Josef “Jeff” Sipek

Boston

Two weeks ago I ended up going to Wikipedia article: Boston for a day. I spent my day in three places—the Wikipedia article: Boston Public Library, the Wikipedia article: Massachusetts State House, and the Wikipedia article: Boston Common.

In this post, I will share my photos of anything that did not fit into the other two posts—the post with the Boston Public Library photos and the post with the Massachusetts State House. (All three posts share the same gallery.)

This is a view of the eastern end of Boston Common. There was a window at the State House that offered a good view, so I snapped it.

The weather was quite nice—low 20°C, sunny, light breeze—and so the Common was full of people enjoying the day. Both passively:

and actively:

Industry by Wikipedia article: Adio diBiccari:

Heading back toward Copley Square and the Boston Public Library, we encounter the John Hancock tower:

At this point, it was time to start heading back to Harvard where I left my car. I noticed an interesting ad at the bus stop right by the library. It had three panels filled with water and bubbles. I realize it isn’t the sharpest photo.

When I got off the red line at Harvard, I tried some long exposures of the trains. It turns out that unless the trains are packed, they keep their doors open for only about 10 seconds. In this 13 second exposure, you can see that the door was closed for a part of it.

An 8 second exposure worked quite well. (Unfortunately, I like the first composition better.)

So, this concludes the three post series about my one day excursion to Boston. I certainly learned a couple of things about photography in the 401 shots I took. First of all, tripods are amazingly useful indoors. Second, anyone can take a shot of a subject—it takes the “know what you’re doing” to consistently get an image that is not just good but better than average. Third, I need to read up on architecture photography before my next excursion so I know what I am doing. :)

Massachusetts State House

Two weeks ago I ended up going to Wikipedia article: Boston for a day. I spent my day in three places—the Wikipedia article: Boston Public Library, the Wikipedia article: Massachusetts State House, and the Wikipedia article: Boston Common.

In this post, I will share my photos of the Massachusetts State House. I have a separate post with the Boston Public Library photos and another post with the Boston Common and other places around Boston. (All three posts share the same gallery.)

The State House with its (real) gold covered dome:

Nurses Hall (24 MB panorama):

One of the entrances into the Senate room:

And its interior (32 MB panorama):

The Great Hall of Flags. It used to be a courtyard until 1990 when they put a glass roof over it and turned it into an event space. The flags supposedly act as echo dampeners. These are the flags of the various towns in Massachusetts.

The building is filled with doors—some fancy and some rather plain:

Finally, in the very back, there is a pretty nifty staircase:

Unsurprisingly, much like at the library, I had to bump the ISO pretty high to get an acceptable shutter speed with a large enough depth of field. A tripod (or even a monopod) would have helped quite a bit. I guess I know what’s getting a higher priority on my photo gear shopping list. Additionally, I should read up on architecture photography before the next major trip.

Boston Public Library

Two weeks ago I ended up going to Wikipedia article: Boston for a day. I spent my day in three places—the Wikipedia article: Boston Public Library, the Wikipedia article: Massachusetts State House, and the Wikipedia article: Boston Common.

In this post, I will share my photos of and around the Boston Public Library. I have a separate post with the State House photos and another post with the Boston Common and other places around Boston. (All three posts share the same gallery.)

The front entrance to the library:

A 180° view of the front of the building (32 MB panorama):

A peek into the reading room—Bates Hall:

Bates Hall in all its glory:

The library has a courtyard with a water fountain. The tower in the background is the tower of the neighboring Wikipedia article: Old South Church.

A close-up of a card catalog.

There are actually two churches right next to the library. Right across the street from the main entrance is the Wikipedia article: Trinity Church.

The other is the aforementioned Old South Church on the north side of the library. Toward the end of the day, it ended up backlit creating a neat silhouette.

This was really the first time I actively tried architecture photography. Shooting indoors around f/8 without a tripod was not the best thing for image quality. To keep the shutter speed in a reasonable range, I had to bump up the ISO resulting in a bit of noise. I will know what to expect next time I try this.

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