Boston, Cambridge, Toronto - Holiday Photos

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This is the first overseas trip I've done since I got injured. So other than being able to walk again (although still with a slight limp) I wanted to start shooting overseas again, so what better way than to do it while on a family vacation. Key word here being vacation, so no hardcore street shooting, or moody TriX B&Ws like you guys, just touristy photos of touristy destinations that I thought would be nice to share with everyone here. I will post more photos with a short write up over the next day or two. If you are impatient, you can just click on any photo below, it will take you to my flickr page where all the photos are.


One of the first things I did before the trip was to trim down my gear tremendously. I would usually pack a Bessa R3A with 3 lenses, a Mamiya 6 with all 3 lenses, a ton of film and a digital Olympus Pen. This time I decided to drop film altogether and stick with my M9, the Zeiss ZM 35mm, 50mm and a VC 21mm. For quick family photos the EP3. All this tucked neatly and compactly into a Think Tank Retrospective 5 (see "self portrait" above).


Our first day there we went to the harbour area and took a boat out to do some whale watching. Which in summary means spending quite a lot of money, freezing your ass off on the boat for 1 hour, seeing a few whale flap their tails, then freezing your ass off for another 1 hour. Not something I would recommend!

 

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In the harbour area is also the New England Aquarium where you can see penguins, sea turtles, seals, etc. Pretty small aquarium but I love aquariums!


Penguins are damn cute, but the sea turtle looks grumpy, maybe cos he's swimming in circles.

 

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Boston itself is full of history, tons of school kids and tourists alike flock to its historical landmarks to learn about America's fathers and their fight for freedom.


Many old buildings were preserved (although I'm not sure if it's a reconstruction or not), but nonetheless are worth a quick visit. Most serve as museums or other tourist attractions as well.

 

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Its pretty easy to walk through the whole of the city on foot, but if you like there are bicycles for hire or tour trolleys (buses) that you can hire.


The trolley tour is a pretty good way to get a general idea of the attractions around as well as the fabric of the city as well so as to better plan your time when you do walk around to take photos. A general tip is to start on the trolley early in the morning so that you can hit as many stops as possible.

 

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The Boston Commons is the oldest public park in the US, in fact its one of the first ever public parks, prior to this most parks were for the enjoyment of royalty or the wealthy. The commons is still very much used and loved today from what I see.


Unlike Singapore where it's near impossible to sit in the sun, here everyone sits in the sun and on the grass. Especially since it was Spring when I went.

 

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The weather in Boston can turn pretty quickly from brilliantly sunny to overcast fog.


The fog does make it some photographs a little more atmospheric though.

 

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The residential areas are also worth a walk about, short quaint houses some dilapidated, others refurbished to serve as high end condos.



Lots of nice little details here and there for those who like to photograph such things.

 

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The Charles River separates Boston from Cambridge and is where many people come to sail and row.


The parks that line the river are rather charming, not overly built up with nice lawns to sit on and benches to sleep on.

I'll post the rest up later...

 

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Spring is here! These were taken at a community owned garden, residents get a small fenced up plot to do some gardening in.

 

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Across the river is Cambridge, a much more laid back area with small brightly painted houses, white picket fences and well manicured gardens.


Try walking off the main roads into one of the quieter lanes, many houses oozing with charm along these smaller streets.

 

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Cambridge is of course home to Harvard which is almost as old as (or is it older than) the US itself.


I was also there over the graduation/commencement weekend, so lots of people and many happy parents.

 

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Of course Cambridge is also home to MIT, I didn't manage to walk much of it, only paid a quick visit to the Stata Center designed by Frank Gehry. What a difficult building to photograph! Weird angles, mirror like cladding!


MIT gave me a much more built up feel than Harvard, but nonetheless there are green spaces if you look for them and like most of the rest of the city its very much bicycle friendly, something we should learn from!

 

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Our final stop was in Toronto, Canada.



The city itself is full of glass skyscrapers and the usual mega malls you can find here in Singapore. I've read they have the largest underground pedestrian network in the world as well! But we didn't bother to venture underground as it was too complicated!

 

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Of course it's not just all skyscrapers, many other sights are withing walking (or subway) distance.


With some very modern buildings as well.

 

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We took the train out to visit the Niagara Falls, some nice country side landscapes as the train zipped past.



For the kids there's lots more to do than just visit the falls.

 

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What better way to end this thread than photos of the Niagara Falls itself.



You can imagine that it's not a good idea to be whipping out your camera too close to the falls or even worse changing the lens!

Okay that's it from me! The rest of the photos can be found here. Hope you guys like the photos, can't wait to go on my next trip!

 

[felicidade1]

Very nice shots.

 

[hookonclassic]

Glad that you fully recovered. Very nice vacation shoots with M9...

 

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Glad that you fully recovered. Very nice vacation shoots with M9...

Actually I am not fully recovered yet, in fact my leg bone is still in two pieces and has yet to fuse together, its just there's so much metal in there it keeps me upright. :dunno: