835 replies to this topic

[Cotuit]

I was looking at new cameras tonight, look out, I'm going to catch up with you!!!  

[Mike D]

I like that last shot a lot. Providence looks really nice at night. Defintely enjoy looking at all the photos of the city.

[Garris]

RISD at sunset last week!  Have a good Thursday!



- Garris

[Garris]

Hi everyone!

     Busy weekend here.  Needed to keep some family promises, some relationship angst, etc etc...  In the end, no Newport trip and some days of photo posting missed...  Here are some photos to make up for it :-).

     With all the recent talk of Downcity development, I thought I'd post some shots of the involved neighborhood from my archive.  Enjoy!







And, for Monday, inspired by Cotuit's post about the Newport Ferry that docks at Davol Square (the power plant is in the background)...



Enjoy the new week everyone!

- Garris

PS: Anyone have any advice for taking pictures of urban streetscapes?  I've found Downcity and Federal Hill, for example, very hard to photograph.  Wide-angle shots of streetscapes give too much dead space, for example, while compressing streetscapes looking down sidewalks with a zoom is often effective at capturing the urban feel, but all such shots tend to look very much alike and don't give much of a sense of unique space.  Lately, I've tried just focusing on one or two unique details in a streetscape, but that is leaving me feeling I'm leaving out a lot.  Any tips?

Edited by Garris, 28 February 2005 - 12:35 AM.

[Garris]

Since we've been discussing neighborhoods in some of the other forums, I thought I'd post a typical streetscape of merchantile buildings from the Fox Point neighborhood.  You won't see this kind of architectural mix anywhere else in Providence!



- Garris

[DCjedi7]

Ive visited Pro. before, and this is another city I would consider living in.  it's small but has a big city feeling.  everything is downtown you don't really have to leave the city center! and Brown univ is close as well.

from a freind in DC

[Cotuit]

You'd have to change your name to PVDjedi if you lived here.  

[Garris]

More scenes from the Fox Point Neighborhood, this from a residential area.  Have a good Thursday!



- Garris

[Emily]

Garris, do you have any pictures of the Wayland Square neighborhood?
Beautiful photography.
Are you all digital?  I finally turned in my old pentax and bought a digital camera.  It's a wonderful feeling of freedom - not being scared to take a chance on a shot for fear of running out of film - but I could feel myself getting sloppy, losing that thoughtful calculation of the elements in a frame.
-Emily

[Garris]

Your wish is my command :-).

I can't say I'm extremely proud of my Wayland Square photos.  Like many Providence commercial areas, I find it very hard to photograph.  How you do shoot scenes of low lying commercial buildings, no matter how nice, without them looking like they're just sitting there?  Yup, that's the Starbucks...  I end up with a lot of "character" photos like the first two below, which really could be anywhere and don't show that much...  I'd probably not post these unless there were a request, but here 'ya go :-)







The next three shots, again ones I don't like very much, are of typical apartment scenes around the Square and some detailing I like.  Very much like scenes you'd see in Highland Park, if I'm remembering Chicago correctly...







Tomorrow, some photos of Federal Hill I took tonight while waiting to meet people for dinner (and the kinda' nasty Federal Hill experience I had...  Sorry, Cotuit).

- Garris

[Cotuit]

Garris, on Mar 4 2005, 01:14 AM, said:

(and the kinda' nasty Federal Hill experience I had...  Sorry, Cotuit).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

INCONCEIVABLE!  

[Emily]

You are a doll to post those.  Thanks.  
I just had a ringing endorsement for the Wayland Sq neighborhood from another source - a friend's husband who lived in Providence for four years.  I'm glad I have a starting point for my apartment search.
-Emily

[eltron]

Garris, on Mar 4 2005, 02:14 AM, said:

Tomorrow, some photos of Federal Hill I took tonight while waiting to meet people for dinner (and the kinda' nasty Federal Hill experience I had...  Sorry, Cotuit).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do tell. Did it involve big furry rodents? I have that experience just about every day on da Hill.

