One of the more extravagant and spur of the moment photography related purchases I’ve ever made was a Hoya ND 400 filter, which blocks out an astounding 9.5 stops of light. As much as I love long exposure photography, not living super close to the ocean and being one of two working parents makes it tough to get the kind of shots I want. When my wife asked if we could take a break from our daily grind and head down to Ocean City, NJ, a few weeks ago, I was giddy to do a few seascapes. The weather was perfect for me – foggy, a bit chilly – and not so great for my wife who would gladly take a paid internship as a beach bum.

In between stints on the boardwalk and taking the little guy on his first carousel ride, I managed to get a little photo time. This one is my favorite from the day, and I’m very much looking forward to our week at the beach this summer.

And, yes, I make Back to the Future references in my post titles as much as possible.

A few weeks ago, I was excited to see the Picture Challenge group on link-sharing powerhouse Reddit had posted a challenge posed by the Kennedy Center. The challenge revolved around the Center’s “What’s Going on … Now” project, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s performance of his best-known record, “What’s Going On.” The project asks people to think critically about the issues, ideas, and themes Gaye presented on the record.

I selected this image for submission and just found out today that it finished in second place and will be featured on the screens at the Kennedy Center starting next week, and it looks like it will be used in materials promoting the project’s youth summit. Needless to say, I’m very ecstatic, thankful, and completely humbled.

On his very first birthday, I took a day off from work to hit the Philadelphia Zoo with Max and my wife, who was lucky enough to be home for spring break. A Wednesday, we were looking forward to the zoo being relatively empty while we enjoyed the gift of a zoo membership from my parents. Boy, were we wrong. Having been to the zoo a million times, I’ve never seen it so crowded and have never had problems with parking. I think it took us close to 45 minutes to maneuver through the traffic and to find a lot that wasn’t at capacity. Despite the trouble, it was a great trip for both Max and for my camera (even though I stalked the peacock pit much longer than is healthy). I’m very much looking forward to going back on a less-crowded day.

Fitting in perfectly with this year, it is now very chilly after being absolutely glorious last week. Late spring was in full effect in early March, so much so that the cherry blossoms got impatient and thought they’d show up. Gifted with an unexpected day off with junior, we hit Crum Woods and Swarthmore College to check out their arboretum and to get some fresh air. The flowers and heady spring scent did not disappoint. It figures that – like every other huge Philadelphia event that I always forget about – I finally remembered to put the annual cherry blossom festival on my calendar the year they decided to show up early. Oh well, still looking forward to the taiko drumming in mid-April! This shot was edited with VSCO Film’s presets and toolkit for Lightroom. I am becoming more and more of a fan the more I use it.

The good folks at Hidden City Philadelphia noticed one or two of my architectural abstractions over in my Flickr stream and asked if I had more or would be willing to shoot a few more. I happily obliged, but, unfortunately, they didn’t have enough room to run the full text I had written. That said, I’ve included it here, along with a few of the images. To see more, visit the post over at Hidden City …

Consider this my full admission of guilt.

With a background in newspapers and arts and culture, I knew little about architecture before I signed on as the communications director for a branch of what is arguably the largest architecture nonprofit in the country. Of course, I knew what I liked and didn’t like, aesthetically, but in the four and a half years since I’ve been on the job I’ve learned a lot and have come to appreciate the importance of architects, designers, planners, and just about everyone else involved in the built environment.

Not everyone has the luxury of being surrounded by architects, and for them architecture can be just something we stroll by, through, or over every day without stopping to think about its role or importance in our city. In my mind, photography serves as a gateway to understanding and appreciating architecture, whether it is gazing longingly at the technically perfect, two-page spreads in just about any shelter magazine to the full-color plans complete with Photoshoped folks moving through conceived designs.

In my personal work, which is often born from lunchtime walks with a camera in hand, buildings become a prime target when not much is happening on the street. One of the more common complaints I’ve heard about Philadelphia’s architecture is that we have quite a few inaccessible cold, concrete buildings with Brutalist or just plain baffling concepts. Now, I’ll readily admit I made my fair share of jokes about the core buildings that make up Temple University’s main campus back when I was a student there, but I’ve come to love buildings like this. There’s something fascinating to me when you break them down into geometrical slices. The symmetry … the lines … the shadows … there’s something transformative about a building when viewed this way. Oftentimes, they cease acting as buildings and become whatever the viewer wants them to be, functional abstract art on a grand and highly visible scale.

