Samomatic

The newest addition to my equipment: 8mm Fisheye lens

It is very different from all the other lens I have used before and depending on where you place the object in the shot it can be distorted in different ways. Things can appear as a dot on the picture.

So this weekend I primarily focused on using this lens to learn about its erratic behaviours.

Hong and I going to hardware store to buy a piece of 4′x8′ foam as a barrier for Suri. We had to put the foam on the roof of his camry and tied it down. The wind from the windshield forced the foam to rise and after a few minutes of driving I put my hand up and thought it was gone! We had to pull over, tie another string to the front of the car to keep the foam from rising up. For the rest of the trip we also had to stay below 30mph and each have a hand on the roof to keep the foam from flying away. Haha
Subway Station
US payphones charge 50cents/call…Suri is begging me to let her out of her cage after being caught from breaching the barrier.

So yesterday I walked along the Charles river which runs through Boston and it has a very nice trail made for biking/blading/walking/jogging. There are some floating docks along the trail and somehow they people lying there suntanning makes me think they look like sea lions…

View of downtown Boston from the Charles River.

Everybody meet Suri the Chinchilla! She is our new pet in the house (we are pet-sitting for the summer) and since my landlord is on vacation I am in charge of this little critter.

After my disastrous encounter with mice I vowed never to get a stupid pet again. At first I thought this furry looking rabbit/squirrel is pretty dumb because all it does it sleep in its cage. Well it has proven me wrong and for the entire week it has managed to escape from its play area and I have to be on knees or lying on the floor at 7am trying to lure her with raisins to get her back to her cage. This little critter has some attitude and runs on a pretty rigorous schedule. If I don’t let her out she will run around her cage till the whole house wakes up and if I let her out at a random time she will just sleep and not even pay attention to the open door.
I am really surprised that even though it is so chubby looking most of it is fluff. It is highly agile and is very difficult to catch. Suri can jump up to 1m (or 3ft in imperial) and get on window sills to get around the barriers that we have setup. She can run along walls and do funny bounces on corners to try to find a weak point to get out. At first it was funny to see Suri peeking into my room, jumping on my bed or wandering in the hallway but very soon I found out it would take at least 20 min for her to get into her cage (leaving her alone would mean cables being chewed up). The most cruel idea I have after spending 30min chasing her around the couch consists of a collar, length of rope, and a peg in the middle of the room. Go figure…

Just feel like posting a picture. It’s been a while since I have done a paroramic shot.

I was delighted on Saturday morning when I woke up and saw blue sky with a few fluffy clouds. I decided not to waste the beautiful weather and will go explore downtown Boston.
For the rest of the term I will probably be exploring and traveling alone because Seiji, my roommate, thinks I am
1) too touristy with all the camera gears
2) crazy with all the walking and early schedules
3) dreadful boring waiting to shots to ‘happen’
[they kinda make sense cause he is not very keen about photography.] So instead of burdening each other we’ll do our own exploring and share about it in the evening.

I loaded up my backpack with my tripod, laptop, and camera and off I go. By luck there was a yard sale and Mr.Smarty-Pants here decided to buy some books and not even consider the fact that I will be lugging them around for the rest of the day…
I decided to hit up the oldest part of Boston, Beacon Hill and it is a really amazing neighborhood filled with old but well-maintained buildings on both sides with trees overarching above the one way streets. The atmosphere is very relaxed and many people enjoy just going there for a stroll, see some old architectural buildings and grab a starbucks.

One of the most beautiful streets is a cobble-stone road preserved from the ancient days. I saw the road from the pictures of tour guide book but unfortunately they didn’t provide a name for the exact street. I was determined to find this street and began to probe every little corner in this neighborhood. Fortunately 3 tour buses load of people (did I mention loud?) were leaving (reminds me of 2 armies trying to fight on a narrow bridge..haha) and the street was empty. I had plenty of time to enjoy the view and try it from both sides.

Next I walked along the more commercial streets and when I entered a European grocery store I inquired whether I could take photos and this chap wanted me to take his picture cause he claims to be the ‘Boston Ben Affleck’. Funny guy!

Next I explored Haymarket, it is a really big fresh produce market in the middle of Boston downtown district.

Even though the prices were really good (it was approaching closing time) I have learned my lesson with the books and won’t even think about reaching for my wallet (those watermelons looked so juicy! haha)

This is by far the most multi-cultural area in Boston I have experienced and it somewhat reminded me of Toronto. It was nice but still it is different, maybe I will cover that at a later time.

I got busted in the subway stops again for taking pictures…no worries they can’t stop me. The green line is THE oldest subway in the USA and it was quite interesting to ride it.

It starts from the downtown area and then it branches into 3 different routes after a while so you have to pay attention which train you get on. From the map some routes have no less than 40 stops in total and the amazing thing is that they come so frequently there could be 2 trains on the platform at once. The subway stations are made from black wires so there is a dungeon feeling and the cars screeches a lot and is quite turbulent at times but I think this is my favorite line so far!

My final stop was at the Church of Christ, Science. This is the world headquarter and I have a picture of the exterior from one of my first posts. The inside is amazingly large with three domes and the largest organ in the country.