Chipping away | Scene Through the Lens

I try to avoid writing here about newspaper photography, pre-mirrorless, pre-digital, pre-live streaming, pre-social media, pre-internet, pre-color, pre-autofocus, pre-zoom lens, or pre-35mm because it sounds like I am talking about the “Good Old Days.” I’m not. And they weren’t.

When people ask me how long I’ve been at the newspaper (a natural question when meeting a white-bearded news photographer) I used to joke, “I don’t answer that if you’re under forty.”

Well, since posting an anniversary column here in July, there is no hiding that I’ve been here a while.

That little piece of Isaiah Zagar above is not the first time I have photographed the artist or his iconic mosaics. I was there in the 1990s during the almost ten years it took him to complete the 7,000-square-foot mosaic mural on three sides of the the Painted Bride Art Center. And again in 2017 when the Bride announced it was selling the building it had occupied since 1981.

This week, organizers and volunteers from Magic Gardens are saving pieces of “Skin of the Bride,” as building and mural is set for demolition next month to make way for construction of an 85-unit, short-term rental building with restaurant space and underground parking.

Yesterday, covered the final breakfast at a landmark South Jersey diner, closing after over 30 years. Photographing a couple of patrons, I introduced myself to get their names. The husband asked me to repeat my name, then announced, “you took my picture 30 years ago.”

“Here?” I asked him, as I didn’t remember ever being there before. No, he said, “I was a Philadelphia police sergeant, standing with my captain during the Mummers Parade.”

Then he showed me a photo of the yellowed clipping on his phone - from The Inquirer of Jan. 2, 1996 with my picture of him.

He recalled they laughed as an inflatable-suited sumo wrestler passed, and he, the published caption stated, “seemed silenced.”

Now that - and this - was a “Good Day.”

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 Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: