Scene on the Road

June 1, 2008: Self portrait, The Philadelphia Model Ship Society

June 2, 2008: Reading Terminal Market

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June 3, 2008: Frequent Visitor's Parking, Cherry Hill, NJ

My weekly newspaper Scene on the Street photo is being replaced by a new Scene Through the Lens column. Each week from now on, I will be visually exploring the situations, circumstance and happenstance I encounter in the pursuit of pictures for the daily newspaper - and talking about them. One or two photos will run on page 2 of the Inquirer's local section every Wednesday, and I will post more photos - and invite your comments - here on my blog.

Today I covered my third election in New Jersey since the beginning of the year.

A lot of what newspaper photographers shoot is the same scene over and over - a Ground Hog Day of news conferences, business portraits and weather photos. The voters of New Jersey can't be blamed for feeling the same way, today's primary being their fourth or fifth election since the beginning of the year.

Approaching the poll entrance at Cherry Hill High School West, I noticed the handwritten signs on the door, and the reflected American flag. I tried to look at it all from a different perspective as well, shooting the same voter sign and American flag from both inside -and outside the window.

I really didn't want to just keep shooting the same photos all over again. I remember during the presidential primary in February trying to find a list somewhere of all the polling places in Camden County, but each municipality had a different way of listing them - not all in one place.

Today, as then, I ended up driving, past schools, churches, libraries and firehouses looking for American flags that looked either brand new, or flying from poles that didn't appear permanent. I found it surprising easy to spot them - even with the proliferation and popularity of American flags since September 11. Like the one here outside Haddonfield Middle School. When I showed up in the morning with reporter Sam Wood to interview voters, it was planted at an angle right next to a sidewalk, almost as if dipped.

I waited for someone to walk under it, but there were even fewer pedestrians than voters, and Maureen Dodson was the only person so pass, with her dog Ruby - but she walked around the flag. So I made a mental note to return when school let out, figuring the kids would have no qualms about walking under it.

Speaking of elections, watching both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on television tonight I couldn't help but think about New Jersey moving its presidential primary up to February. If they'd left it alone, both candidates would be finishing up their primary campaigns here today instead of in South Dakota and Montana.

So now the signs in the Haddonfield front yard of Mike and Carol Harkins tell the story of our next election - the big one in November.

June 4, 2008: Campaigns Fade

June 5, 2008: 16th Street & JFK Boulevard

June 6, 2008: Flushing/Sweeping Gutters

June 7, 2008: Movie Night

June 8, 2008: High Temperatures are Relative

June 9, 2008: Heatwave, Day Three

June 10, 2008: Heatwave Photo Op

Those are words most photographers dread hearing from an editor. Often it's because the newspaper is short on stories accompanied by pictures, and needs something to avoid a lot of gray type on the pages. Those photos are also called "Wild Art."

This week however, weather photos were also news. And at least one of them was wild. Inquirer staff photographer Mike Perez perfectly captured the thunder storm coming in on the cold front Tuesday night that ended our first heat wave of the summer. (Click on his photo to see a slide show of more weather photos by other Inquirer photographers over the past four days).

Even though he was seated at a computer filling in as the sports photo editor, when the storm hit Mike ran outside and photographed the lightning strikes from our parking garage. "The Phillies were down, the Lakers were winning...and I had half an hour 'til my next deadline," Mike told me later. As the storm was brewing outside, he grabbed a camera and lens from our equipment closet. He didn't have a tripod (or a rain jacket) so set the camera on a wall. He wanted to stop the lens down to f/8 at 5 seconds, "a long shutter to let some ambient light from building in and f/8 because I figured that would be the exposure for the bolt of lightning." Well, his pool camera would only stop down to f/5.6, but that was only a few stops over his guesstimation.

Shooting lightning takes a ton of luck (it's not even like shooting fireworks). Mike says he kept his finger on the shutter and "let the camera fire through the entire card and crossed my fingers." Then went back inside, soaking wet, and first moved the sports section front picture - a wire photo of a dejected Brett Myers, before checking his own stuff. For Mike, lightning did strike twice. He managed to get two bolts out of the few hundred skyline views. And even his "second best" - the overexposed bolt version - is pretty darn impressive.

But lightning doesn't always strike when you want it to. Like when your job is to find a "Wild Art" photo. Over the years, my favorite "standalone" feature photos were found when I wasn't really looking for them.

Maybe it's not art, but finding photos when there is nothing going on is an art form. I try to at least make pictures that aesthetically pleasing. When waiting for the "right" person to enter a scene, in that sort of Henri Cartier-Bresson way, I tend to seize on people wearing hats or carrying umbrellas or canes or packages or briefcases or anything to give the human shape a more interesting silhouette.

On Monday, among all the other mothers and fathers waiting to pick up kids dismissed early from Jackson Elementary School in South Philadelphia because of the heat was one with an umbrella. So, of course it was Aneesha Fox and her daughter Jakiyah that I photographed.Then, finishing up another assignment that day, I spotted Dorothy Williams as I was driving out of a parking garage. She was right there under her very cool hat as I inched out across the sidewalk keeping my eye out for pedestrians. She was hugging the wall to stay in the six inches of shade provided by the building. I immediately pulled over. Asked about the heat, she told me, "I'm 81 years old, I've seen a lot worse."

