Back to Philly

It's been a while, but I've made a trip into the city of Philadelphia to begin producing some new work from there. For the last few years I've been concentrating on more natural settings, and also of birds and other animals. But I do enjoy the more scenic parts of the city as well, especially in the right light.

During the morning when our family is preparing for our day we often have a local news channel on the TV. They usually show a shot of the city from across the Delaware River from the riverfront of Camden, NJ. Frequently there is a beautiful sunrise that casts a soft morning light across the hulking buildings, making them look almost beautiful (if you can say that about a hulking building).

So that's where I headed, across the Ben Franklin Bridge (by the way a very beautiful bridge in its own right), to the area near the Adventure Aquarium. On this morning the pre-dawn light was quite nice, and some soft distant clouds provided a subtle backdrop to the skyscrapers. I took a number of "keeper" shots, but one that stood out for me was the one below, where I include the moon that stood far above. I don't usually make a concerted attempt to extract deep meaning from my photos, but there's something about this composition that makes me reflect on how small our world is in the big scheme of things.

V is for Vignette

I love to shoot scenics - both small-scale (smaller subjects, tighter cropping) and large-scale. In the rural areas of Bucks County (Pennsylvania) there are many, many sources of very nice subject matter for these kinds of shots. But I also drive into the city of Philadelphia a few times a year to try and capture some nice images there. My style is not the B&W, gritty street photography that so many photographers do (and do well, I might add). And although city buildings lend themselves to studies in angles and shapes, I am drawn to a different kind of city photography.

Reading Terminal Market - 2007

The image above is an example of the kind of shot I look for in the city. Cities have lots of buildings and stores and landmarks, but they are also full of living and breathing people. And what I want to record is a vignette of city life, not an in-your-face kind of image, but a more subtle reproduction of a moment in the hustle-bustle daily life of a city-dweller. I think I succeeded in that regard in the above image.