Spectacle Island

Author's Comments

The ferry from Long Wharf takes about twenty minutes and that crossing is part of the experience. You leave the city at water level and arrive at an island that used to be a landfill, which is a strange thing to know as you walk up a hill of wildflowers in July. The North Drumlin is a gentle climb, fifteen minutes at most, and there is no shade so you choose your hour carefully. I prefer the last ferry out and the late return, which puts you on the summit as the light turns and the skyline begins to glow against a darkening harbor. Boston from this angle is unfamiliar even to people who live there. The Financial District clusters tight on the left, the Custom House tower still holding its own, and the harbor spreads wide between you and the city in a way that flattens distance and rewards a longer lens than you expect to need. I have come up here in August with a wide and gone home wishing I had brought a telephoto. The compression is the photograph. The skyline reads better pulled in than spread out. September is the better month. The summer haze thins, the ferries still run, and the grass on the drumlin has gone slightly gold. Stay through the blue hour if the schedule allows it. The lights of the city come on gradually, and there is a window of maybe ten minutes when the sky and the buildings are in approximate balance. That is the frame worth waiting for.

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