Five Frames from Boston

My preferred approach to photography is to stroll about a city and look for opportunities to make interesting images. In this I embody the spirit of the flâneur, a stroller, an observer, and, in my case, a photographer with a flexible agenda. The word flâneur comes from the French and means “stroller” or “saunterer”. A street photographer is an extension of the flâneur, a roving observer of the condition of the world.

While I do what might be recognized as street photography, my strolling is often directed toward finding hidden scenes of largely inanimate objects that produce images with striking colors, patterns, or arrangements. This post is five frames of hidden scenes from Boston.

Bouys

This is a shot of bouys on the wall of the Barking Crab restaurant on Ft. Point Channel. Naturally, the deep red wall and colorful bouys caught my eye. Since this is the Barking Crab, I assume these are crab bouys, but they could just as easily be lobster bouys. For those land-locked souls, these bouys were used to mark the locations of crab and lobster traps on the bottoms of the local bays. Each bouy is colored to identify its owner. The numbers are the state license numbers.

Bike Rack Tunnel

I like the repetition of the loops and the almost monochromatic nature of this image. The sliver of yellow bike fender at the end of the tunnel provides a nice surprise.

Construction in Blue

This is a building under construction near Fan Pier by the Moakley courthouse. The blue panels, the blue lettering on the insulation, and the repeating pattern caught my eye.

Subway Tunnel, Prudential Station

Rendered in black and white, this tunnel looks creepy. You almost expect to see dungeon doors or chains hanging from the walls. I lived in the Boston area for a number of years and regularly rode the “T”. I liked to watch the the bend in the tracks at the farthest reaches of the tunnel. A glimmer of reflected light on the tracks was the first indication of an arriving train.

Shovel in Repose

I was a couple of blocks away from the world trade center stop on the silver line when I spotted this shovel taking a break. I liked the contrast of the orange shovel head with the drab surroundings. This image is the essence of hidden scene photography.

Bonus Sixth Frame

The photo featured in the previous post, Red Boat, Boston, came from the same photo expedition.

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Five Frames

The “Five Frames” idea originated with Hamish Gill of the 35mmc website. 35mmc is a blog about photography and cameras. The 35mmc 5 Frames posts mostly concentrate on gear, primarily film cameras, and the posts take the form of “5 Frames with an OM-2n” or “5 Frames with a Voigtländer Bessa R2M and 35mm f2.5 Classic”. The 5 frames idea is also used over at Emulsive, mainly to spotlight film emulsions. For example “5 Frames With… Kodak ColorPlus 200 (EI 200 / 35mm Leica M6)” and “5 Frames With… Kodak Ektar 100 (EI 100 / 120 format / Mamiya 7)”

Recently, I’ve used a Canon 6D or a 6D Mark II for my photography. The photos in this post were all taken with the 6D and the Canon 24-70mm f2.8. I have a variety of film cameras that I hope to showcase as time goes on.