Tag: Scene Through the Lens

There was one especially pleasant weekend back in June, as summer was officially arriving and Philly was in the middle of hosting three Group Stage matches for the World Cup. It was breezy with sunshine and low humidity and temperatures in the mid-80s; nothing like two weekends later as America turned 250 and temperatures hit 101 degrees or higher for three days in a row, the first time that happened in over 150 years of record keeping.

Between covering some news that weekend, I walked around Center City just soaking up the street scene. It wasn’t just the wonderful weather, but an international vibe that was welcoming and friendly. I watched visitors speaking multiple languages rolling suitcases in and out of hotels and ride share cars, and saw sidewalk cafes overflowing with different colored jerseys and scarves.

It reminded me of the energy I feel almost every time I walk around the city, going back to my first night here and the weeks spent in my early days at the newspaper with unhoused men.

We’ve long known we have one of the most walkable downtowns in the country, but USA Today told everyone else again this summer, naming Philadelphia number one — for the fourth year in a row. Center City is compact and easy to explore on foot, with many stores, restaurants, museums, attractions, and parks all within a short walk.

Credit William Penn’s 1682 street plan that created small rectangular blocks with straight, predictable streets. I was thinking about that as I looked down at the grid on the ground in the courtyard of City Hall, when Lyn-el “The Torch” Wright paused right in front of me: “take a picture of my sneaks.” That’s his shadow above.

I did, and asked if they were special, wondering if they had something to do with Adidas, the official World Cup sponsor and match ball provider. No, not really, he said, but then educated me on what the kids today were wearing: Asics and Saucony. And Salomon.

So, being a history nerd, I had to enlighten him on the design he was standing on. Titled “Compass Rose,” it was commissioned by Edmund Bacon in 1994 as a gift to the city to mark Penn’s 350th birthday. It was painted by David Salama and Pat Sprott and updated by Mural Arts Philadelphia in 2004, 2015 and 2022. It marks the exact center of the middle of Penn’s five squares (Franklin, Logan, Rittenhouse, and Washington being the others).

I didn’t actually say all of that (unlike similar “TED Talks” my grandson is subjected to), but our conversation is the other thing I like most about walking around Philadelphia. Meeting and talking to people.

The day was a remarkable one in Center City, similar to the summer solstice back in June. And it was coming off the week of heavy rains, microbursts, and then, the Canadian and Great Lakes wildfire smoke that moved into the region.

When the skies finally cleared last Sunday, I joined hundreds of outdoor enthusiasts taking advantage the improved air quality and photographed along the Schuylkill River Trail.

I scouted angles to get as many people — and a variety of runners and walkers — in the same frame. But, perhaps because I covered a memorial for Barbara Friedes, a 30-year-old CHOP doctor who was killed on her bike by a drunk driver in July 2024, my attention drifted toward the bicycles.

When I saw a patch of backlit trees I knew if I panned with my camera and a slow shutter speed the highlights would turn into nice blurs — while the biker would be (somewhat) sharp and in focus.

One of the advantages of digital photography is that you can get immediate feedback and adjust your camera settings for the effect you desire. I wanted to get a colorfully outfitted biker, and by the time the “right” one passed in from of me, I was set (1/20th second at f/22, with an ISO of 640 on my Nikon Z8 with a 24-70mm lens).

Finally, here’s one more “nice day” photo I made after talking with “The Torch.”

I spent a good part of the winter and early spring of 2024 along an eight block stretch of Market East while the city was dreaming and debating its potential driven by later-scraped plan by the Sixers to build a $1.55 billion downtown arena.

It was a tattered corridor, especially the south side of the 1000 block that was mostly boarded up storefronts. The city started trying to freshen it up before our summer of celebrations.

Walking there on Monday I admired the 150-foot mural “Welcome to Philly” artist Alloyius McIlwaine was commissioned to paint there before the big summer. I didn’t want to merely record his month-old work, but as I stepped into a bus shelter to get out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, I was immediately stuck by Ben’s reflection in the shelter’s glass — and the words of an unrelated advertisement.

I didn’t want a photo that called too much attention to a single fellow walker, so I waited patiently for that magic moment when my frame was filled with a half-dozen people.

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column.

Birthdays are a funny thing. When you’re young, they are all about getting older. You can hardly wait for the next one.

Then, somewhere along the way, they’re not. Suddenly, big league baseball players, your doctors, and bosses are all younger than you.

Eventually, getting older becomes key again. You want to see more birthdays.

This week I celebrated a birthday of my own, and also photographed a World War II veteran celebrating his 100th. I also photographed church services for an upcoming story on a South Jersey town a century after it was incorporated as the first Black self-governing municipality north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

And I photographed a president, who unlike most of my coworkers and the folks I usually photograph, grew up before the internet and listened to music as it transitioned from Tony Bennett and Perry Como to Bill Haley & His Comets and Elvis.

One of the ways I marked by birthday was by visiting the Main Line Camera Club as their guest speaker. Meeting people who appreciate photography is one of the things that keeps me young. That along with the joy I get from making and sharing photos.