As it continues to get a little warmer each week, I finally felt comfortable to stomp around a creek and risk getting my feet (and gear!) wet. This past weekend, I dragged my family out to Ithan Valley park in Radnor, PA, to shoot the waterfall that cascades over the old dam. We had originally intended to visit another location, but I wasn’t sure there was enough to keep my one-year-old occupied, but Ithan Valley was a nice compromise. I never knew the park existed, despite living near the area for some time, until this past summer when Ithan Avenue became a regular part of my early morning bike rides. It is one of those weird Delaware County parks that existed well before the Blue Route (476) was built, and now the friendly natural confies are greeted with the ever-present soundtrack of cars doing 75 on the highway.

For this little expedition, I was eager to use my Hoya ND400 neutral density filter, which blocks a whopping 8 2/3 stops of light. For the uninitiated, using a ND filter this dark lets you keep your shutter open for extended periods of time in daytime conditions giving you the ability to make water look nice and silky. It’s a little precarious having your camera on a tripod on a rock in the middle of a fast moving creek, so if you ever give these a shot make sure you have good insurance on your gear! The surefooted, creek-hopping days of my youth are long gone, so I did wind up with a waterlogged boot for my trouble …

I realized a little while ago that any Philadelphia photographer worth their salt has a shot of David Michie Violins’ Rittenhouse Square storefront, which features what I believe to be an exploded cello. I have not a musical bone in my body, sadly, so feel free to correct me if I’ve identified the wrong instrument. Anyhow, I walked by on a nice February day and between that and seeing a friend and fellow photographer’s Lensbaby  Edge 80 beta test shot of the window, I realized I had never posted mine anywhere online. When I look at the shot, which I took several years ago, I realize that adherence to strict technical standards would have me using a circular polarizer to cut through the reflection of the window. Doing that, though, takes the subject out of context, at least in my eyes. Without that context, it just looks like an anatomical specimen, albeit a musical one.

At my first day back at work since the Hawaiian-themed Philadelphia Flower Show began, I find it quite funny that I faced dreary, grey skies on my lunchtime walkaround while color exploded inside the walls of the convention center. After another unusally warm weekend, I stuck close to the area around my office today as the temperature dipped, opting to pick through my well-mined areas looking for new stuff. I had hoped that I might find some interesting out-of-town folks, but the Flower Show draws a rather vanilla demographic. Sorry folks and no offense intended, but it’s true. LL Bean jackets and sensible shoes abound.

I headed underground to see if I could scare up some subterannean street shots and was delighted to see that Kim’s Newsstand, which I had intended to shoot for ages. On days that I’ve wandered by, I’ve either not had my camera or there’s been no one around. I got lucky this time around and was treated to a glut of readers. 

Back up above, the dreariness lent itself well to black and white once again. Architectural abstractions are my new go-to shots, but I’m becoming very fond of them. Not a bad haul for what I expected to be a one-and-done day!

I’ve always loved the street photography shots that feature steam as a unique element. You generally see a lot of those coming out of New York City. Philadelphia is vastly different in the amount of steam we have being pumped out of the ground, and, generally, it’s funneled through large, chimney-like contraptions to keep it off the sidewalk. When shooting street, I’ve always liked to run and gun, rather than standing around looking like a goof. That was definitely not the case with either of these images. Above, I stood across the street, which was the best vantage point, just waiting for someone to cross through. This was, of course, at 8:45 in the morning while tons of people were headed to work on my side of the street. Below, the steam was being funneled through the aforementioned chimneys, but, at intervals, it was being beaten down by the wind, sending tons of great, billowy steam along the sidewalk. In this instance, I was waiting for someone to walk through while the worst traffic possible blocked my view. Instead, I joked later with a friend, I took this semi-abstract of a building and the steam out of spite.

Oh well. You win some, you lose some. Patience is definitely a virtue I need to work on!

OK. This winter is officially just weird. As I write this on February 23, 2012, it is over 60 degrees outside, just as it was yesterday. We’re looking at another 60-degree day tomorrow. Just nuts. I do miss the cold a bit, but I can’t complain about the fact that I did two photo walks this week at lunchtime and didn’t wear a jacket either time. Despite the gorgeous weather, it was a monochrome kind of week. The image above is of the Hopkinson House apartment building in Washington Square. The image below is a flock of pigeons (one nearly pooped on me) above Filbert Street, right outside the Greyhound bus depot. The warm weather is a nice slump buster and it’s getting me out of the office for an hour each day. We’re getting great light all the way up to about 5:45, too. Can’t wait for some green stuff to start popping up!