Cityscapes Galleries

Boston : Photos of Boston buildings, landmarks, and street photography.

Boston

Photos of Boston buildings, landmarks, and street photography.

Updated: Apr 11, 2009 6:06pm PST

Providence : Photos of my former home of Providence, Rhode Island. 8/24/2008: More Downtown and revisit to Prospect Terrace Park. 8/13/2006: Prospect Terrace Park overlooking the Providence skyline. 7/3/2006: Old neighborhood I lived in, in the early 70's (River Avenue) 5/27/2006: Federal Hill. 6/19/2005: First set of Downtown Providence pictures.

Providence

Photos of my former home of Providence, Rhode Island. 8/24/2008: Mo ...

Updated: Aug 24, 2008 8:09pm PST

Cambridge : Photos of Cambridge.

Cambridge

Photos of Cambridge.

Updated: May 20, 2008 3:30am PST

Air Boston 2007 : Boston's AeroBalloon is back for 2007. This time it is at the Fan Pier, at 27 Northern Avenue, behind the Moakley Courthouse. It is flying from August through October, weather conditions permitting. Call (617) 307-1159 for schedule and weather conditions. 8/20/2007: I went up for this first time, around 8am, before going into work, but unfortunately, the winds started picking up after I started ascending, so they could only allow me half-way up, and had to cut the flight short. I was the only one in the balloon, so they gave me the radio as well. I couldn't get a good view over the Courthouse, so the first batch is somewhat restrictive. The guy was nice enough to only charge me half-price for this one...I'll be back. As a "consolation prize" of sorts, I walked around to the front of the Courthouse and got some great shots facing Boston Harbor, which you can see in my Boston gallery. 8/21/2007:At 8:11 I went up again. The wind was much calmer than the day before, and the air clearer. I was able to go up all the way and see above the Courthouse, and stay afloat the whole time. I was alone in the basket again, so I had the radio. The guy was nice enough to again charge me only half-price. The shots in this session are a lot better.

Air Boston 2007

Boston's AeroBalloon is back for 2007. This time it is at the Fan ...

Updated: Sep 02, 2007 8:11pm PST

Panoramix : Panoramics are interesting pieces of art. They are a slight exaggeration of reality we see, as we cannot see all of the scene before us with our own eyes so (surprise!) we have to pan our eyes to see it all. Thanks to Photoshop CS2's Photomerge, and the magic of layers and masks, we can stitch together many pictures to form a really wide scene. My method while taking these is as follows: choose a small aperture (f/8, f/11, etc.), go to center-weighted metering, and choose a shutter speed which is an average of all the shutter speeds the meter suggests as you pan about the scene. Lock in this exposure. Pay attention to the edges of the viewfinder and make a 20% or so overlap from the end of one frame to the beginning of the next. Unfortunately, lens distortion (especially with wide-angle lenses) near the view peripheries is a pitfall which will probably involve some additional post-processing work. A tripod with a panning head works best to assure one of level pictures throughout, though not all of mine here involved a tripod, so a greater workload awaited me in post-processing. I'm not sure that this space is sufficient to describe the Photoshop methods in detail, partly because I'm still learning and refining my techniques. Most of the post-processing work occurs at and near the seams of the merged pictures. This involves how best to mask out the seams as well as distortions near the edges. I haven't tried out any of the various panoramic stitching programs out there. I'm sure they vary in the quality of their output as well as their cost and ease of use. I think that Photoshop offers the most control over the results, though it certainly isn't an easy program to learn and use...and it is rather costly. I'll probably add more to this gallery as my competency in this area grows.

Panoramix

Panoramics are interesting pieces of art. They are a slight exaggerat ...

Updated: Apr 12, 2007 12:25pm PST

Waltham :

Waltham

Updated: Sep 28, 2006 7:01pm PST

Air Boston 2006 : The Aeroballoon returns to Boston Common for Summer 2006, from August 17 to September 12, 2006. More pictures to come as I take more trips up. I went up on August 18th (the mostly overcast pictures) and again on September 7th (early evening pictures.) I'll probably consolidate these pics with those of the original Airboston gallery in the near future.

Air Boston 2006

The Aeroballoon returns to Boston Common for Summer 2006, from Augus ...

Updated: Sep 08, 2006 7:37pm PST

Heights : Standing on the shoulders of giants, or rather, the rooftops of tall buildings for a view.

Heights

Standing on the shoulders of giants, or rather, the rooftops of tall b ...

Updated: Aug 12, 2006 10:43am PST

Air Boston 2005 : On August 22, 2005, I had an opportunity (actually several) to take balloon rides on Boston Common. The rides were provided by AeroBalloon (www.aeroballoon.com), a Boston-based company. The balloon ascends to an altitude of about 300 feet, and remains there for 10 minutes before being pulled back to earth via a winch. Quite a unique photo opportunity and I took full advantage of it. I went up twice. The only mistake I made was going up the first time with the Tamron 75-300 lens I had at the time, rather than a wider-angle option, like my kit lens, which I took up on the second flight. Given all the movement which goes on and the cramped confines of the basket, changing lenses in mid-flight was not feasible. Therefore, a wide-angle zoom does best on a trip like this (unless you have spying in mind, which I didn't.)

Air Boston 2005

On August 22, 2005, I had an opportunity (actually several) to take ba ...

Updated: Oct 09, 2005 9:47am PST