Boston and Cape Cod: inspiration for cityscapes

While on holiday in Boston and Cape Cod, I was able to find a few scenes that might serve as subjects for a future Cityscape.

The first shows the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, taken from an adjacent parking lot.

Others were taken in various small towns we passed through: Sandwich, Falmouth, Dennis, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Chatham, and Nantucket. We saw a number of great art shows on the Cape, but none of them allowed photographs. 

At this point none of these images strikes me as a really good subject, but sometimes with the right cropping and fiddling, I can get something useful.

The architecture on the Cape is similar to what I've seen in coastal Maine.

Some of these scenes were first observed from the seat of a bicycle. The height I got while biking gave me a good angle on the scene. But because I couldn't use the camera while on the bike, I lost that advantage when taking the actual photo.

These later ones were taken in Provincetown, which is a ridiculously unmanageable place. Commercial Street, no wider than two lanes, forms the spine of the village and extends for a good two miles, with the centre third of that devoted mostly to "commerce".

On that two-lane street is one-way car traffic, two-way bicycle traffic, one lane of parked cars, and maybe one and a half sidewalks. Remember that this is a busy commercial artery, with perhaps 250 shops, bars, galleries and restaurants, delivery trucks stopped for unloading, pedi-cabs and throngs of pedestrians. Parking is hard to find, so bicycles are the preferred mode of transit for the locals. There is no option to widen the street because most of the houses and shops are built very close to the road.

To add to the merriment, an international film festival was being staged during our visit. I can only imagine what it must be like in-season.

With the roses in bloom, both Cape Cod and the Maine shore make for wonderful early summer holidays.  Maybe next time I will spend less time touring around and more time on watercolour sketching.