Some of the sights along the Freedom Trail in Boston, Massachusetts from May 2011.

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common was erected in memory of the sons of the Bay State who died in the American Civil War. The female figure AMERICA sits atop a Doric column, facing south and wearing a tiara of thirteen stars.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument by Paul Sager, on Flickr


Boston Common dates to 1634 and is the oldest city park in the United States. The Common's purpose has changed over the years. During the 1630s, it was used by many families as a cow pasture. The Boston Common continued to host cows until they were formally banned in 1830.

Giant Allium


The Common was used as a camp by the British before the American Revolutionary War, from which they left for the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The true park status emerged only after the grazing of cows was ended.

Memorial Day


The Granary Burying Ground is the city of Boston's third-oldest cemetery, founded in 1660 and located on Tremont Street. It is the final resting place for many notable Revolutionary War-era patriots, including Paul Revere, the five victims of the Boston Massacre, and three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine.

Granary Burying Ground


The earliest Puritan graves in the New England were usually dug without planning in designated local burial grounds. Flat, tablet shaped stones made from slate were the preferred medium until marble became fashionable in the early 19th century.

Granary Burying Ground


Early Puritan headstones were low sized and wide. They were typically capped with a rounded tympanum resembling the semi-circular half stones often found above the main doorway entrances into churches. The tympanum thus has symbolic meaning, reflecting the belief that through death, the soul moves from one world into the next.

Granary Burying Ground


The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile-long path through downtown Boston that passes 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. Quincy Market was build in 1824–26 after commercial demand had outgrown the capacity of Faneuil Hall. Faneuil Hall is the official stop on the Freedom Trail, being the marketplace and meeting hall where speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and many others encouraged independence from Great Britain.

Quincy Market dome


Paul Revere rides forever outside the Old North Church. In April 1775, Paul Revere told three Boston patriots to hang two lanterns in the church steeple. The lanterns sent a warning to Charlestown patriots across the Charles River about the movements of the British Army. "One if by land, and two if by sea." Revere left on horseback to warn towns throughout the area of the British movements that preceded the Battles of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution.

Paul Revere


Images shared in this post were captured in RAW using an EOS XTi. New processing was performed in 2021 using Adobe Lightroom v6.

Boston Harbor


Details on the exposure and lenses are provided in the EXIF data from Flickr, just use the image titles as URL links to Flickr.

The Quincy L Station is a rapid transit station on the Chicago "L" system. Quincy is located above the intersection of Quincy Street and Wells Street in the downtown "Loop" of Chicago, Illinois. Having opened in 1897, it is one of the oldest surviving stations on the L system.

Quincy L Station by Paul Sager, on Flickr


The Chicago "L" (short for "elevated railroad") is the rapid transit system serving the City of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the "L" is the fourth-largest in total route length and the third busiest rail mass transit system in the US, 102.8 miles (165.4 km) as of 2014.

Chicago, IL
April 2021

Quincy L Station


Designed by Alfred M. Hedley from wood and stamped metal, Quincy opened on October 3, 1897. It retained much of its original surroundings over the years and is considered one of "150 great places in Illinois" by the American Institute of Architects.

Quincy Station L Station


The station once had a transfer bridge, but this was removed in the 1980s. This means it is not possible to change from one platform to the other without paying another fare or asking for employee assistance.

Quincy Station L Station


A renovation project from 1985 to 1988 resulted in Quincy taking on a look similar to how it looked when opened. Some materials such as signage were changed, although several of the station's features are original to its 1897 opening.

Quincy L Station


The "L" reference has existed since the first lines opened in Chicago in 1882. The reasons for "L" rather than "el" have been lost to history, but theories point to "L" being another way for the Second City to differentiate from NYC that also had an "el" system in the late 1800s.

Quincy L Station


Currently, there are 144 operating CTA stations, and 6 abandoned ones. The most stations there have ever been on the "L" system at one time is 227. Ridership peeked in the 1920s just before the automobile became widely affordable. Since 2005, yearly ridership has again started to increase, including several recent all-time ridership records.

Quincy L Station


The images in this post feature two different types of expired film. The color images come from Fuji Press 800 (expired Sept 2003) and B&W from Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired Jan 2014). Adjustments were made to the ISO setting when each roll was loaded to an EOS 1v. Details on the exposure and lenses are provided in the EXIF data from Flickr, just use the image titles as URL links to Flickr. The scanned JPEGs were processed in Adobe Lightroom v6.

