Back in Boston

Well I'm back home for a bit, until the end of the month at least, after my face had a bit of a run in with a baseball bat (trust me, it's not as bad as it sounds). Until I can get back on the field, I'm staying busy shooting locally, and really trying to expand the Boston gallery on my site. 

To that end, I spent Monday bumming around South Boston with Brian Matiash, here's his take from Monday. Stay tuned, many more to come (and more frequent blogging while I'm home).

Read rest of entry

And then my tripod froze...

So there I am Wednesday night, minding my own business, shooting the Zakim in the middle of a freeze-fest (I think it was actually about 35 and misting, but you get the idea), and when I went to get back into my car, my tripod wouldn't collapse.

It was then I noticed the ice. In the 40 minutes or so I'd spent hangin' out under the bridge, ice had managed to form on the legs to the point where I couldn't close the tripod down. Now that's a first.

I will add, that as soon as I got home and posted this image on my Facebook page I got a message from Shawn telling me that, "dude, that happens all the time." Something about shooting Lake Superior in December...

I wonder if getting ice in your tripod is similar to getting mud in your tires, I mean, you can't make those marks without positraction...

-Doug Levy - Boston cityscape photographer -

Read rest of entry

Five Minutes in East Boston

D300 at 301s, F/18, ISO 100 (14-24mm Nikon lens)

My dad and I headed over to East Boston a little early tonight before we had to pick up my sister at Logan (she's making some pie concoction tomorrow, it's all very exciting). It was too cold and windy to take too many shots, so I only got nine off before we headed back to the car.

Read rest of entry

New Boston Gallery

As they're some of my most often asked about images, I thought I'd create a gallery of just my Boston photos. It's also one of the quickest growing galleries while I'm home this winter - so check back often!

Here's a link to the new gallery. Boston images by Doug Levy.



-Doug Levy - Boston Cityscape Photographer -

Read rest of entry

East Boston Sunset, Revisited

I headed back to East Boston yesterday for sunset. I swear Boston Harbor's not frozen, it was just a 30 second exposure. Click here for info on how to order a print.

-Doug Levy - Boston Skyline Photographer -

Read rest of entry

East Boston Sunset

Click here to purchase a print of this image.

I took a ride over to East Boston tonight and found a park I think I'll be revisting quite frequently. My dad has been telling me to go for a while, and I finally had some time. Now please make it not rain buckets tomorrow? I have to shoot a wedding. Thanks.

The image above was captured with D300 @ ISO 100, 17mm, F/22 ,13s with two stacked 3-stop ND filters.

-Doug Levy - East Boston Cityscape Photographer -

Read rest of entry

Alex & Maria

Yesterday I shot Alex and Maria in downtown Boston with Tony & Anna Yu. . Can you believe Alex and Maria have only known each other for a couple of months now? They were married two weeks ago and wanted to do some more fun portraits downtown so they called their good friend Tony.

I asked Tony and Anna to shoot with me next weekend in Rhode Island, so when Tony called and asked me to shoot with them yesterday I jumped at the chance. Any time I get to work with different people and see how they work is a chance to learn, so I was all for it. Anyway, enough already, on to the images:










My favorite image - I love happy accidents. Of course after this shot I waited and waited for another runner to come by, but they were all too polite and ran around us


Anna workin' her magic.

Read rest of entry

Dreena

Well now that I'm home, one of my goals for the winter is to really put in some serious work in developing my portfolio. To that end, I'm planning on setting up some shoots during these next few weeks (before it gets too cold hopefully) with the idea of creating a small number of really strong images each time.

Yesterday Shyla and I met Dreena downtown for some photos. We started out on Memorial Drive with the city as a backdrop, then headed over to a park near the Science Museum (where the Duckboats enter the Charles River, we got lots of fun looks from the Duckboaters).

Anyway, let's get to the images:

Read rest of entry

Boston You're My Home

I had the day off today so I called up the Marriott Custom House to see if I could get access to shoot sunset from their observation deck. The custom house is a cool spot (and expensive Marriott property) right in the heart of the city. I didn't get any great shots (it's tough shoots through bars just slightly wider than my lens), but sunset was pretty cool.

It's always nice to get back home after six months on the road, and I've got lots more to blog this week, as I shot weddings over the weekend with Shyla and Rob and have a more commercial style shoot tomorrow - so stay tuned.

Read rest of entry

Hockey with the Smaht Kids

Tonight I shot Harvard vs. the U.S. National Under-18 hockey team at Harvard University for The Patriot Ledger. The national team captain David Warsofsky (#2) is from nearby Marshfield and is expected to be drafted in next year's NHL draft, and Harvard has an assistant coach, Patrick Foley, who will help coach the national team in the upcoming World Junior Championships.

The turnout was pretty low, as the game overlapped with the Patriots vs. Steelers game, but one of the all-time hockey greats, Bobby Orr was in attendance, and, believe it or not, the national team won 4-3.

