Amblist is my long-format video walking/movement visual project. Lately they’ve been hybrid photo walks, and I intend to make some short-form photo walks videos with the same source material on a separate YouTube channel.
Tonight's walk starts at Flagship Wharf, a building in Boston's Charlestown Navy Yard where I'd just wrapped up a photoshoot (of a fancy kitchen). It's a little windy, but my tiny wind breaks on the mics seems to do a great job of calming it. You get to hear the rigging clanking on the ships in the harbor in the distance, which is a fun little thing to hear. I pass some face sculptures as I meander my way toward downtown Boston. When I was walking here a few hours earlier, before sunset, the place was buzzing with people, probably the most I'd seen walking around anywhere in my time in Boston. I imagine it's a tourist attraction. Late in the evening, not so busy.
The route, as logged via the workout on my Apple Watch. I love this thing.
Next I stumble across Lot Lab, an art space with three pretty installations. "Knotical Waves" by Massiel Grullón creates a little path to wander. Sam Field's "Stay", which hung high on the wall, was fun to see but a little dark for the camera to pick up. I realize after doing some research that I missed the last pice by Ghana Amer, which is the copper planters you see to the left as I walk out of the space, which spell out "caring" if you look at them from above.
I start to walk on the Boston Harborwalk for a moment, but end up just taking the Charlestown Bridge since I was headed back the way I came earlier. Looking at a map of it now, I could have enjoyed a walk through Paul Revere Park, which would have been nice. I did, however, come across some the locks which entranced me with their mechanical beauty. I get caught up in taking some photos here for a moment. There's also a moment of taking in a scene of The Zakim Bridge. Just after that my eye is caught by a pedestrian plaza at Lovejoy Wharf. This kind of landscape architecture has been of interest to me lately, particularly when it come to lighting design. The building beyond is designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, but I can't determine if this bit of the Harborwalk was done by them, too.
Just after that a scene catches my eye and I stop to take some photos. The juxtaposition of rugged brick and smooth metal makes a pleasing contrast. Next my eye is caught by a nicely illuminated shaircase in a distant building - this turned out to be the Eliot Innovation School, the oldest continuously operating school in the United States.
Next up is an intersection where the walk light takes so long to changes that it seams broken. I realized at the end that it did finally change, after we all gave up and crossed anyway. North End is a fun warren of small streets and private alleys, where I stop to snap a few more pictures when the odd one catches my eye.
Just after this I hear someone calling "Hey" from the other side of a dumpster, and I wonder if they're talking to me. Turns out they are, and two young women in a car ask if I'm doing a Twitch stream of my walk, haha. I guide her through subscribing to the channel, but she may have been a little too toasted to remember the exchange. If that's you and you're watching right now, leave a comment, haha. A few minutes later I come across an altercation in a street where an insecure white man is being really aggressive to a group of young men, maybe late teens. While I would have liked to diffuse it or help, I decided to just avoid it and keep going. I think we can still hear him shouting for several more minutes as I get away from the area, unless someone else is also shouting about something. After that I came across a park with some really beautiful spot lighting on the benches. My kind of scene for sure. So I snap a few photos there. Next stop is walk along the greenway where I discovered a water fountain with fun lighting, and I stop for a moment to take my shoes off and address a little owie developing on my foot from the extensive walking I've been doing all week (I'm releasing this video first, although it's one of the last walks I did in my week in Boston).
All of this activity I logged walking around Boston, and breaking all of my exercise records, had helped me to get serious about my health and wellness. So I’m enjoying sharing these screenshots from the workouts.
Unfortunately the video ends shortly after when my phone's hard drive is full. I’d hit up against this limit the night before and tried to offload as much as I could. It seems to be the video buffer that was full, because they next day the phone was till showing 200gigs of capacity, which gave me enough runway to shoot this 1.5 hour walk.
Now that I’m back home I’m trying to quickly offload and process this and every other video I have on there to clear up some space so this doesn't happen to me in the future. I really wanted to get down to the Seaport District on this walk, but had to give that dream up because of the capacity issue. The phone makes some pretty impressive video, all things considered, but not being able to switch about memory cards and batteries is a pretty significant detractor. It also struggles with very large files, so my walks where I went for over an hour without cutting are kinda stuck in purgatory on the phone until I can figure out some way to get them off of there that won’t fail in transit (air drop and wire transfers have yet to succeed). I did have the idea to try and break them up into chunks, but that’s a story for another time.
Some watchers like to know the weather in the video, and fortunately that’s logged here.
Anyway, thanks so much for watching, and of course if you’re here, for reading.