Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
Just as after Columbine, 9-11, Oklahoma City, Sandy Hook Sandy Hook Elementary, or Aurora, getting back a sense of normalcy was important after the Boston Marathon bombings. Continuing to do what we do every day gives us a sense of security after those terrible things happen to people while doing just that: going to school, working in a high rise building, dropping kids off at daycare, seeing a movie, or going to watch friends and family run in a race.
I took a lot of comfort this week in photographing the day to day happenings at schools, senior centers, and neighborhoods.
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
One of the dangers of infrequent blog posting: a lot of stuff inside busting to get out...
The T-Rex was around the corner from a New Jersey Natural Gas crew. The discarded ball, at a high school baseball practice
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
This has been a bittersweet week here in the alabaster tower on North Broad Street, as the Inquirer - and Daily News - make final preparations to move ino a smaller space in the old Strawbridge & Clothier Department store building at 9th and Market Streets.
I first visited The Inquirer Building in 1983, coming to Pennsylvania from Kansas City to visit my wife's family. In Philadelphia for the day, my new bride and her mother went shopping at Wanamakers, and I decided to walk to the Inquirer to visit a couple photographers I knew who worked there. I often stopped in at newspaper photo departments when I traveled. I was working for United Press International and had met many photographers while covering sporting and news events around the country.
It was an easy walk, impossible to get lost. You walked toward the tallest building to the north - then afterwards, walk back toward the tallest building to the south - City Hall, right next to Wanamaker's.
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
With about 200 members of the national Occupy movement convening in Philadelphia over the 4th of July for what they called the "Occupy National Gathering," the elevated police presence was noticeable during the Independence Day parade through the Historic District.
I've covered parades here - from the Mummers to the Polish to the Thanksgiving Day - for almost thirty years, and this was the first time ever the cops wouldn't allow photographers to walk along the route on the inside of the barriers. Or step inside to photograph participants head-on. Even with our City-issued Wawa Welcome America! press credential, the police wouldn't permit us to cross Market Street.
To get from Independence Hall to the Independence Visitor Center (where I'd stashed my laptop) across the street everyone had to either walk up or down five blocks, then cross walk back, or do like I and a bunch of other tourists did; take the subway to 2nd St. get out, cross over the platform, and take another train back to 5th St.
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
For a few days after I speak and show my photos to a group of photography students or to a meeting of a local camera club, I will often imagine the person in the front row picking up the newspaper and thinking, "okay, he had some images he was pround of, but let's see what he's done TODAY."
And that's a good thing. It keeps me humble. It reminds me that you only get one chance to make a first impression. It doesn't matter how many great photos I took last week, or a few years ago, if someone is looking at one of my photos for the first time, I want it to be one that they will appreciate.
When I'm photographing an event in my town, with my friends and neighbors are attending, I want to make a good first impression. They may know I'm a photographer for the newspaper, and they may read it every mornming, but maybe they don't ever really look at the pictures - or the byline. So, perhaps today, because they attended the town meeting appearance by Gov. Chris Christie in our Middle School gym, and saw me running up and down the aisles taking pictures - perhaps TODAY they'll look to see what I did.
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
Because I asked, I was at the National Constitution Center five hours before first lady Michelle Obama yesterday morning. It's a story that's longer than it has to be…
The White House media advisory said equipment must be in the hall for a security sweep by 11:30 a.m. That usually means only large television camera and tripods. Smaller still cameras and camera bags are usually screened - along with reporter's laptops - when the the press arrives and is metal-wanded a few hours later, closer to the start of the event. But since the email advisory went to my editor, he was concerned I not risk getting locked out. So I double-checked with the White House logistics staffer - even laptops and small cameras? "Yes," she emailed me, "all equipment has to be inside the hall 4-1/2 hours early.
And that's how I ended up photographing the TelePrompter technician cleaning and adjusting the screens on stage.
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
I was in NYC's Flatiron Distirict last week to check out the original Shake Shack as Danny Meyer's 15th location - the first in Philadelphia - opened this week at 20th and Sansom Streets.
Philly.com food writer Michael Klein went to interview Meyer, who spent a career planning such landmarks as Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, and Eleven Madison Park. He told Mike Shake Shack was created by accident twelve years ago, as he was helping the Madison Square Park Conservancy, which he cofounded, raise money to beautify the park, he dipped into his Midwestern past and came up with a roadside custard stand.
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
Arriving to cover the final of three days of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship Regatta in New Jersey, I decided to park on the opposite side of the Cooper River.
Tom Gralish, Inquirer Staff Photographer
Of course the collection assembled by Albert C. Barnes, moved from his old Merion mansion to the new Barnes Foundation on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was impressive. Inside the galleries are the originals of almost every modernist and impressionist masterpieces you've ever seen in any text book or art poster.
But, it was the design of the building and grounds by Architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien and landscape architect Laurie Olin that I focused on (after shooting the 200- some reporters, critics, and photographers from the United States and abroad who toured the building yesterday). You can see those pictures are in a gallery here.
The Inquirer's complete package of videos, stories, graphics and photos is here.
