I usually do my street photography on the weekends in downtown Boston. This past Saturday, Sadhguru, who created the Isha Foundation, held a talk at the Back Bay Event Center. Besides spreading his wisdom, he was promoting his new book on Inner Engineering. Carline and I attended the same talk last year. Since Carline is a graduate of the teaching program at Isha, this was more of a “class reunion” than anything else. I elected not to attend this year. So while Carline freed her mind during the meditation, I was free to run amok around town.
The city of Boston can be serendipitous at times as long as I keep myself away
from the news and media, though sometimes I regret not knowing. This day was particularly surprising: I bumped into the new Leica store! Ok, perhaps that isn’t as exciting for most of you, but for me, it was chance to freely play with gear that I cannot afford. 🙂 A salesperson came up to me and started a chat, particularly since I had my Leica M-P in my hand. He said I was free to try out any of the equipment in the store. He also said I was free to visit the Constantine Manos exhibition in the gallery. His images are truly amazing! I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to meet him in person the night before.
I didn’t take full advantage of his offer. I only tested a 75mm Summicron (“f2”, for those not familiar with Leica parlance), which was one of the lenses I wanted to acquire in lieu of the 50mm Summilux (“f1.4”) that I have. I have no regrets, but I must say, that 75mm is a beautiful lens.
Copley Square, Boston, MA
As much as I wanted to play with toys, I left the store and proceeded to Copley Square. There I found a public art project being worked on. A large billboard was set up with “promises” from the media as well as promises by the spectators. Not sure what the intent was, even though I actually asked, but it was a display of freedom of speech, or sorts. People dropped by to make promises publicly. Each promise is then put on paper. One copy goes to the promisor while another copy was on display. Eventually, a book will be created with all the pages. The idea is to see trends in what people promise.
A few blocks east from Copley Square is the Public Garden. There were many families enjoying the Swan boats and admiring the pond where ducks and real swans wallow in. This was in contrast to the Boston Common across the street where the Freedom Rally was taking place. There were people of all ages, cultures and race enjoying their joints, water pipes and masks (and other paraphernalia that I couldn’t recognize). Some of the partakers looked too young to be there. Everybody there “looked” free. Especially free from being judged. After about half an hour of roaming through the Freedom Rally, I started heading back to the Back Bay Event Center to pick up Carline.
Constantine Manos shot with Kodachrome 64 for his later work, so my shots in this post will be in color in his honor. I don’t have a Kodachrome preset for Lightroom and I didn’t shoot with my Fuji cameras (which have that film type) so, instead, I used an Ektachrome preset, which should be close enough.
Enjoy!
