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:
