PHOTOS: Woonsocket

[pdxstreetcar]

I just went on a short trip to Woonsocket after hearing about its historic downtown. I was really impressed by the very urban and historic downtown and quality of architecture unfortunately however most of the storefronts were vacant or occupied by run-down shops and the large gaps of surface parking. No doubt about it in my mind that Woonsocket has great potential in being rejuvenated and rediscovered. It is located on the Blackstone River which in its early days powered the mills.

Lots of narrow irregularly intersecting streets lined with beautiful brick and stone buildings. There even this awesome elevated P&W rail line cutting right between buildings. I highly recommend a visit.

Woonsocket is about a one hour bus ride away on the #54 RIPTA bus, I'm sure the drive is much shorter.

[Garris]

Fantastic photos! Thanks for going and thanks for posting. Woonsocket has oodles of potential, but is quite depressed . It's school system is really suffering as well.

I've been to the Stadium Theater there twice, and it's been recently renovated and is absolutely gorgeous. Oddly, I think that the best that Woonsocket could hope for is that Providence and Pawtucket get so expensive that those looking for cheap urban living discover its downtown, and then it has its own renaissance. It would also be a great candidate for regional commuter rail as well...

- Garris

[pdxstreetcar]

I wish I had gone earlier in the day when the lighting was better since so many of the streets were in the shade. It was also a chance for me to try out my new camera.

I heard also that a politican from the area recently was pushing for commuter rail to Woonsocket although I'm not sure how practical this would be as the trains would have to go by way of Pawtucket or Worcester to Boston.

I saw that a company offers river boat tours from Woonsocket up the Blackstone River. I think you can just make out the boat in the picture of the river.

[Garris]

I wish I had gone earlier in the day when the lighting was better since so many of the streets were in the shade. It was also a chance for me to try out my new camera.

No! Actually, that was probably the perfect time of day! Any earlier, and everything would have been washed out. You'll just need to increase your exposure a smidge in order to bring out the shadowed areas a bit while not overexposing your lighted areas (or photographing them separately).

For that type of photography (where you're looking to capture details of an entire streetscape or area), you're probably better off choosing a day to go photograph urban scenes when it's predicted to be completely overcast. That way, you get diffuse, uniform lighting without directional components. It's like a diffuser lamp vs a spotlight. That's what I try to do when shooting interiors with windows or large outdoor streetscapes (like Benefit St, for example).

Unfortunately (for photography), we've had few days like that (fully overcast) this whole summer, but I wanted to let you otherwise know that time lightwise is perfect. Trust me, I've wasted whole days photographing areas earlier in afternoons only to come home and look at a fleet of useless, washed out images.

- Garris

[pdxstreetcar]

thanks for the tips

i've always kind of struggled with how to deal with these shadows, my digital camera has a mode for shooting in shadows with daylight which is the mode i commonly use but they usually look like this. my old digital camera i could manually darken or lighten the pictures but i havent yet figured out how to do that on this camera.

[Frankie811]

Fantastic photos! Thanks for going and thanks for posting. Woonsocket has oodles of potential, but is quite depressed . It's school system is really suffering as well.

I've been to the Stadium Theater there twice, and it's been recently renovated and is absolutely gorgeous. Oddly, I think that the best that Woonsocket could hope for is that Providence and Pawtucket get so expensive that those looking for cheap urban living discover its downtown, and then it has its own renaissance. It would also be a great candidate for regional commuter rail as well...

- Garris

There have been a few articles written about the number of Boston area residents moving into the Woonsocket area for low cost housing.

[Garris]

thanks for the tips

i've always kind of struggled with how to deal with these shadows, my digital camera has a mode for shooting in shadows with daylight which is the mode i commonly use but they usually look like this. my old digital camera i could manually darken or lighten the pictures but i havent yet figured out how to do that on this camera.

Another option, if you can't find out how to change exposure, is to "lock" your exposure (by pushing your shutter button halfway down and holding it there) on an object in your field that is in between the brightest and darkest areas of your photo and then, while still holding that button halfway down, moving your camera to the view you want to take the photo (your exposure will stay "locked" where you had the camera positioned previously). This should hopefully give you a nice exposure in the middle of the brightest and darkest areas (although sometimes the contrast is just too great and it's not possible).

