Reflections on the run | Scene Through the Lens

After years of covering the Philadelphia Maraton and the Broad Street Run, this year I took race officials up on an offer to ride in the lead, time-keeping vehicle that drove in front of the runners.

But, rather than spend the two-plus hours and 26.2 miles of the race focused on the pack of four to five elite runners who took an early lead, I tried to capture other scenes along their route.

I have written before about photographing an object or place and the challenge of finding different ways to see it. I try various lenses and angles, change exposures, or return at different times of day or weather, or seasons. I move in close and then also stand farther away.

In this case, the distance between me and my subject would remain a constant, with only the passage of time changing as our surroundings varied.

Shooting from from the back of a moving vehicle i witnessed all kinds of things along the way: spectators, family members, friends, and onlookers cheering and holding signs, volunteers with bottles of water and race officials, rowers on the Schuylkill, Canada geese flying over the reservoir in Fairmount Park, and the play of light as the sun rises over the city and the day begins in Center City, along the Schuykill and in Fairmount Park and Manayunk. And, of course, a whole bunch of reflections, shadows, blurs and zooms.

And, in other recurring news, I did another photo essay this past week, on the waning of autumn leaves...

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: