A Photo Walking Tour of Boston's Back Bay

As we crossed the street into Boston's Copley Place, I spotted Saba, proprietress and tour leader for Boston's PhotoWalks, standing beside Science along with two other participants in today's photo walking tour of the Back Bay neighborhood.

Such was our delight at the historical facts and better photography tips we learned during yesterday's Beacon Hill walking tour that we mustered the enthusiasm to embark on another photo walk, despite today's frigid temps and howling winds. Disconcertingly enough, the staff at our hotel shrugged off the abysmal weather as being "normal" for this time of year. Oh well, we decided to just pile on the layers and soldier on.

After exchanging introductions with the two women who braved the conditions, Saba started off the photo walking tour by telling us about the two statues guarding the entrance to Boston's public library - Science (the appointed meeting spot) and Art. Again, she demonstrated various creative ways of composing our photos and suggested different angles to shoot them from. One of my favorite pics is the one above - taken behind the statue of Science facing out to Copley Square, with the John Hancock tower in the background.

We crossed over to Copley Square for photos of John Copley's statue, Trinity Church's reflection on the John Hancock tower, and a few from inside the church which provided a brief refuge from the cold. Afterwards, though a bit reluctant to leave the warm surroundings, it was time for more photos!

A short walk led us to the heart of the Back Bay neighborhood, Commonwealth Avenue, with its numerous statues situated on the grassy mall bisecting the wide boulevard. I couldn't help but notice the contrast between the two neighborhoods that we took photo walking tours in - the narrow, cobblestone, gas-lit bucolic alleys of Beacon Hill versus the wide streets of Back Bay lined with numerous upscale restaurants and shops - a rough comparison in New York City would be the West Village vs. the Upper East Side, I thought.

Easily my favorite set of statues were the bronze trio which composed the Boston Women's Memorial, all of whom were known for their writing (among other things, of course). They provided excellent opportunities for some extreme close up pictures (including a quill pen and hair bun) that Saba suggested which turned out quite well and are included in the complete set of photos here.



After the walking tour finished, we strolled over to the nearby Christian Science center to view its massive reflecting pool. Unfortunately, the pool turned out to be emptied of its contents during the winter months, so instead we just took photos of the surrounding Prudential Tower complex. As we passed a nearby solar powered garbage compactor, I noticed the solar panels atop the brown receptacle and my newly-developed instinct for sniffing out unique photo angles kicked in and voila! - a magnificent shot of the towers' reflection, wouldn't you say?

Check out the complete photo album from the Back Bay photo walk.

More posts from Boston here.

A Walking tour of Boston's Beacon Hill with PhotoWalks

Stamping my foot on the ground as if that would somehow comfort my frozen toes, I wondered if taking this photo walking tour of Boston's charming Beacon Hill neighborhood would be worth enduring the shivering cold for.

I was standing at the appointed meeting spot in front of the Robert Gould Shaw memorial, staring at the golden dome of the Massachusetts state house across the street, fiddling with my camera settings while waiting for the Photowalks tour guide to show up. A typical tourist activity, yes. But not quite so typical on a January weekend in New England, which explained why only myself and my brother signed up for today's walk around Beacon Hill.

What had possessed me to suggest taking this tour in such appalling weather anyway? My fascination in exploring historic, charming neighborhoods in Boston, for one, but a "regular" walking tour would suffice for that. What caught my eye on the PhotoWalks website was their emphasis not only on history, but also on providing tips on taking better, more creative pictures. Being an avid traveller who loves to document my trips, in both prose and photos, but being quite unsavvy in the latter as far as photo composition techniques and eschewing fancy camera equipment in favor of an easy-to-use point-and-shoot, a photo walking tour seemed tailor-made for me. In short, I really just wanted to stop tormenting my friends and blog readers with lousy vacation pictures.

Pretty soon, Saba Alhadi, founder of Boston PhotoWalks and our guide for today, arrived and the tour was on! Since we were already conveniently standing in front of it, Saba directed our attention to the Shaw memorial.
After a brief explanation of the main protagonists Captain Robert Shaw and his regiment, the first ever African-American soldiers who saw battle in the civil War, she instructed me where to stand to block out the sunlight, and demonstrating with her own camera (point 'n shoot!), Saba showed a few creative close-up shots that we could take highlighting different parts of the soldiers' and horse's anatomy.

The goal was that instead of taking a standard, boring, flat photo of the entire memorial, our pictures would capture the figures' action and dynamism. Most of the time, this involved finding the correct angle to take the photo from, and remembering standard advice (which she dispensed to amateur me) such as moving in physically closer to the object being photographed instead of using your camera's zoom feature, and foregoing the use of flash in conditions where lighting is sufficient. We repeated this creative photo-taking exercise with the Massachusetts state house, and I was quite pleased with the result (photo at top of article).