The lighting was actually significantly better than I expected - about 1/100-1/250 at 2.8 and ISO 800 or 1100, not too bad at all, and plenty for me to get good enough quality for newspaper reproduction. I thought I'd get some use out of my 17-55, but I ended up shooting the entire time with my 70-200 VR.

As always, the best photos go to the paper and can't be republished here, but these are some of my second batch, if you will.

Read rest of entry

A F-F-Freezing Thursday shoot

To celebrate my birthday yesterday (and because I hadn't shot anything in a week or so) my friend Rob and I headed off to shoot sunset yesterday from the roof of the library at Tufts. I think my toes just recovered. Despite the fact that I wore my Under Armour cold gear, someone (me) forgot to wear boots and warm socks. So while the rest of me was fine, my toes just about fell off.

After we warmed up with some Dunkin' hot chocolate, we headed off to the East Coast Grille & Raw Bar for some drinks and a plate of their "Wings of Mass Destruction." They grill the wings, so they're not greasy, but your mouth is afire for a while for sure. I like them so much beacuse they're tasty hot, not just burn your mouth off hot, if that makes sense.

Anyway, the above photo was taken with my D70s and my 10.5mm fisheye just after the sun set over the city.

Also, I'm not his biggest fan, but I think that Ken Rockwell has a decent post on the 5D vs. D3 and D3 high noise performance updated yesterday. Click here for all the links.

Read rest of entry

MIT

OK, maybe the title is deceiving. I'm not that smart (though I did pass the Mensa test once). Anyway, my sister and I took a ride over to MIT yesterday as I had to return a lens to Calumet in Cambridge anyway and had been wanting to check out the Stata Center for a while now. The building totally looks like it belongs in a Dr. Suess book. The best place to shoot it would probably be from a rooftop, but it's super cool nonetheless.

Read rest of entry

Jon & Vanessa

Friday I shot Jon & Vanessa in Cleveland Circle. We had so much fun - 901 photos of fun! They were game for everything, despite the cold (why couldn't we have had Thursdays heat?) Anyway, here's a link to the gallery of all the images, and I've included a few of my favorites here. Their wedding is next summer, while I'm off umpiring, so I won't get to shoot it, but I'm sure they'll look great.

If you're interested in a session similar to what we did on Friday, here's some more info with a special holiday discount!

For $500:
-3 hours of unlimited shots, anywhere within 50 miles of Sharon.
-10 4x6s, 5 8x10s
-90 day online gallery
-Animoto slideshow set to music
-CD with low-res images for e-mail only

Extra options:
-$150 - CD with high and low res images, for unlimited prints and e-mail
-More 8x10s - $20 ea., 4x6 $8 each
-Extra hours available at $100/hr
-20% discount on any session scheduled before 12/31/07

Read rest of entry

A little Friday inspiration

Just a little inspiration before I head out to shoot my good friends Jon & Vanessa in Cleveland Circle this afternoon. Click here to see what I mean. Also, in other exciting, exciting news, my new 80gb engraved Ipod just arrived. I only ordered it Tuesday! And it's here and synching as we speak. I'm very excited, as I've only had my itty bitty shuffle since my 2.5 year old 20gb black and white Ipod died this summer. I also did something I have never done before on Wednesday.

I went on a tour of Fenway Park. Yup. I'm willing to venture that this is not something many New Englanders do, as evidenced by the makeup of our tour group, which was mainly from out of state (with some from as far away as Ireland, England and Australia on the tour). The tour was a bit limited by the construction as they add more seats (see photo) and it was heavy on stuff I already knew ("This is the pole that Carlton Fisk hit..."), but it was fun nonetheless.

Now, at this point, you might be asking, "Why did you go on this tour?" Well, the answer is, my very good friend from college Lindsay e-mailed me a few days earlier, "Dougggg, I first realized I loved my boyfriend Mike at a Sox game this summer (Mike's from Worcester). And I'd love to give him a Fenway gift for Christmas, maybe a photo of our seats...can you help me?" Can I help you? Of course I can. As you can see by the photo (which at this writing she hasn't seen), I tried to put a little personal touch on his gift. What Sox fan wouldn't love a girlfriend who would commission original Red Sox art for them for Christmas?

Click on the photos for a larger view.

Read rest of entry

From the "Never Good Enough" Department

Peter King, the Peter Gammons of football writers, writes in this week's Monday Morning Quarterback:

"In the windowless Gillette Stadium office of New England vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli is a 2000 Fleer football card with the "New England Patriots Rookie Stars'' of that season. On one half of the rectangular card is Boise State tight end Dave Stachelski, the 141st pick in the draft, a fifth-round choice. On the other half is Michigan quarterback Tom Brady, the 199th pick in the draft, a sixth-rounder. The 2000 draft was the first New England draft run by Bill Belichick and Pioli.

Stachelski never played a down for New England. Brady is Brady.

Just a little reminder for Pioli: When he starts thinking how brilliantly the Patriots' draft room has been run over the years, he can think back to the day his team chose a no-name tight end who never got out of training camp 55 picks before they picked one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time."

Read rest of entry