May 26, 2025: Haddon Township Fire Lts. Alex Tessing and Kyler Graeber place 31 American flags on the Westmont Fire Company 1 station ahead of Memorial Day. Each flag has the name of a township resident who gave their lives while serving in the U.S. armed forces.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
While I am officially a Baby Boomer (born following the end of World War II, between 1946 and 1964) I am also part of the generation that came of age after the military draft ended in 1973.
The all volunteer military has widened the gap between civilian and military populations in the United States, so Americans now have fewer connections with veterans and military members.
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That is not to say we forget the sacrifices of those who gave their lives for our country.
In 2000 Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act so we all would pause for a moment of silence - at 3 p.m. on Memorial Day - to remember those who gave their lives in service to America and its freedom.
Whenever I am working the holiday weekend - like yesterday - I try to balance my coverage by picturing both the solemn and the fun.
U.S. Army veterans Elizabeth Noble, who served in Vietnam, and Bob Dunn (right) chaplain of VFW Post 7679 in Mantua lay a wreath at Deptford township’s Buddy Powell Memorial at Oak Valley School. Powell grew up in the neighborhood and in 1964 enlisted in the army while still in high school. He died in Vietnam in 1966.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Brendan Pierson, a sophomore at Deptford High School, plays taps during the observance at the Powell Memorial. After the ceremony Pierson joined his high school Spartans marching band in the parade, and then played taps again at a second memorial.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Josie McGrath, with the township's parks and recreation department, watches over 100 trophies to be handed out following a kids bike decorating contest and parade through the Oak Valley neighborhood following the memorial ceremony.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Sam Lewis carries Lyla, 3, on his back while mom Jessica carries her bike in the parade. Seven year-old daughter Mia was peddling her bike up ahead. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Bria Benedetti (right), 6, shakes hands with “Uncle Sam” Brian McDonna in the parade. She was watching with her sister Hannah (center), 6, and her aunt Dana Benedetti (left), seated next to her daughter Kyla, 3. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Deptford High School Navy Junior ROTC students fold up their flags after marching in the parade.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
After walking in the parade, Jackson, 4, and his four-
month-old brother, Nicholas, pose for their parents, Michael
and Samantha Clifford. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
No dogs are allowed on the Veterans Memorial Park grounds as Deptford Township holds their annual Memorial Day observances on Sunday, May 25, 2025. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Residents listen to speakers during Memorial Day ceremonies at Deptford's Veterans Memorial Park. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
High School trumpeter Brendan Pierson plays taps as the Deptford Veterans Committee honor guard fires their rifles in salute during Memorial Day ceremonies at the township’s Veterans Memorial Park.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Al Schaeffer who served in the U.S. Army from 1960-71 salutes during the singing of the national anthem at the township’s Veterans Memorial Park. His brother, Guy Schaeffer, was killed in action in Pleiku Province, South Vietnam in 1965. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Representing those fallen in his branch of service, Ernest Scott, of Deptford, who served in the U.S. Army from 1959-67, places a wreath during Memorial Day ceremonies at Veterans Memorial Park. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Alfredo Quinones of Deptford, who served with the U.S. Army during the Gulf War, salutes during Memorial Day ceremonies at the township’s Veterans Memorial Park. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Volunteers serve up burgers, hot dogs, and potato and pasta salads during a picnic at the Oak Valley School after Memorial Day ceremonies.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Anna Castelli of Deptford, with her daughters and their friends, have lunch during the free family day out picnic. Girls, from left, are Annalise Castelli, 9; Callie Carle, 8; Violet Castelli, 4; Layla Castelli, 6; and Levile Sandrock, 2.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Five year-old Brayden Torres bikes past a monument designed by artist and Deptford resident Frank Seder at Veterans Memorial Park following Memorial Day observations in Deptford Township Sunday, May 25, 2025. Brayden was heading home with siblings and their mother Tiffany Torres, attending ceremonies and parade through their Oak Valley neighborhood before the free family day out was finished off with a picnic.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The flag photo at the very top here was made on Friday, my day off.
I stopped in the morning while on my way to the gym when I saw the fire company ladder truck. I never made it there, hoping I could make a picture for this column. You can see it worked out (no pun intended).
They had just started when I parked across the street and it took the two firefighters almost ninety minutes of lifting (again, no pun intended) to place each of the 31 flags, one at a time.
I knew this would not end up as a multi-photo display package as the images of each individual flag hanging could get redundant. It was destined to be just a single image, but I decided to make it an exercise (that one was intentional) in photographic variety.
You can see from the 36 frames (like a roll of 35 film) on the simulated “contact sheet” that I moved around quite a bit while they were doing it.
I mentioned a contact sheet. And film. Since going digital (it’s been almost a quarter century now) I don’t really miss the darkroom. But I do miss working with photo editors, and going through rolls of negatives and talking about the images with someone else.