We moved on into the Beacon Hill neighborhood proper, with its trademark gas lamps lining the small, narrow streets. The quiet elegance and tranquility of Beacon Hill appealed to me, and I made a mental note to consider the neighborhood if ever I moved to Beantown in the future, quite conveniently ignoring the concept of affordability. Back to Photowalks mode, Beacon Hill is a minefield of photo opportunities, as every salivating tourist knows. Seeing me starting to take a picture of a gas lamp decorated with holiday wreaths, Saba gently suggested slightly tilting the camera to one side for a more creative take on the photo (the left-most among the three small pictures above). Hmmm...why hadn't I thought of that before?



In addition to historical facts about Beacon Hill and Saba's anecdotes about famous writers and residents, what I found most incredibly useful after 1.5 hours of the photo walk (with stops in St. Louisburg Square and the most photographed street in Boston, Acorn St.) were Saba's ideas for photo opportunities that I simply did not notice, such as windows with beautiful reflections of the buildings opposite, door knockers, houses with lovely arched doorways and other unique architectural details, ice particles that had formed, and so on.

Embarrassing to admit, but if I were exploring on my own, most of these details would have escaped me, and my pictures would be much lamer. And I suppose that is what seasoned photographers have that an inept newbie needs to develop - an eye for noticing and appreciating the beauty in mundane objects, then capturing them in images that make them transcend their ordinariness. Quite a mouthful, I know, but that's one of the lessons I learned from this fun and interesting experience, which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone. Yes, even in the dead cold of a New England winter.

Click here to view the complete album from the Beacon Hill photo walking tour.

Top 10 Travel Destinations in 2010

2010 marks the start of a new decade. As always, avid travelers like to ring in the New Year with high hopes for opportunities to visit more exotic destinations and experience cultures totally the opposite from one's own. With so many choices, the problem really is deciding where to go

Fortunately, there is no shortage of publications and websites eager to help you decide, thus the proliferation of "Top 10 Destinations for 2010", or something similarly named. I personally like to scan these lists for fun but don't put much stock in their opinion - after all, everyone travels for different purposes and appreciates different things.

However, if you''re the sort who loves Top 10 lists or are in severe need of travel destination ideas, they might prove helpful in that regard. Here are a couple of Top 10 Travel Destinations lists that I've found online.

Lonely Planet - Top 10 Hottest Countries for 2010

The leading purveyor of travel guidebooks has published their list of the "hottest countries" (somehow I know they're not referring to celcius) for 2010 in this article. I've made it easy and listed the countries below:

1> El Salvador
2> Germany
3> Greece
4> Malaysia
5> Morocco
6> Nepal
7> New Zealand
8> Portugal
9> Suriname
10> USA

Quite an eclectic list, I must say. The article outlines the rationale for each Top 10 Country selection, in case you're interested. I'm pleased to see El Salvador, long an underappreciated country in Central America bypassed by travelers in favor of Guatemala or Costa Rica, make the cut and have fond memories of my trip there a year ago. This makes a nice segue into a shameless plug for "Five Reasons to visit El Salvador", which I wrote afterwards.


Lonely Planet - Top 10 Best Value Destinations for 2010

Confusingly, LP also has a separate list for cheapskates, er...travelers on a tight budget. Below are the ten destinations that made the cut:

1> Iceland
2> Thailand
3> London
4> South Africa
5> Malaysia
6> Mexico
7> India
8> Bulgaria
9> Kenya
10> Las Vegas

A pretty eclectic mix, I thought, with mainstays Thailand, India, and Mexico joined by somewhat unconventional choices Iceland and London. It's takes some suspension of disbelief to consider these two places as value destinations, but I suppose each global economic crisis has a silver lining. On a recent visit, I did find that prices in Iceland are still on the high side, though not outrageously so, as the case was before that country's economy went down the drain.


Budget Travel - Top Budget Travel Destinations for 2010

This highly respected website, magazine and guidebook publisher founded by the legendary Arthur Frommer has a Top 10 list that focuses on the "new best- value destinations", as befits its mission to promote "Real vacations for real people". Suitable indeed for the rest of us who neither stay in fancy five-star hotels nor dine in Michelin-rated restaurants yet are unwilling to endure another lame "staycation".

1> Portland, Oregon
2> Las Vegas
3> Glacier National park, Montana
4> Baja California, Mexico
5> Samana Peninsula, Dominican Republic
6> Rio de Janeiro
7> Buenos Aires
8> Vienna
9> Sydney
10> Hanoi, Vietnam

Some appealing options, really. I've always wanted to experience Carnival in Rio and have heard lots about the cheap cuts of steak waiting to be devoured in Buenos Aires. Oh wait, I forgot I'm on a diet. LOL.

I'm sure a simple Google search will uncover about a million different Top 10 travel destinations for 2010 lists. Hopefully the ones enumerated above got you thinking about your own travel plans.