The day following the art museum, we visited Harvard University. Arriving at Cambridge, we walked around the town until time to meet family.

Harvard Side Street
These bike racks were full when we arrived, eagerly waiting for daily rentals!

Harvard Bike Rack
We meandered through the campus and paid a visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The museum included an exhibit of glass flowers. This exhibit included over 800 glass models of various flowers. These highly detailed models were crafted by a father and son team over a period of 50 years in Germany. These were displayed under glass cabinets with difficult lighting, so I did not have any images. This museum is well worth visiting. Later we also visited the Semitic Museum, where some Egyptian and Mesopotamian artifacts were being exhibited.
After visiting the museums, we made our way through Harvard Yard. Here there is a statue of John Harvard, who founded the university. This statue gathered the attention of several visitors, mainly because of the brass shoe tip that looks like gold. Apparently there is an Asian custom that touching gold helps women falling pregnant! That might explain why this lady is touching the statue’s shoe while onlookers are making photographs. That did not explain why some men also performed the same!

John Harvard Statue
At the southern end of the yard, I stopped to make an image of the colorful chairs, before leaving the campus.

Colorful Chairs In Harvard Yard
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We left Salem and moved to Boston. After meeting Wojtek and Kerril, we started along The Freedom Trail. During the course of the next few days we caught up events over the last 5 years. The trail starts at Boston Common, making its way past various sites that trace historic events leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Old South Meeting House was one location where historic meetings were held.

Clock, Old South Meeting House
We made our way to the Old State House. It was outside this building that the Boston Massacre took place. I was intrigued by the semi-circular stair case that is located in the center of the building. This was added many years after the end of the Revolutionary War.

Stairs, Old State House
After lunch, we continued with the trail, making our way to Paul Revere’s House. This is a museum that contains some of the period furniture and artifacts from Paul Revere’s time.

Paul Revere House
The following day, we met at the Museum of Fine Arts. There were some interesting works. The following work, is consists of foot-shaped paper, cut from phone directories, stacked several feet high. This work traces footsteps walking along the floor.

Vertical Walk Sculpture, Museum Of Fine Arts
One unmistakeable work is a Chihuly glass sculpture (green icicle tower) that stands some 40 feet in height. There are over 2000 blown glass leaves that comprise this piece.

Chihuly Sculpture
While admiring the sculpture from the third floor, I made this image of a museum visitor.

Chihuly, With Visitor
On the morning we visited, there were crowds of schoolkids visiting the museum. I could not resist making this image of a group of kids with their yellow tee-shirts.

Schoolkids In The Museum
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{ }
We made a second day trip from Salem, heading south to Providence, Rhode Island. Soon after arriving, we got routed through some traffic diversions. A marathon run was taking place, with the leaders arriving in the city center when we arrived. We found parking close to Brown University. While walking to the university, I was intrigued by these stairs. The lines of the stairs were repeated by the siding of the house.

Stairs And Steps, Providence
We took a walk through Brown University. This is one of the eight Ivy League universities. All but one we formed during the colonial era in the US.

Brown University, Providence
Walking down the the city center, I found this ring that forms part of a sculpture. Since it was midday, I carefully composed the image to exclude the sun and bright parts of the sky.

Ring, Providence
Along the Providence River, many bystanders were watching and encouraging runners in the marathon.

Watching Marathon Runners, Providence
During the afternoon we headed south out of Providence, where we stopped at Bristol. While exploring the town, I was drawn to the peeling paint on this door.

Painted Door, Bristol
It was spring time, so many of the trees were covered in blossoms. The azaleas were also flowering.

Azaleas, Bristol
Bristol is a coastal town that used to have many industrial and manufacturing plants. Here is the building use to be plant for Robin Rug Inc.

Robin Rug Inc, Bristol
Of course we passed by the marina. Angela pointed out one dingy that was partially submerged below water. However, I found this one, that was almost completely sunk!

Sunk, Bristol
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While staying in Salem, we made a day trip to the Plum Island National Wildlife Refuge at Plum Island and later visited the town of Newburyport. Close to the harbor we passed this brick lighthouse. This is located next to the main street through the town. This is one of many “lighthouses” in the area. Don’t know if it is authentic, since it appears to be a long way from the shore. But it does have an interesting design.

Brick Lighthouse, Newburyport
I got closer to the lighthouse tower angling the camera upwards, so I could cut out the clutter of all those power lines.

Lighthouse Flags
Close to the marina is an antique store. Outside are these colorful floats that were used to identify lobster pots belonging to different fishermen in years gone by. Nowadays, plastics buoys appear to serve the same purpose.

