Rediscovering Boston

There’s nothing like out of town guests to provide you with a fresh perspective. My daughter, Daphne and her husband, Etan flew up to Boston this weekend. Based in Orlando, they still enjoy experiencing winter, a vestige of her days growing up in Brookline, and his in Philadelphia.

Having seen “Up in the Air,” the new George Clooney film, shortly after I picked the kids up at Logan, Etan proposed that we find something different to do on Saturday. Seated at the breakfast table with his new notebook computer, he began browsing Boston.com for ideas, and discovered a link for photowalks.com.

Despite the freezing temperatures, I was game to get out and see some Boston sites, getting a photography lesson at the same time. Though it was too late to book online, we eventually connected via telephone with a woman named Saba Alhadi.

As it turns out, she is the founder of Photowalks, offering “historic walking tours of Boston with a photographic edge,” and also author of a book called Boston in Photographs. Joined by a man named James who was visiting from Tulsa, Oklahoma, each of us paid her $25, well worth the money for a 1.5 hour tour chock full of tips on what vantage points make for the most imaginative shots, how to frame one object with another, and how to manipulate ISO settings for taking photos in dim light sans flash.

As instructed, the four of us met Saba at precisely 12:30 p.m. in front of the Boston Public Library -- affectionately known as the BPL -- on the Dartmouth Street side overlooking Trinity Church. Etan, James, and I had Single Lens Reflex digital cameras, and Daphne and Saba had point and shoots for the occasion.

My heart sank when Saba suggested we start with the inside of the library. Having been inside the Library just once for a work-related event in recent years, my more vivid memories of the BPL date back to my college years at B.U. in the early ‘70’s. I remember an odd cast of characters bathing in the ladies room, and strumming their guitars as I tried to focus on researching Renaissance poets.

My mood changed quickly when Saba took us out into the courtyard of the BPL. Noticing a little café on the way out, I imagined it must be a lovely oasis in warmer weather. A patient, gracious teacher, Saba began by showing her own pic on the screen of her point and shoot, told us how to replicate it, and then provided constructive critiques of the results.

Taking the stairs up to Bates Hall – with busts of Henry James and Socrates, a barrel vaulted ceiling and grilled, arched windows – I heard nobody strumming a guitar. Instead I saw lots of green lamps and students of all ages working on laptops. Instructing us to raise our ISO settings to 800, Saba took us inside where I captured shots that made me appreciate the beauty of using just available light.

What makes Boston special is its mix of old and new. As we walked out of the library, we heard police sirens, and instinctively ran toward Boylston Street – just in time to shoot photos of a large group of scantily clad runners. As it turns out, we were capturing photos of the Santa Speedo Run, a one and one half mile jog for charity.

We wrapped up our tour on Commonwealth Avenue, where Saba showed us how to capture an especially poignant shot. The foreground was a memorial to nine firefighters killed fighting a blaze at the Hotel Vendome on June 17, 1972 – the year I graduated from B.U. The background was the rebuilt Hotel Vendome, where in 1975 I gathered for lunch with my friends, Mimi Barnes and Susan Chan Egan, to celebrate the news I was pregnant with Daphne.

1975 was also the year Daphne’s dad and I purchased on Olympus OM-1, solely for the purpose of taking photos of our new baby when she arrived. Not an especially proficient photographer, I struggled with shutter speeds, aperture settings, and manual focus, and films with differing ISO numbers.

By the time I sold Daphne’s childhood home in 2007, I had several large cartons of negatives and contact sheets in the attic, and had moved on to digital cameras. She took some of the negs and had them digitized for the web site she and Etan set up in 2008 in anticipation of their wedding.

Over the last 25 years, I’ve snapped thousands of pictures in connection with my work in public relations. But it’s only recently that I’ve rediscovered the joy of shooting whatever catches my eye. I’m looking forward to my next photo walk.