MORE INFORMATION Inspiration close at hand Where to see old Boston A place to learn Printable version of this story

By Lynda Morgenroth

CLICK! The world changes when you take a picture, or when you look at one. Messy everyday life is stopped, frozen, captured.

"You can take a photograph of someone you see every day and find in their face something you never saw before," a photo teacher once told us. "It's something real, something true, but it's only in the picture."

Fortunately, in Boston, as befits its artsy academic lineage, photographs are everywhere. So, too, are photographers - stalking the streets at odd hours, pulling murky prints from darkroom tubs, teaching, squinting, critiquing, perennially drinking coffee (or so it seems), alert to what's out there.

You could walk our streets for days, scoping out photographs. You could drive to exhibitions in Lincoln (American photographers' takes on Europe), or Wellesley (color portraits of Chinese village life), or take a train to Providence to see the work of a master, Harry Callahan. You could bring your camera - Brownie, digital, disposable - and take mucho pics enroute.

Here are some photo troves - all enriching, enjoyable, and easy to find. And please, no carping - our suggestions are selective, not comprehensive. But we promise, if you start scouting and shooting, you'll find much more.

Around Kenmore Square
For the visually hyper, Kenmore Square is where it's at.

Back Bay
Board the T at Kenmore for the Back Bay (Arlington or Copley stops) or hoof it through this photogenic sector of the city.

Huntington Ave.
For the urban traveler, Boston seems organized into cultural villages - the Theatre District, Newbury Street, and Fort Point Channel.

Cambridge and Somerville
Cambridge and Somerville don't have the concentrations of photography that Boston does, but there's often something to see at Harvard's museums (notably the Fogg, which has an extensive collection); MIT's museums; Gallery 57 on Inman Street (associated with the Cambridge Arts Council); or the galleries of the Cambridge Multicultural Art Center.

On the road
We won't send you to New York City, but three remarkable regional exhibitions are worth a car or train trip.

Lynda Morgenroth is writing a book about Boston - and taking lots of pictures.