGTON
Boston Common is one of the oldest pieces of real estate in Boston, and in the country for that matter, and it looks it. Dry and dusty and pocked with crumbling fountains and chain-link fence, it’s a less desirable dirt patch than certainly it was back when it had enough grass to graze cattle.
That’s why it’s a little surprising that the adjoining Public Garden, pictured here, is such a lush and green Eden. They obviously work hard at keeping it hydrated and you can even see the sprinklers doing their thing in the distance. But with such a great statue I’d say it’s certainly worth the beautification efforts.
I’ve worked pretty diligently at refining my photography style and skills in the past year. It’s a never-ending process and I’m sure I’ll never be fully satisfied with the end results. But I think that’s a good thing. This photo is an HDR from a single RAW file. I typically don’t like fully produced HDR photos and lately I’ve used HDR as one of multiple tools to “correct” the original exposure. This one is different. I used the original exposure to correct the few places where the HDR was over-produced. I’m pretty happy with the result here though I can’t help but feel there’s a slightly unnatural glow around Mr. Washington.
New Journal in the Production Pipeline
Our trip to Boston was both business and personal and pleasure came as a bonus. I hadn’t even planned on keeping my usual journal. But I did have a lot of time on my own and the whole trip was 5 days which isn’t a quick in and out. On day 1 I picked up a Hemingway Moleskin at the Coop in Harvard where I’m sure I broke some intellectual taboo. But the student checkout clerk did ask me if I had my “Harvard Card.” I nearly laughed out loud but thought I’d play it cool and go along with the possibly intentional mistaken identity. Needless to say I wrote quite a lot and found I had a lot to say about Bean Town.
There were some gaps in representative photography so I did quite a bit of sketching, which I really love. I’m actually pleased with the outcome of the journal as a whole considering Boston isn’t one of those places I’d typically write 11,000 words on.
Below is one of the Colonial gems of Boston, The Old South Meeting House. A picture is worth a thousand words and I probably say at least as many about it in the journal.
Trinity Church
I read that Trinity Church in Boston is considered to be one of “America’s 10 finest buildings.” I’m not yet sure what I think about that but I couldn’t wait to get a camera in there. I’d never shot in such a large space before and found there to be some challenges to say the least. Even with my trusty tripod I had trouble keeping the camera completely still for such long exposures. If I wasn’t convinced that I need a remote shutter before, I am now. The result below is of Trinity’s enormous interior. Let’s just say there’s plenty of room for improvement.
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