[Cotuit]

The rats give the Hill it's character.  

[Garris]

Ah, my Federal Hill story...

Well, first of all, I have never been harrassed before in Providence when taking photos.  Well, at least until the other night in Federal Hill.  I arrived early waiting to meet co-workers for dinner, so I decided to whip my camera out of my car and take some photos.  Well, within minutes, thuggish teens/college guys start coming up to me, getting way too close, and are like, "Hey, guy, come on!  Take my photo! Take my photo!  That's some camera there ya' got!  Can I have one like that?  Huh? Huh?"  Slammed Civics would go by with guys yelling at me out the windows.  Really bizarre.  Then I get to the Providence Oyster Bar, one of my least favorite Fed Hill restaurants, but it has a nice frontage to photograph, and I snap three shots, including the following:





Well, after taking that shot, a restaurant employee comes out and says, "Hey!  Who'd you with, huh?  Who said you could shoot here?"  I reply, "I'm with myself.  I'm not shooting for anyone."  He gives me an angry look and glares back to someone else through the window standing next to the door, and then goes back inside.  I think to myself, "Hum, someone afraid of a little Mob investigation?" and decide to smartly move on.  

My next destination is the snow-encrusted Depasquale Plaza, where the lovely new Dolce Villa hotel is lit-up like the Starship Enterprise in space, making photographing the Square very difficult (it throws off all the metering, as you can see below):



Well, yet again, the person you see in the left of the image comes up to me (he came from the hotel) and again asks me who I'm with and am I photographing the hotel.  What's up here?  

By this time, I was near frozen solid and my fingers were screaming out in pain from the cold, so I went back to my car but snapped this shot (which I've wanted to do for a while) looking down Atwells towads Eagle Square:



So.....  Interesting 20 minutes of photography.  Have a good weekend everyone!

- Garris

PS: Anyone have any tips for how to photography Depasquale Square?

[Cotuit]

I'm not saying what I've heard about the owners of Dolce Vita/Mediterraneo, all's I know is they're nice boys.  

[Cotuit]

I've had the boys yelling out of their cars at me when I was taking pictures before. All the kids from the suburbs grease their hair and come up to Federal Hill and act like they're god's gift to women, it's funny. I won't say anything about the 'women' they hang out with.  

Stephanie Izzo has some great Federal Hill shots on her website.

[SOCOM]

Spectacular photos Garris.  

This one in particular rubs me the right way.   


Providence really has some nice looking neighborhoods.  New England at its best.  By the way, I've had similar experiences with rowdy teenagers while taking photos in Hartford.  Some times it gets really annoying because kids will come up to me and say "what are you doing yo!?"...while I'm standing there taking pictures...I get a little snippy, and I say back "what do you think I'm doing!?".  But it gets to me sometimes...I guess people think itys weird to walk around Hartford taking photos.  This is why for the most part I stick to skyline photos because I don't actually have to be on the streets (I can be 5, 10, 15 miles away).  I hope people's attitudes change once the city becomes more vibrant and a person walking around downtown snapping pictures isnt seen as "odd".

[Cotuit]

RISD students with cameras are constantly swarming about the East Side, the rest of the city isn't used to it yet.

[Garris]

Socom, thanks for the kind words.  I can certainly imagine that you get similarly harrassed in Hartford as I did the other night here on Federal Hill.  BTW: Are you the same Socom that posts on Roadfly.org?  

What better way than to start the week with a typical skyline shot of Providence at Sunset?  Here it is:



Also, as some "bonus" shots, since we had Emily posting from Chicago, I thought I'd revisit my few Windy City photos.  I've been to Chicago several times, but stupidly only photographed it once during a whirlwind one day stay.  When I next make it back (whenever that is) I'll have to bring the camera.







Have a good Monday everyone!

- Garris