Philly’s dog days of summer

The ancient Greeks and Romans knew the annual appearance of Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (“Greater Dog”), would bring them the most sultry and sweaty stretch of summer.

I’ve always associated the “Dog Days” with images of a lazy city, slowing down in August; this year especially after our once-in-every-250-years July.

It’s standard practice across Europe — “Les grandes vacances,” the really big holidays — for offices, factories, and ministries to shut the doors for most of the month. Even here the mayor’s daily media advisory on many days last month just read, “The Mayor has no public events scheduled.”

So it’s surprising for me to look back at what a wonderfully full, fascinating, and fun month August was for photography.

The Philadelphia Cycling Classic made a return following a 10-year hiatus, and Team Inquirer Visual had four of us on the course plus two videographers. Jose F. Moreno covered the starts and finishes on the Ben Franklin Parkway, Monica Herndon rode on the back of a motorcycle moving alongside the peloton, and David Maialetti was up and down the “Wall” in Manyunk. I was with the spectators on Lemon Hill, while Jenna Miller and Gabe Coffey captured video.

In the lulls between laps — 8 for the men, 4 for the women — I tried to scope out different vantage points to make the most of each 10 second pass the bikes made every half hour. And spot spectators I could focus on.

Having covered the race in its first year, when I saw the T-shirt Joe Manacchio was wearing I immediately recognized the logo as one from the original 1985 CoreStates USPRO Championships (won by Olympic gold medal speed skater Eric Heiden). Joe was there with his family, and they pointed out he was the 2024 Masters (Men 65-69) National Champion at the USA Cycling National Championships in Georgia.

Theirs were not the only friendly faces I met in the crowd. Most, like me, rode bikes into the park and almost everyone seemed to be having as much fun as I was.

Besides composing for the course’s curves there in Fairmount Park, I also wanted to make the cliched but fun (there’s that word again) photos where the bikes are relatively sharp but the background is streaked and blurred.

To make those, it’s best to be positioned perpendicular to the riders and on a straightaway so you can pan during the exposure, use a slower shutter speed (around 1/15th sec), and move the camera smoothly at the same speed as the passing cyclists.

I know from covering snowstorms, and regattasm, and flooding on the Schuylkill that there are great vantage points looking down from Laurel Hill cemetery. Except in late August trees block most of the views of Kelly Drive, so I had to hike along the edge to find a clearing.

In other sports news, the LeBron hype continued as Sixers fans lined up outside the team store at Xfinity Mobile Arena for James (and Jaylen Brown) jerseys.

Evelina, 12, and Anthony Capelli, 10, of South Philadelphia were there with their dad, Chris Capelli. He won a free LeBron jersey, but the kids left empty-handed as the store didn’t have any youth sizes. Wearing her Flyers T-shirt, I met Stacy Romeo — also from South Philly — who showed me her Eagles tattoo while shopping for Sixers merch.

My daughter (the same one who first exposed me to Buc-ee’s) shared viral videos of French singer-songwriter and animal advocate Loris Assadian, known as Plumes, serenading farm and zoo animals with his flamingo-pink guitar. Count former President Barack Obama among the millions of viewers worldwide who have been mesmerized.

When she told me he would be making his very first appearance at any U.S. zoo, I had to let her know I wouldn’t get to cover it because his sold-out appearances were all in the evening. Then I got the chance to meet Assadian (and his mom and brother social media team) and watch him as he made a day-before visit to the tortoises at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Also in August, the young counselors at Soupy Island in West Deptford, N.J. unwinded at the end of their day at the free summer day camp founded in 1877 to give sick city kids fresh outdoor air. That weekend, Camden County Police Officer Marina Urena danced in the street with City Council President Angel Fuentes before a parade celebrating Dominican pride.

For a story on measles vaccination rates declining in the Philadelphia area as an outbreak spreads across Pennsylvania, I met three generations of the Jason family and high school junior Cianey Brown at a back-to-school clinic where pediatrician Amanda Bernard was giving out the shots — and important health information.

Also in August, I saw firsthand how exercising with friends boosts your workout motivation as I joined food writer Kiki Aranita who was reporting on seven sushi chefs who work out together, spotting one another as they lifted weights equivalent to a bluefin tuna.

The end of summer means the start of a new school year. I met teachers like second grade’s Gabrielle DiCrosta getting ready at Fanny Jackson Coppin Elementary in South Philly, and a seven-year-old pianist — believed to be the youngest student to study at the Curtis Institute of Music since 1950.

Finally, next week America will be marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

On that day in 2001 I was working a noon-8 p.m. shift, so I was running errands in the morning. I had just gotten back into my car at the bank when I heard the first reports of a small plane hitting the World Trade Center on KYW News Radio. My first thought was of the 1945 crash of a B-25 bomber into the 78th floor of the Empire State Building. I switched between my car’s AM radio and WHYY-FM to listen to NPR’s reporting as more information came in — including news of another plane crashing into the second tower.

I rushed home, tossed some things in a suitcase and told my wife I was headed to the New Jersey Turnpike.

By then The Inquirer had already dispatched a team of reporters and my photo colleagues to New York so I was instead sent to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell to document the local reaction.

Over the next few days, like everyone else, I couldn’t take my eyes off the news coverage, including the work of Daily News photographer Jim MacMillian, who just wrote about that first day and night at Ground Zero. He had gone there with reporter Chris Brennan, who later wrote his own story about their journey.

Jeff Tull, 40, of Doylestown tried to drive to Manhattan but ended up watching with lots of other people near exit 16 on the New Jersey Turnpike. “After Pearl Harbor you could join the army, plant victory gardens, or have a scrap drive. But we don’t know what to do with ourselves this time,” he told me when I saw him two days later driving around Center City.

One of the most memorable moments for me that week was hearing the soothing sounds of a classical trio in Rittenhouse Square. Curtis Institute of Music alumnus Nick Kendall was joined by current Curtis students Ranaan Meyer and Zachary DePue offering their talent to “give something to the people,” Kendall told me. “Music can make everyone feel better.” They called themselves Time for Three, and over the years I ran into them on other assignments, as they went on with their careers in music.

Five years ago for our story on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I was in the Western Pennsylvania borough of Shanksville tovisually report on the nearby Flight 93 National Memorial, where a pathway marks the final flight path of the Boeing 757. A marble wall stands with the names of the 40 passengers and crew, the crash impact site serving as their final resting place.

For another photo essay that year, I visited some of the hundreds of artifacts — steel fragments of the World Trade Center — that were distributed across the U.S., and beyond, to create local memorials.

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: