Twilight in Boston
A lovely twilight view of the skyline of Boston, Mass...
A lovely evening of photography in Boston, Mass!
I have visited Boston a few times over the years, but it wasn't until this trip (which was over a year ago at this point) that I actually was able to photograph. All the previous trips had been quick business meetings and all that jazz, so never time for photo work.
But this trip did allow me a little leeway, and I jumped on it. I spent an evening down here with my friend Bob Lussier, firing away happily at this amazing skyline view - which I had wanted to shoot for years. In fact, I was shooting Olympus at the time (as does Bob), and he let me borrow his wide angle lens for this one (I have since shifted over to shooting Sony). It really allowed me to get all that awesomeness in the scene.
Of course, I processed this one in Luminar, and I used this photo as my "cover photo" when I launched my latest Luminar preset pack, Cityscapes. It fit the bill quite well. I just realized I hadn't shared it here on the blog...so here it is! ;-)
Golden hour at Fan Pier
I caught a nice golden hour in Boston one evening, and walked away with some shots I am proud of! I've also been experimenting with some black and white photo conversions, and talk a little about that today, too. Enjoy!
This is the classic view of Boston, in my opinion, and I lucked into some nice light while standing there!
I like Boston - it's a nice city. I would like to spend more time there and really get to see it in more depth, but thus far all my trips there have been very short. In this case, I was there for 2 nights but only had 1 free for shooting. So, I met up with my friend Bob Lussier and we headed over here to Fan Pier.
I'm a sucker for skylines, especially when there is water in front of them.
The nice thing was that there was NOT a bunch of other people here. Sure, some folks came and went, but it was generally empty. That's my favorite type of shooting condition - no one else around. ;-) It's not that I don't like people, it's just that I don't like people walking into my shots. You can actually see a couple people in the below shot, but they weren't really in the way.
Oh, and one other thing. I've been experimenting with black and white quite a bit lately. It's pretty obvious that I am a big color sort of guy, if you've looked at any of my images. I just love bold and expressive colors. But like most other people, I do love a nicely rendered black and white. There's just something timeless about it. The thing is, I've enjoyed LOOKING AT black and whites over the years, but I've never expended any serious effort trying to craft them - until now.
Now that I am using all the Macphun products in my workflow, I started experimenting with Tonality, which is their black and white conversion product. After just a short while, I decided that I really love the product and the process of creating black and white photos. In fact, I wrote up this review of Tonality here on the blog. I took one of these Boston photos and converted it, just for comparison purposes. But I've also been going through my library and reworking a bunch of old shots into black and white - it's been quite fun, and you will see more of that here going forward. I have no plans to abandon color of course, but adding in some black and white is a nice change now and then. Hope you enjoy them!
Thanks and let me know if you have any questions!
Sunrise in Boston
Boston is a beautiful town, and is great to photograph during sunrise. You can wander around all the best spots and have them to yourself, which makes them even more enjoyable in my book! Here is a collection of shots from a recent trip to that fair city.
I had a pretty good start that morning!
Back in late August, I spent a couple of days in Boston, which is a great place to visit. While I was mostly tied up with work, I did get out one evening for some shooting with Bob Lussier, and then again one morning for this sunrise session. The trip worked out pretty well. I'm always glad to get in at least one sunrise somewhere. It's a refreshing start to a day, even if it starts a bit early.
So I left the hotel and wandered around Fan Pier and deeper into the city center, walking by Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall without any interruptions. That's the best part about sunrise - you generally get to enjoy things in the quiet stillness of the start of a day, alone. That may make me sound like a loner (and I am a bit of an introvert these days) but really it's about getting in some shots without a horde of tourists getting in my way. It's just my preference.
This was also the last trip I took with my Olympus camera. As I have mentioned here a couple of times, I have recently switched over to the Sony A7II and am absolutely in love with it. No disrespect to Olympus, which makes a fine camera - but I just can't believe the capability of this Sony camera. It's really been a good move for me.
As a result of the move to Sony, I have been shooting a lot (here at home and on the road) and sharing a lot of new pics taken with my Sony. But as you can imagine, I still have a MONSTER backlog of photos taken over the last few years which still need to get outta Lightroom and onto the blog! So, I've been in a bit of hibernation mode lately, processing a lot of shots and getting them onto Flickr and into the portfolio. More coming!
Anyways, here are a few shots from my morning wanderings in Boston that morning. Hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed walking around and firing them!
Blue hour in Boston
Boston has a lovely skyline, and I was lucky enough to be there last week and capture it during a stunning blue hour. Here are 4 HDR photos that illustrate the beauty of this magnificent skyline - enjoy!
I spent a night shooting in Boston last week - fun!
Boston is one of those cities that I rarely ever need to travel to. I have been a few times in my life, and once with a camera about 6 years ago, but I can't say I really got any good shots. I was pretty new to the whole photography thing, and in addition to my lack of skills, I didn't know where to go or know anyone there to shoot it with.
That changed last week when I had a 2 night visit to Boston. While work occupied me on night 1, I was free to go shoot on the 2nd night so I met up with local photographer and all around good guy Bob Lussier. Bob and I have been online friends for years but this was my first chance to meet him in person.
We met up at Fan Pier and shoot there through sunset and on into blue hour, both of which turned out to be pretty nice. There wasn't an amazing sunset, but the gorgeous skyline with the lights coming on during blue hour was pretty spectacular.
Since Bob and I both shoot with an Olympus OMD EM-1, he was kind enough to let me borrow his wide-angle lens, the new 7-14mm Pro lens for the Olympus line. I have been debating with myself as to whether or not I should get it, and this was my first chance to try it.
I loved it.
What a great lens. In fact, I never took it off once I got started (thanks again Bob!). In my old Nikon days a few years back, nearly all my shots were with the wide-angle, so when I converted to Olympus I made a concerted effort to diversify my shooting a bit, and ended up addicted to shooting with their 12-40mm Pro lens, which is also a wonderful lens and great for all around use. But I must say that putting on that wide angle sure reminds of the old days when I did that all the time.
So today's pics are all 3 exposure HDR photos taken with the wide angle lens during blue hour in Boston last week. That's another thing that I have been thinking about - HDR photography. I have gotten away from it over the last year, but for various reasons I have started processing in HDR again, and am loving it like I did when I first discovered it. Fun!
Ah, the joys of photography! Hope you enjoyed today's pics! Thanks for stopping by!
Under the streets of Boston
Subways are interesting to me since we do not have them here in Texas. Maybe the rock is too tough to dig through, or we just didn't think ahead, but our trains are above ground. Come to think of it, there are lots of swimming pools so the rock can't be that tough. Anyways, while in Boston I took some shots of the subway entrance that was next to my hotel. I like the gritty, industrial feel of the place, and it is cool to hear the distant noises of trains moving about. Makes you want to hop on board and go somewhere.
Boston subway entrance
After finishing a late dinner meeting in Boston, I headed back to my hotel and en route came across this subway entrance. It was deserted and was only a block from the hotel, so I ran and got my camera and tripod for some shots. I liked the industrial feel of the place and of course the fact that it was empty. We don't have subways in Texas so it is somewhat of a novel idea for me to be in one. It's pretty cool and reminds me of all the train rides in Europe that I took some years back. Travel is exciting, even if the trips are short.