Church of Christ, Scientist

Here are a few more images from the first place I took pictures in Boston. The large domed building's official title is the The First Church of Christ, Scientist which is the The Mother Church and administrative headquarters of the Christian Science Church. The building was constructed in 1894 and the current plaza (including the 28 story administration building, a colonnade, and a reflecting pool with fountain) were constructed in 1960. All in all an impressive area and very fun to photograph!

Church Reflections


Nighttime Boston View


Towers and Fountains

Boston Parks Scenery

Here are a few more of the great scenic points that I found in the short time that I had wandering around the city. The first two images are of Boston Public Gardens, one looking back towards the downtown core and the other a prominent statue in the park. The third is of an interesting "building contrast" that is not far away from the Boston Library of the two previous posts. The front (this is the side) of the church was MUCH more interesting but unfortunately it there was construction. Nonetheless I liked the contrast of this church and the tall office buildings in the back.

Boston Public Gardens


Statue in Boston Public Gardens


Building Contrast in Boston

Boston Library Statues 2/2

Here are the remaining 3 images of the statues in front of the Boston library. The other two pictures can be seen (if you missed them) in yesterday's post.

Selective Colouring Statue


Guarding the Entrance


Protector of the Library

Boston Library Statues 1/2

As promised, these images are not from 50 floors up of Boston, but this time rather of the statues in front of the Boston Library.  The building itself is quite impressive but ironically enough I didn't even get a good image of the whole building. I was more attracted to these statues, the architecture that was behind them, and the flag. This post, and tomorrow's post, show the 5 images of the two statues that I came up with.

Boston Library Dusk Portrait
Boston Library Statue

A Statue and a Mall

The theme to this post? The next two images I haven't posted yet. No creativity, lesson, or (terribly) interesting anecdotes to accompany them, sorry. The first image is a war memorial in Boston Commons. It is one of those things that is impressive when  you see it, you know that you want to photograph it, but can't find a good way to do so. This was the result. The second image below is of the Prudential Tower (the place where all the wide 50th floor shots of the city were from) from the inside of the Prudential Center mall.

Boston Commons War Memorial


Prudential Tower from the Mall

These Images are a bit Nutty

This was kind of fun. One of the parks that I was wandering through in Boston had a multitude of squirrels. It was noticeable that these animals had been fed (and often) by humans in the park. I could bend over (relatively near to one) and rub my fingers together, pretending to have some food in my hands, and they would come towards me. This gave me just enough time to snap a few pictures off. I could do this multiple times. My favourite one is the second image below which is humorously captioned, "Who? Me?"

Curious


Who? Me?


What? No Food??

Bostonian Views

Here are the last two wide angle views of Boston as seen from the 50th floor of the Prudential Centre in downtown Boston. One of the things I really like about the second image is the green lines that are the road leading towards the water. The green colour (I believe) stems from all the trees along those streets and the streetlights.
The next few days I'll give you a bit of a rest from the night-time HDR scene and hopefully some more down to earth (get it ... hahaha) scenes from Boston. Once those are done I'll have a few more night time images for your.

Downtown Boston at Night

Charles River Basin from the Prudential Center

Boston Cityscap HDR's - A lesson in persepective

I know that I have talked about this before on this blog, but I think this is another great example of perspective. There are many different ways of taking pictures of the same subject(s). Even when the subject is a wide, grand, land-(city)-scape that is just screaming for your to go as wide as possible, try a few different shots. Here I have 3 images, taken from the 50th floor of the Prudential Center in Boston, which demonstrate what I am trying to say. The first image was my default picture. Go wide and get as much of the view in that direction that you can. Show the expansive view of the cityscape in front of you. The next thing you can do is look for some othre prominent features in the image that may stand out. For me this was the large building that stands out from the rest. The next two images played on that. The second image also plays on a saying I've heard several times before "The best time to take a vertical image, is right after you took a horizontal one". Don't neglect the vertical image. Finally, in the third image I tried to capture the grandeur of the large central building, but also the line of tall buildings that curves to the left in the distance.

Moral of the story? Try several shots in the same location and you never know what you will come up with.


Wide Angle Boston View


Vertical Boston HDR


Close Up Boston View

MIT and the World Shaving Headquarters

Besides sweeping wide-angle views of the city, you can still see some Bostonian specifics from the 50th floor of the Prudential building by zooming in a little bit. I only had my walk around lens (17-70mm on a cropped sensor) so I couldn't get in any further than this but I find them interesting anyways. The first image is of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Mclaurin building just on the other side of the Harvard bridge seen on the left of the image. I really liked the reflections of the colours along the bridge and the northern coast of the Charles River Basin. Next ... here is another 'zoomed' in image of the city. I really like what turned our for the car trails of head and tail lights but there is something else. The upper right corner of the image seemingly houses the "Gillette World Shaving Headquarters" ... what that is ... who knows! More night-time landscapes of Boston to come.

MIT

World Shaving Headquarters

Prudential Tower

In order to get a widescape view of the city tourists can make their way up to the 50th floor of the prudential centre. There are more of these coming, but here is the SAME pool and buildings as seen in the last post!!

Boston Night Scene

When I first got into Boston I took the first night and wandered around a little bit without my camera. This is one of those spots that I was just itching to get back to the next evening with my camera. This pool, about the length of a football field, was an amazing place for some night time photography. Playing with the reflections, some of the contrasting architecture, and the bright lights from the buildings was definitely fun. There are quite a few more pictures from the area to come but I just had to throw one up as an example of what I've seen.

Boston Night Scenery