I know it's a crutch. Like shadows, reflections...or like heading to the same old watering holes to satisfy the "We need a weather photo." (remember, that was the title of this post).

Standing in Swann Memorial Fountain in Logan Circle is Justin Maxon, a photojournalism student from San Francisco State University. He can be excused for leaning on this most timeworn of Philadelphia's weather photo sites - Tuesday was only his second day on the job shooting for the Associated Press here as their summer photo intern. An editor suggested the fountain and he advanced the idea by climbing right in there with the kids. What was I doing there you ask? I went to interview people - "is it hot enough for you?" - for an audio slide show that I never completed (am I saying it's a cliché to photograph there, but not a cliché to record sound?). Click on Justin's photo to see the pictures he shot that day.

Sometimes while walking between assignments in Center City, I will invent mental games to keep me seeing things in a fresh way. I might decide to only shoot with a 180mm lens. Or only look at things vertically. Or shoot using the self timer - and either quickly try to find something to point at as the beeping gets faster and faster and faster, or just let it happen.

Tricks like that work even on regular photo assignments. Once, to illustrate a story about crowds of holiday shoppers on Walnut Street, I walked holding my camera - with a pre-focused wide-angle lens - on my shoulder facing behind me, clicking the shutter on repeated counts of three. Step one, step two, step three, click. Step one, step two, step three, click...back and forth a half dozen times on the sidewalks between 16th & 18th Streets. I didn't get nearly as many pictures of people starring at me as you might think.

June 11, 2008: Arc Burn from Downed Wire

June 12, 2008: Car-Crashing Horse

June 13, 2008: Live at 6pm over 15th & Market

June 14, 2008: Penn's Landing

June 15, 2008: Don't Ask ( "Crispy Outside, Mashed Potato Inside!" )

June 16, 2008: 11th & Callowhill. Open During Renovation

June 17, 2008: American Legion Rec Center, Wissinoming

Here's your chance to tell an Inquirer photographer where to go.

I'm ready to hit the road again. It won't be the regular weekly road trips for the newspaper this summer, like I did last year, but I still want to explore the region occasionally.

I received many photographs from readers last summer, and many suggestions of places I should visit, so that's exactly what I'll be doing: Driving to the places you send me.

Last summer Ann Spaeth of Miquon sent me some of her photos of old covered bridges in Lehigh County, including this one of Rex's Bridge (1858) over Jordan Creek.

She suggested I check them out, as did Drexel economics professor Roger A. McCain, who told me it was the "pictorial appeal" of the bridges that first hooked him, but in the true spirit of the summer Road Trip, they provided him a "fun reason for a drive in the country."

Still true (even with gasoline costing over $4. per gallon) and I intend to take them up on their suggestion.

This is exactly the kind of serendipity I already enjoy working on the streets of Philadelphia. On Tuesday, I stumbled across a just-graduated (B.F.A., crafts) artist outside City Hall yesterday.

I was covering two different press conferences there and in between, I passed Alex Irvine, 22, of South Philadelphia who had his camera on a tripod pointed toward a "black stoneware" ceramic sculpture. I asked him about it, made a few photos of him and the reactions of passersby before I had to move on. He was still there after I finished the second press conference, so I shot more photos, and then, when he had finished, I followed him as he pushed his "self portrait" toward the University of the Arts.

I will continue to celebrate and share scenes like this, which serve to remind us to enjoy the journey - even one just a few blocks down South Broad with a 150-pound work of art - rather than focusing on the destination.

Click on the links here, here, here and here to revisit some readers photos from last year. I look forward to posting more here this summer as well. Like last year, please send them to me as jpeg attachments, in an email to roadtrip@phillynews.com

June 18, 2008: H.B. Wilson Elementary, Camden

June 19, 2008: South Street, Former "Gum Tree"

June 20, 2008: West Philadelphia Catholic High School

June 21, 2008: The Barbara Sandonato School of Ballet.

June 22, 2008: Non-native species in South Jersey

June 23, 2008: Delaware River Agreement

There was a server/platform problem here that kept me from uploading any photos since last Friday. I ended up describing some of the pictures (see below) but otherwise, the Daily Photo here was nothing but words all weekend.

It was fixed tonight, so I was able to go back and upload all my photos from the past four days. Except now I had a new problem. After a few days had passed, I started having second thoughts about some of the pictures, and and entertained ideas about re-editing some of them.

On Friday night, I attended a rehearsal of the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia. This is what I saw when I arrived in the parking lot:

I liked the shadows more than the musicians, so I moved in closer to favor that element:

Then a bird landed on the head of the taller statue. This is how I described it here when I was unable to post only words, no photos:

A white statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the summer solstice, with a bird standing on her head. I took it just minutes before summer officially arrived at 7:59 pm, so the orange/red evening sunset was lighting the statue and the adjacent wall casting shadows from nearby trees. Inside, with Jack Moore conducting, The Orchestra Society of Philadelphia rehearsed Tchaikovsky's Symphony #6 ("Pathetique").