They had many good images but one that stood out for a “different” photo that Jeffrey Benne took during the recent visit by Union Pacific’s famed Big Boy No. 4014, the world’s largest operating steam locomotive. My colleague Monica Herndon also photographed the big engine that could, but until I saw she was headed to Reading, I had no knowledge of it.

After Googling, my social feed exploded with videos and photos of the train along its historic coast-to-coast tour to celebrate America’s 250th. I even heard traffic reports on KYW radio as it approached Philadelphia that weekend begging drivers to quit being foolish by stopping on the Schuylkill Expressway and getting out of their cars to photograph it passing by, being a bunch of train “foamers” (a term I just learned this week).

Benne arrived in Bridgeport, Pa. 45 minutes before Big Boy’s arrival, staking his claim “on a piece of ground then played with the settings on my gear to get a good shot,” with just about 45 seconds to get it passing by.

Afterward, he said he noticed the crowd searching the tracks and realized they were looking for smooshed coins, having set regular coins on the track minutes before. “I should have done that myself,” he said.

Growing up, my friends and I did that, and usually had little luck finding our own “smooshed” pennies.

Pat Dailey, setting up the birthday party in the photo at the top, founded the Tun Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit that supports veteran causes, Masonic charities, and educational scholarships. They are also rebuilding and reestablishing an authentic reproduction of the original Tun Tavern building in Philadelphia. The Tun, constructed in 1693, was the first documented lodge in North America and the birthplace of the U.S. Marine Corps in (1775).

Photographing workers setting up for the Red Carpet on Independence Hall was my only contribution to our coverage of Philly’s hosting the MLB All-Star Game for the first time in 30 years (I did cover THAT game).

You can see the awesome photos made by my colleagues Yong Kim, Monica Herndon, David Maialetti and Elizabeth Robertson who did cover this week’s All-Star events.

I made the Independence Mall prep photo during an early morning check-in on the President’s House site, something I have been doing for months.

There was nothing new on the site that morning, since I had found National Park Service employees a week earlier taking photos and measurements, and looking under, behind, and above the panels. They told me they were “just looking around” and not there to install the new Trump administration panels after a federal appeals court gave the go-ahead just before the Fourth of July weekend.

Two days later, I was covering President Donald Trump at the War College in Carlisle, when his administration shut down the television screens and swapped out panels on the brutality of slavery at the site for displays that experts say sanitize George Washington’s role as an enslaver.

But unlike the original January removal and the subsequent court-ordered return months later, they did it in the middle of the night, avoiding public scrutiny.

Our reporters and photographer Jessica Griffin were there in the morning to document it all.

The alterations are a culmination of about a year of turmoil since the president’s executive order to review or remove displays at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column.

Some weekends are just dates on the calendar. Others become part of history.

America’s 250th anniversary was one of those weekends.

Philadelphia, where the nation began, became the center of the celebration. Across days marked by extreme heat, thunderstorms, fireworks, a canceled parade, and a World Cup match, The Inquirer’s photographers captured the defining moments — and the quieter ones in between — creating a portrait of the country at 250.

After days of closed streets, parking restrictions, and traffic backups leading up to the weekend, Jessica Griffin planned to ride to cover the Wawa Salute to Independence Semiquincentennial Parade. But it was canceled amid a declared heat emergency with 100-degree temperatures before she even left her house.

Instead, she found all the floats — moved overnight from the Pennsylvania Convention Center to Independence Mall in preparation for the parade — in an unofficial parade away from the Historic District.

The cancellation gave the many would-be paraders the opportunity to perform around Center City. Summer intern Aidan T. Gallo photographed Imajin Taiko, a lively dance group from Nakijin, Okinawa, Japan, performing outside Reading Terminal Market.

Musicians, Colonial reenactors in sweat-soaked wool, and visitors (also sweaty) wandered the Historic District looking for something to do. It led to impromptu pageantry around Independence Hall. Marching bands did their (stationary) thing, taking turns performing on the grassy mall.

Working the scene, I was able to frame three different bands at once. The Montrose Marching Unit Alumni Band from Susquehanna County was leaving as the Triuggio Marching Band, a community group from the northern Italian city of Triuggio, and a Falun Gong drum band from New York prepared to perform.

On the Fourth, Tyger Williams found photographing the National Constitution’s Liberty Medal presentation an interesting experience even though the honoree, the U.S.-born pope and Villanova alum, Pope Leo XIV, wasn’t physically there.

Finding a compelling way to photograph someone appearing only on a screen wasn’t easy, he said. “I wanted to be able to show the atmosphere when the Pope was speaking and show the impact he has to those listening to him.”

Jose F. Moreno wanted to create a simple, straightforward portrait essay on the people we often see in costume walking through the Historic District to recognize the people “whose passion, knowledge, and dedication help tell Philadelphia’s story as the city celebrates this historic milestone.”

By using a plain white background and removing all distractions, the focus remained entirely on the individuals and the history they represent. He photographed each History Maker one after another, asking them to “do nothing more than be themselves.” He only made two or three frames of each person against a plain white background.

Courtney Mitchell, who portrays Margaret Woodby, a free Black woman who owned a cake-baking business, smiled during her full-length portrait before turning slightly to the side.

