a collection of black and white

Ask and ye shall receive. Pop and Martha got me a Holga for Christmas and I immediately popped in some 120 film and began to play. As far as cameras go, this "toy camera" is not very sophisticated, but I'm hoping that it will add some new dimensions to my photography. Plastic lens, fixed focal length (60mm), fixed shutter speed (1/100 sec), fixed aperture (f/11), and the potential for light leaks every which way... nice!

Here, the square frames, slightly washed-out look, and grainy texture all create an atmosphere of mystery. The overcast, foggy day on which I shot these photographs adds a ghostly feel to some of these images, and I think I succeeded in capitalizing on that with the double exposure using the Charles River as a backdrop for a shot of the Olde Irish Alehouse.


A small statue of a boy and girl on a neighbor's lawn. To think that only a few days ago, over a foot of snow hid them from sight. Now, a ring of grass surround them, awaiting the next snowfall.


I took this photograph of the Charles River from Bridge St., on the Dedham-West Roxbury line. It looks so pristine here, white snow having replaced the brown, silty water that normally meets the eye.


My first double exposure, a shot of the Alehouse combined with that of the Charles. There is new meaning here when one says the Alehouse sits on the river. I can't yet identify what makes this image so exciting for me, but there is a sense of motion and transition, of fading out of one scene and into another, as if I'm standing there and panning, first seeing the river and then slowly watching the building come into view.


The layer of fog hugging the ground, coupled with the wide, white expanse with the lone goal sitting in the middle of the field really captured my eye. I tried several angles, some of which included the school building next to this field, but ultimately, I decided on this shot. Now that I can see the photo, I really like the way the vignetting in the corners directs the viewer toward the goal in the frame. And what better image of winter than that of a playing field, grass beneath layers of ice and snow and a goal by itself, players a memory of the past and a thing of the future, but not a reality in the present.

cutler state park

Who knew that I would upload two posts in a row that featured cell-phone photography? I was out on a walk in Cutler State Park yesterday, a sunny yet crisp afternoon, and wished I had my camera to capture the bare trees, lonely cattails, and deep blue sky. Image quality is obviously lacking, but here are a few of the images I captured, directly from the phone and unaltered aside from some cropping.


A row of trees sits atop a rocky incline which opens up onto railroad tracks that serve freighters and the commuter rail coming out of Boston. This tree looks so majestic, standing tall against the clear blue sky behind it. Perhaps it's because of its bareness, which separates it from the other trees around it and allows the sky to peek between its extended arms and fingers. Regardless, I have never been so captivated by these trees during the other seasons, when they're fully covered in leaves.


How is it that during this season, when most other forms of plant life wilt and wither away, when animals slow down, some migrating to warmer climes and other retreating into hibernation rather than confront the biting cold each day, do these cattails manage to stand so straight? They do not possess the sturdy trunks that trees do, yet their delicate stalks manage to withstand the elements and to preserve them through the winter months. It was awe-inspiring to look out over fields upon fields (or should I say marsh upon marsh) of these cattails running in all directions around us.


This is the photograph that would benefit from a more formidable lens than the cell phone can offer. The trees in the background lack definition and sharpness, and the loss of contrast between the trees and the sky makes this image a bit less stunning than the actual experience of taking in this scene. Subtract the snow from the bottom of the frame and the vista reminds me of African plains in winter. Flex your imagination hard enough and you can begin to see lions roaming through the tall, brown grass, stalking wildebeest and zebra for their next meal.