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Capturing the winter solstice

Scene Through the Lens with Inquirer photographer Tom Gralish.
Canada geese at sunrise in Evans Pond in Haddonfield, during the week of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer

I set out deliberately this week to make an astronomical event photo for this space. I’ve done Santa and a menorah already this winter so I wanted to give props to the solstice.

With the days getting shorter leading up December 21st, I first thought of sunset occurring earlier. But I worked nights for many years and photographed many of those.

Then I thought of all the time I’ve spent in our city’s historic district. (I love history, as the following paragraphs will attest, and I expect I’ll be there even more in 2026 as we celebrate the Semiquincentennial.)

I recalled a Chippendale armchair in the Assembly Room of Independence Hall made by Philadelphia cabinetmaker John Folwell in the years after our country was born. George Washington sat in the mahogany chair with a gilded sun carved into it for three months in 1787 as he presided over the Constitutional Convention.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with immortalizing the chair at the close of the convention, expressing his optimism for the future of the new nation while looking at the design.

”Often and often... I have looked at that {sun}... without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting, but now at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun."

That’s why I decided to get out early this week to find a photo at sunrise, as I look ahead to the future.

However, speaking of history, there is also an established tradition of news organizations looking back at the end of the year.

So here is the Inquirer photo staff’s “Year in Review.” A visual record of the challenges, achievements, and the everyday moments of a year lived in full.

2025, as seen through our lenses.

» READ MORE: Inquirer Photos of the Year

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: