The Boston Public Improvement Commission just announced that it would return Yawkey Way to its former name, Jersey St. at the request of the Boston Red Sox organization.  Tom Yawkey owned the team for some 44 years and is generally viewed today as having been a racist. Despite the good works of the Yawkey Foundation, created after his death, many felt that it would be racially insensitive to continue to associate his name with the street bordering Fenway Park.  I personally would have preferred to keep the name of the street and added a very prominent plaque which acknowledged his racist behaviors while also recognizing his accomplishments.  I think we gain more by understanding than trying to simply erase.

I thought I would get a photo of one of the signs before they all get stolen (I am sure they will be quite the collector’s item one day). While I was in the neighborhood, I put up my drone for a nice aerial view of Fenway Park.

Geese are not high on my list of interesting photographic subjects but I found the wavy tall grass reflections in the water as they swam away very interesting. I encountered this pair on my morning walk which took me to the Fenway Garden Society this morning.

A sure sign that spring has arrived is the nightly chorus of peeper frogs that can be heard throughout the night.  I had to work rather late this evening and did not return home until ~10 pm.  As I drove down ORNAC (Old Road to Nine Acre Corners) I could see dozens of frogs hopping across the road (also a number who were run over in the process).  I pulled over and used my flashlight to illuminate the little fellow above.  He was quite cooperative, remaining still as I struggled to hold my light with one hand and properly focus my camera with the other. It made for a very satisfying conclusion to a very long workday.

At work today I needed to create a photograph that will be used in a media campaign by one of our bike frame partners. The goal was to convey a sense of motion while still featuring the brand identity of the product.  There is a standard technique for doing this.  You set a relatively low shutter speed and pan with the action so that the background is blurred and the subject is in focus.  Easier said than done was my takeaway after the exercise.  It took over a hundred shots to get the one above and I am not really all that pleased with it.  Next time I will use a tripod with a panning head, and a lens with a larger aperture and spend more time scouting a better background.  Live and learn.

At long last, signs of spring are beginning to pop up.  It has been a long and unusually rough winter that has dragged on far too long.  As I looked around today there were signs of new life everywhere and I am reminded how quickly the spring season in New England comes and goes. Hopefully, there will be enough sunny days between rainy ones to get some decent photographs of the transition from greyscale to color.

Still nursing an injured knee from last weekend, I did not play soccer this morning. Instead, I watched from the sideline as my teammates ran up an 8-0 score by halftime. The final was 9-0, limited only by a desire not to further humiliate our opponents. The weather could not have been nicer so I invited Jeanine to join me on a waterfall hike. Pictured above and below is 45-foot tall Royalston Falls reachable by a steep 1.6-mile hike. It took us much longer than we expected given my bad knee and Jeanine’s still recovering calf muscle. Despite the slow going, the journey was well worth the effort. We also visited Doane Falls but I prefer the winter images I shot of it back in February to the ones I took today.

The field containing the trees pictured in the foreground has been fully inundated by the Sudbury River.  The uniform and stark contrast between the water and trees makes for a rather compelling photo. Another interesting angle is from directly overhead. In another few weeks, the trees will be covered in buds and the water will have likely receded creating an entirely different scene.

The South Bridge Boathouse is familiar to anyone who has rented canoes for a paddle downriver to visit the Old North Bridge. Occasionally I pay the proprietor a few bucks to put my kayak in and take it out from their dock.  Money well spent when I prefer to stay dry (most other put-ins and take-outs along the river are wet).  Currently, the river is so high that there is scarcely clearance to paddle under a number of bridges on the river.  In a few weeks the water level and temperatures will be conducive to kayaking and I hope to do more this year than last. 

Now that I am shooting exclusively with the Sony a7R3 I no longer need crop body only primes such as this 30mm f/1.4 prime that I used with my a6300s (sold both over the last couple of weeks).  It can now be found on Craig’s List in search of a new happy home. 

At this time of year, few people are willing to brave the wind and cold to ply the waters of the Sudbury River.  For those brave souls who are, the reward is having the river to yourself at a time when it is swollen with winter snow melt and spring rains. I captured this image with my drone minutes before sunset, the kayaker oblivious to its presence.

Our local deer have figured out that humans are not really a threat.  This guy is one of a small herd that frequents the field behind our house.  Today I ran into him, or rather, I did not run into him as he crossed ORNAC (Old Road to Nine Acre Corner) on his way down to the Sudbury River.  They always cross the road in the same place so I have learned to slow down and remain very alert at that location.  After crossing in front of me he lingered long enough for me to gather my camera and take a few photos from inside my car.

Between work and finishing my taxes, there was little time today for anything else. I did manage to watch the elite women’s finish of the Boston Marathon during my lunch break at a local pizzeria. Even though I was only a mile and a half from the finish line, I had little desire to be out in the pouring rain, frigid temperatures, and strong winds after enduring much of the same in my soccer match yesterday.  Congratulations to Des Linden, the first American woman to win the event in 33 years.

Jeanine has a special knack for stretching her birthday out for several days. This year’s festivities concluded with dinner at Alta Strada, a fine Italian restaurant in Wellesley.  It is close to Olin College where we collected Maya to enjoy a four-fifths family dinner.  We will see Nicolai in a few weeks when we all travel to Colorado for his college graduation.

The weather today has been a wintery mix of freezing rain and sleet. The temperature was 33 degrees when my soccer match kicked off at 9am.  Our opponents from Nashua, NH had to endure both the frigid conditions and a 0-8 drubbing.  The win placed my team squarely in first place and on a good path to earning promotion this season.9 am

Each spring, I obtain an open burning permit from the Town of Concord.  With all the trees on our property, there is invariably a sizable collection of downed branches that must be cleared. Typically, I only need to activate the permit for a single day. With the unusually fierce storms we had this winter, however, it took three days worth of burning to deal with all the dead wood.  Jeanine and Kyle both joined in today to help complete the project. As we knocked off for the day, the small pile above was all that remained and should be nothing but ash by tomorrow morning.