Quincy L Station

Chicago, IL
April 2021

These images feature the Sony a7II and the manual focus lens Canon FD 85mm f/1.2L with a Metabones adapter, and mostly with an FD 12mm Extension Tube, captured in RAW and processed in Adobe Lightroom v6

Wrigleyville Spring by Paul Sager, on Flickr


Tulips are part of the lily family. They only bloom for 3-7 days in the spring.

Wrigleyville Spring


Tulip petals are edible and can be used in place of onions in many recipes.

Wrigleyville Spring


The daffodil is a spring flowering perennial that are generally white and yellow.

Wrigleyville Spring


Tulips are popular garden plants. In Turkey, their traditional home, the tulip is a symbol of paradise on earth and has almost a divine status, in the Netherlands they represent the briefness of life.

Wrigleyville Spring


Ornamental flowering pear trees are often preferred for their showy flowers during the spring and their striking leaf color as the weather cools. Because they are not grown for fruit, they are fairly simple to care for.

Wrigleyville Spring


These images are sized to fill your wide-screen display. Try using <F11> to maximize your browser window for the full effect. If the images overshoot your display, such as a laptop, just click on the image or the URL link and they'll resize to your screen from the host Flickr site. You can click a bit further into the image details on the Flickr page, if desired. EXIF data is available from the host Flickr pages as well. On the Flickr site, use your <L>key for Large and the <F11> for the full-screen.

Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (say that 5 times fast). The short version is that tulips have bulbs as storage organs that bloom every year. The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly colored, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm colors).

Canon EOS 1v, EF 180mm f/3.5L macro, Kodak Ektar 100
Chicago, IL
May 2020

Chicago tulips by Paul Sager, on Flickr


Tulips grew wild in the Tien Shan Mountains and were cultivated in Istanbul in 1055. In the 15th century, tulips were among the most prized flowers; the flower was the symbol of the Ottomans.

Chicago tulips


While tulips had probably been cultivated in Persia from the tenth century, they did not come to the attention of the West until the sixteenth century, when Western diplomats to the Ottoman court observed and reported on them. They were rapidly introduced into Europe and became a frenzied commodity during the Tulip mania.

Chicago Tulip


Tulips were frequently depicted in Dutch Golden Age paintings, and have become associated with the Netherlands, the major producer for world markets, ever since.

Chicago tulips


The Netherlands is the world's main producer of commercial tulip plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually, the majority for export.

Chicago tulips


These images are sized to fill your wide-screen display. Try using <F11> to maximize your browser window for the full effect. If the images overshoot your display, such as a laptop, just click on the image or the URL link and they'll resize to your screen from the host Flickr site. You can click a bit further into the image details on the Flickr page, if desired. EXIF data is available from the host Flickr pages as well. On the Flickr site, use your <L>key for Large and the <F11> for the full-screen.

If you're a regular on UHH, you've probably seen a comment that goes something like, "you don't need IS for a wide-angle lens." This post gives some examples when and why. The several examples are all hand-held, low-light, wide-angle ideas from the EF 16-35mm f/4L IS. The lens was released in 2014 as Canon's first IS-enabled, full-frame, wide angle lens. I replaced my EF 17-40mm f/4L, for this sharper lens that lets you do things hand-held you can't do otherwise.

The full EXIF details are available from the host Flickr pages for each image via the URL links that are the image titles. For the purposes of these examples, I'll mention the focal length and shutterspeed. For the Pride of Baltimore, this is 1/20 sec at 28mm.

Pride of Baltimore II by Paul Sager, on Flickr


Amicalola is the Cherokee word meaning "tumbling waters". Amicalola Falls is the highest waterfall in Georgia (729-ft).

1/13 sec at 16mm.

Amicalola Falls State Park


Canon's best option for cropped sensors is the EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM, another equally sharp lens with excellent IS support.

1/20 sec at 16mm.

Trimotor Cockpit


For most of these images, I was trying for good shooting technique. This image from St Louis was with the camera head over my head. Only with ISO-4000 could I get to 1/13 at 35mm and hope the IS would keep me steady enough.

1/13 sec at 35mm.

St Louis Old Courthouse


I know this probably doesn't mean much to most, but the IS works the same wonders when used with an EOS film camera.

1/4 sec at 16mm.

USS Alabama


These images are sized to fill your wide-screen display. Try using <F11> to maximize your browser window for the full effect. If the images overshoot your display, such as a laptop, just click on the image or the URL link and they'll resize to your screen from the host Flickr site. You can click a bit further into the image details on the Flickr page, if desired. EXIF data is available from the host Flickr pages as well. On the Flickr site, use your <L>key for Large and the <F11> for the full-screen.