Fisherman’s Lobster Floats
The wall of the antique store was adorned with this smiling face.

Antique Store Face, Newburyport
Garfield, with his big cheesy smile, also adorned the wall.

Antique Store Garfield
Nearby, I found this mooring bollard planted in the lawn. This is no longer used, but serves as a reminder of the bigger boats that used the harbor.

Mooring Bollard
We walked along the marina. However, it was too early in the season to find boats moored along the quays.

Empty Marina, Newburyport
Finally we walked through the town, looking for a coffee shop. Along the street was this interesting store, just for dogs.

Just Dogs
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This month we made a trip to Massachusetts, where we were to meet family in Boston. For the first three days we stayed in Salem. Soon after arriving in Salem, we made a trip to Salem Commons, where we walked down to the ocean. It was low tide in the late afternoon.

Low Tide, Salem Commons
Walking among the streets, we reached the rocks along the shoreline where we encountered these homes with an ocean view. Many folks were busy in their yards, preparing for the summer.

Homes With An Ocean View, Salem Commons
As the sun setting, we headed back to the pavilion. The low sun was casting long shadows at the pavilion. I waited for these two children to come running over to play.

Children At Play, Salem Commons Pavilion
Looking out across the river estuary, I made this image of the setting sun.

Sunset Over Estuary, Salem
Later during the trip, we returned to Salem Commons, where I found kelp growing among the rock pools.

Kelp At Low Tide, Salem
No visit to Salem is complete without making a visit to the Salem Witch Museum. The story surrounding the hanging of the witches in 1692 was retold here.

Salem Witch Museum
Finally we stopped at the National Park Association. I made this image looking up at the skylight at the entrance as we were leaving.

National Park Association Skylight, Salem
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by Match
on April 6, 2014
Saturday night was the monthly Illuminate Workshops night shoot. This month we met at the Denver Art Museum. After meeting fellow photogs, we proceeded to make images around the museum.

Dustpan And Brush, Denver Art Museum
More images may be found on the Meetup website here. Across the road is the Denver Public Library. In one of the windows was this huge orange paper flower.

Orange Paper Flower
The library building has some interesting angular and curved walls, contructed with a variety of build materials.

Denver Public Library, At Night
Looking back towards the art museum, I spotted the steel tent poking above the roof line.

Steel Tent, Denver Art Museum
We made our way to Civic Center Park and past the State Capitol building. Stopping near the Supreme Court building, I found these shadows that were cast from the buried lighting.

Shadows, Supreme Court
Near the end of the photo walk, the Supreme Court building was reflection from an adjacent building. This created some interesting reflections.

Building Reflections
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by Match
on April 5, 2014
First Friday was Art Walk along Sante Fe. This month there were a lot of new exhibits and new artists showing their art. Really inspiring. Here are some images that I made during the evening. I found one gallery that had these cool Lumin lamps. This one cycled through various colors. I waited for red to make its appearance.

Lumin Lamp, In Red
There were some interesting exhibits in this gallery. Lumin lamps are made from a heavyweight paper with folds alone scored lines. This yellow one shows have the folds give the Lumin’s their unique shape.

Lumin Paper Folds
One of my favorite galleries has steel ceilings. Here the lanterns are reflected in the ceiling.

Lanterns And Reflections In The Ceiling
I found the mannequin in the antique store’s window.

Mannequin In The Window
Enjoy.
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{ }
by Match
on April 3, 2014
This morning we were greeted with some 5 inches of fresh spring snow. On the way to work, I pass by Tokyo Joe’s, where several inches of snow had accumulated on the tables. There was just a hint of red showing from the umbrellas.

Tokyo Joe’s Snow
At the weekend, powerful wind gusts were reported in the metro area. On Monday morning, many of these umbrellas and tables were blown over by the wind. Also, several umbrellas were damaged, bent, destroyed and blown down the street. I liked the patterns made by the snow covered railings in the image below.

Snow Railings
Spring has been with us for a couple of weeks. However, very few flowers have blossomed. One exception was this forsythia, where the yellow flowers were poking through the covering of snow.

Flowering Forsythia In The Snow Storm
As I made my to work, I passed under the avenue of snow laden trees near Tuscany Plaza. Several footprints from fellow travelers left their tracks in the snow.

Tracks In Snow Under Avenue Of Trees
Outside the plaza, the sunny medallion was have covered in snow. I was captivated by the contrast of the lumpy snow stuck to the railing.

Snow And Medallion, Tuscany Plaza
During the course of the day, we got more snow interrupted by spells of sunny blue skies that started the melting process. At the end of the day, many puddles of water and muddy patches lined the sidewalks and open areas.
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