Newrooms have downsized and we photographers mostly now edit our own photos - usually in our cars. But The Inquirer still has a few, and I asked our night photo editor Jasmine Goldband to look through the contact sheet.
Of course, with a digital camera, I took (many) more than 36 photos, but those do represent each place I stopped and pointed my cameras. She said she could see my “eye move around to all of these angles as you work.”
Goldband picked two she liked best: the image below and the one she chose, up top. She said of that one, “...graphic and storytelling. The reflection plus the repeated pattern of the flags makes the tighter one the winner for me. Has the human, storytelling and pleasing lines.”
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:
May 19, 2025: A detail on the Kelly Family Gates (2003) at Addams Hall on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Designed by Mark Lueders, an alumnus and sculptor, the gates incorporate bronze sculptures of 56 hands from 46 different artists with their respective tools - including a pair of hands holding a camera. Addams Hall, the center for fine arts at Penn, was named for “Addams Family” cartoonist Charles Addams, also a Penn alum. (His “Thing” character is not one of the gate’s hands.)Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
May 12, 2025: Rose McManus, with Cashman & Associates events marketing, holds things together — and upright behind the scenes at a Philly 250 / Semiquincentennial event in LOVE Park.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
May 5, 2025: Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, pauses after laying a bouquet of flowers at a portrait of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, during a dedication ceremony for the Bicentennial Bell at Benjamin Rush Garden. The plaque commemorates the queen’s presentation of the bell in 1976 to the people of the United States from the people of Great Britain on the 200th anniversary of American independence. It was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry in London, the same foundry that originally cast the Liberty Bell in 1751. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
April 28, 2025: Pigeons along 15th Street in Penn Center. Some pedestrians feed, some pass by, some pause, some photograph.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
April 21, 2025: Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and former University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann is back on the Penn campus to attend a "Common Sense Diplomacy" event. The artwork, at the sponsoring Perry World House, is computer-generated composite color photography by Do Ho Suh titled “High School Uniface: Girl” and “High School Uniface: Boy.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
April 14, 2025: Restored Depression-era classic green and white subway tiles greet train passengers in the former “Ghost Station” as PATCO’s Franklin Square Station is back online for the first time in almost 50 years. The station opened in 1936 as part of the Bridge Line running between Philadelphia and Camden, sporadically opening and closing due to low ridership in the years since. It was last used in the late 1970s after opening for a few years for the Bicentennial. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
April 7, 2025: A Philadelphian on their way to a protest shares their sign with Dubliners at the recently reopened Portal in LOVE Park. Vandalism had forced a two-month closure of Philly’s edition of the art installation which connects people in Vilnius, Lithuania; Lublin, Poland; and Ireland. Its permanent location will be decided in an online poll between LOVE Park, where it debuted in October, and the City Hall courtyard.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
March 31, 2025: Looking a lot like their prehistoric dinosaur ancestors, Canada geese take off in flight near the pond at the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University. The museum opened March 29, showcasing more than a century of internationally recognized dinosaur fossils and history. Birds are descendants of a group of two-legged, meat-eating bipedal dinosaurs called theropods.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
March 24, 2025: Meeting at the Eagle, during the final days of the Center City Macy’s. The John Wanamaker department store was dedicated in 1911 by then-President William H. Taft, and was sold in 1995. It’s been a Hecht’s, Strawbridge’s, Lord & Taylor, and most recently, a Macy’s, which closed for good on Sunday.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
March 17, 2025: Emine Emanet reads the paper hearts, flowers, and notes of support and affection left by neighbors outside her Jersey Kebab restaurant in Haddon Township Mar. 13, the day after her release from detention. “This is like my home,” she said when returning for the first time since she was arrested there and taken away in handcuffs by ICE agents two weeks earlier.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
March 10, 2025: Ed Fischer of Old City bears silent witness holding a Ukrainian flag across from Franklin Square. He said he wanted to show that recent events do not reflect “the sentiment of the American people.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
March 3, 2025: La Salle men’s head basketball coach Fran Dunphy waits in the wings before a news conference in honor of his recent retirement announcement. Later that evening, he coached his 1,000th game.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
February 24, 2025: A rusted 990-foot cruise ship docked for almost three decades on the Delaware River was towed away leaving a huge gap on the waterfront skyline. The SS United States was such a part of the South Philadelphia landscape the IKEA store across the street had a sign explaining its history on their restaurant’s window.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
February 17, 2025: Hundreds of city workers set out immediately after the Eagles’ four-hour-long victory parade, cleaning up the mess a million-plus fans left behind.Most of the streets and sidewalks along the route were spotless by the next morning. But they couldn’t get to it all. Now, there are only 365 or so days until parade v3.0.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
February 10, 2025: Photos taken over the past two years from the same spot, diagonally across Market Street from the “OY/YO” sculpture outside the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in the Historic District.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
