Published June 24, 2010

I made a lovely discovery while searching for photographs of the work of Ralph Adams Cram, the neo-Gothic architect who designed BU’s Marsh Chapel and the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. (We’re talking about his legacy today on Radio Boston — after all, his bridges are the gateway to summer for tens of millions of people every year.)

These are images of Boston from above, all taken with tilt-shift lenses, which are normally used to shoot architecture but can be manipulated to capture ethereal, dollhouse-like scenes. Flickr user RawheaD Rex says he captured these images for a yearlong project called “Tilted Boston.” I particularly love the aerial view of the Christian Science Center.

I don’t own any tilt-shift lenses, which can cost thousands of dollars, but I have tried my hand at fake tilt-shifting before. (Check out the Flickr group.) You can try faking it yourself with help from this tutorial or this super-simple automagic Tilt-Shift Maker.