Scene on the Road

For the second time this season, a winter storm moved through the region and we ended up with mostly rain. But it'll be here soon enough, which is just as good a time as any to extend an invitation for you to send me your favorite snow photos. I'll post some here sometime before the end of the year (2008's only a month away!) Send them to me the same way you did during the summer, as jpeg attachments to roadtrip@phillynews.com

So here's a preview of the snow we'll eventually see, from a trip I made up to southern Lehigh County and upper Bucks County after they received the area's first real snowfall during the week of Thanksgiving. My assignment for the newspaper that day was to shoot some early morning breaking news for philly.com, so I headed north on the turnpike until I hit snow.

That happened just south of Quakertown, where I exited the Northeast Extension, and quickly found commuters scraping windshields, and sent in my photo from my laptop in the Wawa parking lot (same place I shot Eric Dauter, at left).

Then I was able to devote myself to making pretty pictures of the snow falling on the still autumn-hued landscape.

A dozen photographers can see the same scene and photograph it in two dozen different ways. Beginning with the decision whether or not to even take the cameras outside in bad weather, as photographers we exercise an almost infinite amount of control over the pictures we take. Our choices range from where to stand and whether we kneel or climb on top of something; which lens to use; what color balance and ISO; fast or slow shutter speed; use a tripod or not; and which aperture. Even after all that, there are still tons of compositional choices.

For the photo above, I wanted to shoot something pretty, showing the falling snow with trees still full of autumn-colored foliage. So I used a longish lens - my 180mm f/2.8 - to compress the space, and a slow shutter speed - 1/60th second - to make the snowflakes appear as blurs. An ISO of 400 and shooting with an aperture of f/11 gave me some extra depth of field as well.

For another view, I used the same lens, but this one was shot wide open at f/2.8 with a higher shutter speed. That gave me a combination of small, sharp snowflakes and larger blurred ones - and threw the background out of focus.

Thankfully there isn't the same human tragedy as in a fire, or an accident on the highway, so I can admit to sharing an almost similar fascination with watching the destruction of a building. As primal an attraction as flame, you almost can't keep from looking as something so big is demolished.

Like hundreds of other Center City walkers in recent months, I've paused on the sidewalks around the future site of the Pennsylvania Convention Center's expansion. And like dozens of you, I even took some pictures.

This past summer I talked about Susan Sontag describing the photography of people as "something predatory." That may be why if you look on photo sharing websites like flickr or snapfish - except for self portraits and snapshots of family and friends - you see more pictures of buildings, landscape and scenery than people. I guess it satisfies an urge to look and photograph - without being "predatory." Or crossing into voyeurism.

The best part of newspaper photojournalism is picturing people. That interaction is what I enjoy most about my job (I have never been a big equipment or gear head). But I do find photographing urban scenery relaxing, and mostly shoot it just for myself. So it is always a bonus when I get to do it for work, like illustrating columns by Inquirer Architecture critic Inga Saffron. So it was this week - when again I was getting paid to have fun - as writer Maria Panaritis asked me: "Have you noticed the demolition going on at 13th & Race.....?"

"There is magic in the shadow of the wrecking ball," she writes in her story about watching the demolition in this Sunday's newspaper. Putting words to "a moment of wonder in the big city." She described the watchers as stumbling "onto this dusty downtown block like accidental pilgrims on a Center City stroll. They are sidewalk daydreamers. Philosophers. Artists. Ravaged souls."

Count me among them.

Some of my photos are there too. And please click here for a short audio slide show.

Next up, to go down to the wrecking ball - the old headquarters of the Philadelphia Fire Department at 1328 Race Street. But the six fire-fighting gargoyles flanking the three garage doors will be saved.