During my recent road trip through the Capital Cities of the Northeast, I stopped in Boston for a few days. While in Boston, I rode the "T" subway to Cambridge to see a couple of college campuses: Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A friend of mine graduated from Harvard and provided me with several recommendations of things to photograph on the campus.

But taking pictures on the Harvard campus was not an easy task. For one thing, I've never experienced such severe access restrictions before. Months before my campus visit, I requested permission to take pictures inside the Widener Library. The response was that photography is not permitted inside the library--even without a tripod. Furthermore, photography of any kind is prohibited in any building on the Harvard campus. I was also told that tripods are not permitted anywhere on the campus--not even outside while shooting the exterior of buildings.

When I arrived on campus, I found the restrictions to be even more severe than that. As I approached the security screening station inside the Widener Library, I was told that not only couldn't I take pictures inside the building, but that I wasn't allowed to enter the building even without a camera. This held true for all of the buildings that I approached--including Memorial Church and Sever Hall. Even as part of one of the guided tours, we were not permitted to enter any of the buildings--which greatly diminished the tour experience.

That being said (or written), I could easily understand why Harvard University needs to put these restrictions in place. Before long, the University won't allow visitors to step foot on campus. Part of the reason is that the campus was just packed with tourists. It was so crowded that it literally reminded me of how the crowds were the last time I visited Disneyland. One of the pictures I attempted to capture was an image of the statue of John Harvard in the Harvard Yard. This was a frustrating experience as there was a very large crowd waiting to take pictures of the statue. The approach I took to get one quick picture was to have my brother stand next to the statue for a second to clear the crowd--then he backed away for the scene to clear.

If crowds were permitted to view the interior of the Widener Library or the Memorial Church, the buildings would be swarming with people. It would also require constant maintenance as the carpeting would get beat down in a very short period of time.

I thought that maybe I just happened to visit on an unusually crowded July day, so I returned the next day. It was just as crowded during my second try.

MIT, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as crowded. And, all of the buildings were open and accessible for photography. To view my images from these campuses, please CLICK HERE.