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Confinement walk Dorchester to Boston

Confinement walk Dorchester to Boston

Paul Losordo

We need to go cheese shopping - I know, its a thing in this household, which entails a trip to Formaggio in the South End. Seeing as these days of no bar, no restaurants, no friends, no guests, no travel, no work, no retail, no museums, no live shows, egads, NO GOLF…..where will the inhumanity end, I say? To the barricades, mes braves elites, but, after our cocktails and appetizers :-) Anyways, we decided to walk from Dorchester to the South End, meandering along the way. We went out Fields Corner, over Ronan Park, past Meetinghouse Hill (again, we did a stop there a few weeks back, if you were paying attention :-) down through Savin Hill and then meh, Andrew and Broadway T stops (really, not a lot of routes - close to ocean through Southie adds miles, down DOT Ave like we did, NO WAY am I doing Mass Ave through BMC with the drug issues, and while Grove Hall through Dudley Sq is physically ok, we have had some issues…..so DOT Ave it is. From Broadway, over the massive trainyard (if you think about it, it is one of the last big ones around Boston, feeding into South Station. From photos, I have seen that Boston up through the 1950s renovations that became the Prudential Plaza and Mass Pike was covered North, West and South with massive train yards - a legacy of our time as a city that was transportation, distribution, manufacturing……Now the Pru replaces the massive train yard, and Assembly Row and the old yard near BU that has been remove to straighten the Mass Pike (itself, a replacement along the existing RR right of way)……fascinating I am sure…..where was I? Oh yes, crossing the railyard over past the fingers of the estuaries that still come up past Fort Point Channel (another, littoral legacy of the South End and Roxbury Flats before we filled them all in) under the I93 overpass into SOWA (South of Washington Street, which is weird cuz it is really mainly Harrison Ave) near the Pine Street Inn (does anybody know what the building was originally built for - my wife says fire station????).

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Madonna, St Anne and Black Madonna, Charles St, Dorchester
Madonna, St Anne and Black Madonna, Charles St, Dorchester

Tight crop, with a lot of processing. Lowered contrast of base layer and brushed in a sharpened, lightened, and color processed layer for the figures. Fuji with fixed lens

View looking down Westville St, Dorchester MA
View looking down Westville St, Dorchester MA

A nice day for a walk, I thought the curve of the street looked interesting. Heavily post processed in CaptureOne, really bring the sky back and played with the midtones for that popping color of the cars and trees.

First Parsh, front portico, Meetinghouse Hill, Dorchester
First Parsh, front portico, Meetinghouse Hill, Dorchester

Front detail, the iron isn’t popping but the objective of this shot was to manual focus on the church. Keystoning and HDR cleanup to bring the sky back…

First Parish on Meetinghouse Hill, Dorchester
First Parish on Meetinghouse Hill, Dorchester

Another attempt at this shot, CaptureOne helped rescue the sky with its HDR sliders. Other than that, minimal processing beyond raw development and lens corrections.

Marr skylifts, mirrored in puddle
Marr skylifts, mirrored in puddle

We have taken this shot frequently on our walks to Boston (this day we were headed from our Dorchester home to Formaggio in the South End). We both love the aerial lifts, she has tried a few times to get sunset shot through the lifts….today I was happy to spot the mirror in the puddle. HDR processing to bring the sky down and some masks to boost the puddle reflection.

Russell Engineering Building, Dorchester Ave
Russell Engineering Building, Dorchester Ave

This is the old industrial Dorchester, I guess one of factories and engineering buildings, replaced later by garages and used car lots as the jobs went away. These old remants of the industrial, along with the used car lots and garages are being mowed under in a renewal to massive housing developments for the upper middle class. Well, at least that was happening pre-Covid19 crash. This building sits across from the ever coming DOT Block - and the land underneath it is owned by the same billionaire who owns most of Harvard Sq and who purchased the DOT Block project from its original developer. Interesting to reflect, these industrial buildings themselves are there because probably the older Dorchester railroads were there, and before that, the wharfs of Freeport when Dorchester was a port to avoid taxes heading into Boston. There is a lovely little set of streets I will photograph that evoke the sinuosity and density of other seaside areas like Rockport and Scituate not far from this building - Church St that goes from Dorchester and Freeport intersection upto the First Parish Church on Meetinghouse Hill.

Gallery Building, Harrison Ave, South End
Gallery Building, Harrison Ave, South End

A late day shot of one of the gallery buildings on Harrison Ave in “SOWA”. Another example of an area built up and renewed and reused and repurposed over the centuries Boston as an urban locale.

Glass looking into iron stairwell, Harrison Ave, South End
Glass looking into iron stairwell, Harrison Ave, South End

I liked the giant glass opening (well proportioned) frame in brick, showcasing the iron/steel staircase and those sexy rivets….

Harrison Ave building in golden 20, South End
Harrison Ave building in golden 20, South End

All because the light was amazing. Side note, Gaslight Brasserie is in there, and they had a massive water leak, you could see the various cleanup and pump vehicles behind the building…..

Boston confinement walk, April 2020

Boston confinement walk, April 2020
Glenwood Canyon and Dotsero, Colorado March 2020

Glenwood Canyon and Dotsero, Colorado March 2020

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