And here's the one I used my Daily Photo:

What I didn't like about this photo is that, even a few days later, all I could see is that I wasn't paying attention to my background. In my defense, I guess I was thrilled when the bird alighted. Then, after I recovered from my good fortune, I made a quick photo, and started thinking about whether I could capture the bird in the air when it flew off. It would have been a much better photo if I had just bent my knees and leaned a little to the left. The bird would have been positioned against a lighter area of the wall, instead of a shadow. But I didn't, and then it took off.

It's a matter of luck, timing and thought.

I also revisited my ballet photo at Rutgers/Camden's Gordon Theater on Saturday. There was another frame I'd liked from the finale:

And then leaving after the performance, which was the first annual Workshop Performance of the two year old Northern Liberties ballet school, I was drove toward the river as the sun was setting on this first full day of summer. I was stuck not just by the light, but by how empty the streets of downtown Camden are, on an evening, on a weekend. Not until I hit the old RCA Nipper Building on the waterfront - now The Victor - did I even see so much as another car:

June 24, 2008: South Philadelphia

I spent three hours on South Street last Thursday morning photographing the construction/demolition of the sidewalks for a story by Inquirer reporter Sam Wood about the current impact of the future improvements.

The twelve quarters in the parking meter was the best $3 I've spent in a while (okay, I bought a couple cups of coffee too). It was a beautiful day. Nice light, not too hot, not too humid. Everybody - except one lady in a Lexus, in a big hurry, who was honking her horn at the workers when traffic wasn't moving fast enough for her - was in a great mood.

Sometimes I am having so much fun meeting people, recording the things I'm seeing, making photos that I can share with readers, I take many more photos than I know will ever get into the newspaper. This was that kind of day.

I began the morning at Jen Melchiondo's Bean Cafe in the 600 block. Customer Bridget Huffman arrived shortly after I did, and I photographed construction worker Ruy Matos holding the door for her as she left the cafe, crossing on one of the wooden gangways running from the street to the storefronts over a temporarily nonexistent sidewalk.

Jen has weathered a lot in the eleven years she's owned the cafe. Like the time Starbucks parked a truck in front of her place and handed out free samples of their product for a few weeks. I photographed her behind the counter as contractor Joe Strozzieri told her they'll soon have to completely shut down her business for a while, as they need to cover an old unused basement entrance right under her front door.

With Sam spending most of his time on the street at the Bean, I knew editors would be looking for an overall view of the cafe. Something what would include as many elements - heavy construction equipment, dirt, traffic barriers, warning signs - as possible. I always try to remember this most basic of photo assignment marching orders, and I always devote a lot of attention to making my "overall scene" as visually interesting as I can.

I've learned over the years it that no matter what else I shoot, if the newspaper uses only one picture, that's what it will be (unless there's only enough room for something small, then it'll be a photo of someone quoted in the text). The north side of South Street was still in shadows when I photographed a cell-phoning pedestrian, which worked as a picture, but I told myself I'll come back later and re-work it.

Yeah, right. Another thing I've learned about myself. I have a short attention span. By the time the light was better for the Bean storefront, I was looking at Matos and Strozzieri (that's him, stripped down to his t-shirt now, but still his in cap) and their coworkers through the orange mesh. I never made it back to the Bean, and that original photo was the one readers saw in their morning paper.

I had seen at least three different utility crews on the job, heads at sidewalk/street level, over the past month. None of those previous situations made a picture, so when I saw PECO guys Dave Mathews (his real name) and William Hempsey (the subterranean one), I was anxious to have the picture work this time.

But whenever Hempsey's hard hat popped up there weren't any pedestrians walking by, and whenever people did pass, he was either underground, or blocking his own face.

Two other things I really needed to capture for the story were not longer there - and that was exactly the point. The 300 block had for years been the leafiest on the street.

The "gum tree" in front of Ishkabibble's was even one of the highlights on Ride the Ducks tours. The trunk of the massive oak had been plastered with used chewing gum as high as anyone could reach.

I shot what was left of it every-which way I could, but the more conventional version proved to be more easily read. The one where I held the camera out at arm's length and aimed straight down, was just plain hard to figure out. But I still like the picture.

For the second "not there anymore" image I wanted to show the sky above the long-shaded TLA, which was now open for the first time in decades as the canopy of trees was removed. I was shooting from a real low angle with a fill-flash to open up the marquee which was in shadows when a 15-year-old boy stopped and struck a pose. I shot him with the flash still on, just to make him feel good. Then I suddenly realized his cap and body posture made a good looking silhouette there in the shadows. So I turned off the strobe and shot him again.

June 25, 2008: Residences at the Ritz-Carlton

June 26, 2008: New Jersey Cell Phone Law

June 27, 2008: Trapped Inside

June 28, 2008: Three Minute Rainstorm

June 29, 2008: Parada San Juan Batista, Camden, NJ

June 30, 2008: Sweetwater Casino Fire