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From: Robert Coe on 20 Jul 2010 19:04
I thought I'd provide a bit of context for my Shoot-In submissions this month.

My ongoing assignment to photograph points of interest in the city for which I
work (Cambridge, Massachusetts) leaves me little time for photography that
isn't work-related. However, the assignment itself, which takes me to dozens
of locations I've never seen before, is the virtual equivalent of a collection
of pinholes in a map of Cambridge. So I've submitted three of the pictures
I've taken so far, hoping that this fulfills the spirit, if not exactly the
letter, of the mandate.

Pinhole Bob_Coe 1: This is Cambridge's Old Burial Ground, which we think is
more authentic than its equivalents in Boston, because its graves have been
disturbed less over time. In the U.S., at least, humor isn't something you
necessarily expect on early 19th-century gravestones, but look closely at the
middle stone. Its tympanum features a traditional "urn & willow" motif, but
here the urn is a grinning face with the willow as its hair. The grave's
occupant, William Kneeland, was once a tutor at Harvard College, a job he
apparently lost to anti-nepotism rules when he married Elizabeth Holyoke, the
daughter of the college's president. Her stone is to the viewer's right; the
stone on the left is that of their daughter, also named Elizabeth. Note that
the main inscription on Mr Kneeland's stone is in Latin; college tutors were
presumably expected to be Latin scholars.

Pinhole Bob_Coe 2: Cambridge's skylines, and several of its most interesting
buildings, are best seen from the Charles River; and so far I've walked the
footpaths on one or both sides of the river from Lechmere Square to the Eliot
Bridge. This is Harvard University's Weld Boathouse. It sits beside the Larz
Anderson Bridge (a name questioned by Wikipedia but used by all), which
connects Harvard's main campus in Cambridge with its Business School and
athletic complex in Brighton. I like the picture because I think it expresses
the traditional seedy elegance of an Ivy League university (I attended one
myself) pretty well. I'm tempted to call the scene European (French or Belgian
perhaps?), although my one brief visit to Europe hardly provides enough
support for that leap.

Pinhole Bob_Coe 3: Farther upriver, near the Eliot Bridge, is Mount Auburn
Hospital. The real reason I include this picture is that fourteen years ago
the doctors and nurses at Mount Auburn saved my life. The building fronts on
Mount Auburn Street, a major thoroughfare, but is best seen from the river.
(Another major thoroughfare, Memorial Drive, separates the building from the
river, but you might not notice it from this angle except at rush hour.) The
reverse is also true: for several days of my stay I had a room overlooking the
river, and the view was spectacular, especially at night.

As you might imagine, these pictures are the tip of a growing iceberg, and it
may well be that others will appear in future Shoot-Ins. Indeed, I've already
set aside one or two to use for mandates that I plan to propose. ;^)

Bob
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