NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Looking back at the past week’s work I kept coming back to the cemetery in New Preston. I decided to try more images with large out-of-focus areas. Returning to Grand Central Terminal I reshot the phones with a Leica M9 and a 35mm Summicron pre-aspheric version IV lens – I’ll be using this for the next several days. This lens is known as the “bokeh king” – bokeh being a subjective view of the quality of the out of focus portions of the image.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – Another day with the M9 and 35mm Summicron. I took the shuttle to Boston in the early morning and managed a walk around for an hour or two before a day of meetings. Here’s what Wikipedia says about Dorchester Street and the Dorchester Street Bridge:
The Boston South Bridge over Fort Point Channel, on the site of today’s West Fourth Street Bridge, opened on October 1, 1805 as the first bridge connecting downtown to South Boston. Until it was sold to the city of Boston on April 19, 1832, it was a toll bridge. The Dorchester Turnpike Corporation (sometimes called the South Boston Turnpike) was created by the state legislature on March 4, 1805, to build a turnpike from the east end of the Boston South Bridge (Nook Point) to Milton Bridge over the Neponset River, on the other side of which the Blue Hill Turnpike later continued. Construction cost more than expected, and thus high tolls were charged, so many travelers took the old longer route through Roxbury. Despite that, the Dorchester Turnpike was one of the most profitable turnpikes, with earnings steadily climbing to a peak in 1838. When the parallel Old Colony Railroad opened in 1844, earnings quickly fell. The North Free Bridge, on the site of today’s Dorchester Avenue Bridge, opened in 1826, providing a more direct route form the north end of the turnpike to Dewey Square downtown.[1] On April 22, 1854, the turnpike became a free public road, named Dorchester Avenue. The name was changed to Federal Street in 1856, as it provided a continuation of that street from downtown Boston (via the North Free Bridge), but it became Dorchester Avenue again in 1870.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – 919 Third Avenue, where my office is located. Got this walking to the office this morning in brilliant, encompassing late fail light. For the week of November 14 through 21 I’m using a single camera and lens: a Leica M9 with a 35mm Summicron Asph. This is a wonderfully flexible combination. When I need wider I shoot to stitch multiple frames together. I rarely need longer. 919 Third Avenue is a Skidmore Owings & Merrill building completed in 1970. It closely resembles an earlier Mies van der Rohe design.
NEW PRESTON, CONNECTICUT – I’ve decided to photograph all of the churches in Litchfield County, Connecticut, very much working in the shadow of Walker Evans. The approach is frontal. You can see a similar esthetic in the “Small Town” images on my landscape gallery, and for that matter in 30 Rock taken on November 6. This is one of two Congregational churches in New Preston that serve the same parish (the other is the Stone Church). Captured at sunrise.
DRAIN, OREGON – We left the Oregon coast early, driving back up the Umpqua River. The light was beautiful at about 10:00 so I stopped and photographed. Another small town: Drain, Oregon. No kidding on the name. Dale Allyn informed me that his dad was at one point the oldest living resident of Drain; that Drain, Oregon is the only town named Drain in North America; and that it’s named after Charles and Anna Drain, not the lowest point in a bathtub.
This is the Pacific Gateway Medical Clinic.