On the morning of the Fourth, I covered the burial of “America’s Time Capsule” in Independence National Historical Park. Before the ceremony, dignitaries posed with Indy, a bald eagle from the Auburn University Raptor Center. Suddenly, another bird of prey swooped down asserting its territory.

I wasn’t actively photographing the scene, but luckily my camera settings were already dialed in. I managed to capture a frame just as the hawk came within striking distance. Indy — who made her first appearance at a Philadelphia Eagles game in 2023 — and her handler spent the rest of the photo opportunity watching the skies overhead.

Also on Saturday, Gallo was back covering neighborhood block parties. In Point Breeze, he heard kids sliding down an inflatable bounce water slide — a block party staple. What he didn’t expect was to see multiple children sliding all at once, including a little girl holding onto her popsicle.

By the time she got to the bottom, the popsicle was knocked out of her hands into the pool. “Luckily, I pressed the shutter at the right times to capture the popsicle and its flying pieces mid-air.”

Yong Kim covered the One Philly: Unity Concert for America on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The storm-delayed concert featured musical legends along with the legendary Liberty Bell.

Kim and Elizabeth Robertson evacuated the area during the more than three-hour rain and lightning display, eventually taking shelter beneath the canopy of a gas station along Spring Garden Street.

Monica Herndon had been at The Inquirer for more than six years, but this was her first time covering the Parkway concert and fireworks. She “definitely did not expect to still be out there at 2:30 a.m.”

As the storm soaked the area, she waited it out in her car, “eating snacks and singing along to Christina Aguilera hits.” Once the concert resumed, she grabbed her tripod and headed down the Parkway deciding to “set up farther back than usual, hoping to make an image that felt a little different from the fireworks photos I’d seen in years past.”

Herndon used a slow shutter speed, alternating between one and two seconds, “to let the fireworks expand across the frame.” She made lots of images but liked the one with streaks of light that felt “organic and almost painterly…I also love the small starbursts created by the stage lights, a result of shooting at a narrow aperture [f/18].”

A few days before Sunday’s World Cup Round of 16 match, David Maialetti began preparing by cleaning his gear and checking his cameras. He knew the extreme heat was going to be a challenge so kept himself extra hydrated leading up to the match, dressed in loose-fitting, sweat-wicking clothing, and topped it off with a bucket hat.

“The last thing I wanted,” he said, “was to pass out during a key goal and end up a highlight on SportsCenter.”

Before kickoff, he photographed fans and the sweltering conditions, including a security guard dripping with sweat before France faced Paraguay.

His game plan sounded solid on paper until he realized the top of his cameras would “feel like a sizzling frying pan.” He knew the electronics could malfunction if they overheated and “gripping a hunk of hot metal for a few hours,” would not be the most comfortable way to work. His “brilliant hack in the moment,” was to turn his camera upside down so the controls weren’t exposed to the blazing sun. “It was totally awkward like trying to ride a bicycle backwards.”

Fortunately, newer cameras automatically reorient the electronic viewfinder, so after a few minutes it began to feel natural.

His plan kept the cameras cool enough to capture France’s lone goal by superstar Kylian Mbappé. The only downside: every image had to be rotated before he could file on deadline.

In the month leading up to the weekend, I worked on a photo essay on the local Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania Founders who signed the Declaration of Independence. With help from their lineage organization, I met and photographed direct descendants of the often overlooked men who were here with the Second Continental Congress as America was born.

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column.

It’s a common sound in Philadelphia’s historic district during the summer. I was photographing tourists in front of Independence Hall on Wednesday when the beat of a single snare drum a block away achieved its intended purpose.

Just like when the fife and drum corps would relay tactical commands over the noise of the battlefield, or regulate a soldier’s daily routine, I stopped what I was going and headed in the direction of the beating pulse.

It was coming from the normally quiet Signer’s Garden pocket park, across 5th Street.

I had intended to go there anyway to photograph the statue — “The Signer” — as I am working with present-day descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence on a photo essay that will be posted online this Fourth of July weekend.

The statue was inspired by George Clymer, a Philadelphia merchant, statesman, and signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. A National Park Service plaque at the entrance reads “it commemorates the courage of those who altered their lives, and ours, by affixing their names to these documents.”

The drum was mustering holiday week visitors for a presentation by two costumed actors from Historic Philadelphia portraying continental soldiers. I watched as the tourists watched them “draft” youngsters into their performance and found myself smiling more than once at how they engaged the kids — and the rest of us in the crowd — with some of their one-liners.

Did I say, smile? I might have had a slightly more sentimental reaction. I have written before that Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday. My dad, who passed away a few years ago, was born on the Fourth of July.

As I looked around at the crowd I could tell everyone else was also getting into the interactive and engaging program. I photographed saluting adults who I assumed were parents, mirroring the actions of their kids doing the marching drills.

Afterward, I learned they weren’t. They had a toddler still in a stroller. They were immigrants from Venezuela, and just happy to be here. Like me.

We’re still in the middle of Philly’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday (with canceled events in a declared heat emergency with 100-plus degree temperatures!). Here are more of my Fourth of July photos and those of my colleagues:

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column.