Again, usually the best and easiest thing to do is to photograph scenes like that on an overcast day. Wednesday is supposed to be that way this week. Try it out and see what a big difference it makes...

- Garris

[Frankie811]

Another option, if you can't find out how to change exposure, is to "lock" your exposure (by pushing your shutter button halfway down and holding it there) on an object in your field that is in between the brightest and darkest areas of your photo and then, while still holding that button halfway down, moving your camera to the view you want to take the photo (your exposure will stay "locked" where you had the camera positioned previously). This should hopefully give you a nice exposure in the middle of the brightest and darkest areas (although sometimes the contrast is just too great and it's not possible).

Again, usually the best and easiest thing to do is to photograph scenes like that on an overcast day. Wednesday is supposed to be that way this week. Try it out and see what a big difference it makes...

- Garris

Garris, do your prefer a 35mm or digital camera?

[Garris]

Garris, do your prefer a 35mm or digital camera?

By 35 mm what I think you're referring to is an SLR ("single lens reflex," which has to do with the internal imaging configuration), a camera that people have come to refer to as a "35mm" even though that's not what it's related to...

I use a digital SLR currently. I previously used a rather inexpensive $250 consumer "enthusiast" camera which can mimick many of the functions of an SLR (manual controls, etc.). The camera I previously used (and learned on) was a old version of the one that Cotuit now uses (which is the camera I currently recommend to most people).

I'm a big believer that composition (lighting, framing, etc) and not hardware makes a good photo. I've seen coworkers of mine spend a fortune on camera gear and then they come to me asking why their photos aren't any better even though their camera has 5X the number of megapixels and 10 more shooting modes than their old camera. As I'm fond of saying, look at my photo webpage. The ratio of photos there is about 50% with my old camera and 50% with my new one. I challenge anyone to figure out which is which... I often have to remind myself! One of the best photographers I've seen on the web surprised me when he said most of his web shots are taken with an old 2 megapixel consumer camera that's like 5 or 6 years old!

Actually, using the SLR has forced me to get much better, since the SLR is waaay more touchy than my previous enthusiast camera was. If one setting is only slightly off in the SLR, a photo is ruined, and it'll often take me a while to figure out why. With the enthusiast camera, the settings are orders of magnitude more forgiving and it usually won't let you make a significant error. Also, enthusiast cameras tend to have convenience features that SLR's (until very recently) have lacked, like swiveling screens that are much larger. My image screen is so small it's near useless, especially in daylight. It's like shooting with film... I never know what I have until I get home... My previous enthusiast camera was far better in that regard...

- Garris

[Frankie811]

Yes, I did mean SLR. I have a Canon AE-1 Program, which I love and believe to be one of the best cameras built years ago, just sitting in my closet. I lost the love to take pics, even though I do take great shots.

[Garris]

I have a Canon AE-1 Program

Yup, that is indeed a great camera!

- Garris

[ALEEJAC]

Beautiful! I had taken photos of Woonsocket 2 months ago, intending to post them here. It looks like we hit all the same spots. There really are a lot of great buildings there.

[Cotuit]

Beautiful! I had taken photos of Woonsocket 2 months ago, intending to post them here.

Post 'em! The more the merrier!

[Frankie811]

http://www.projo.com/blackstone/content/pr...5.13118a80.html

[ZachariahDaMan]

Great pictures pdxstreetcar! I love going to historic downtowns.

[ArtInRuins]

Great photos... I grew up right next to the Woon and still visit it occasionally. One of these days I am going to add some of their fantastic mill stock to ArtInRuins. The Woon has been on the mill space radar for a bit now... Len from RICIR has been showing spaces there for about a year.

[Frankie811]

http://www.projo.com/blackstone/content/pr...4.1d82dccb.html

http://www.woonsocketcall.com/site/news.cf..._id=24361&rfi=6