Scene Through the Lens | April 13, 2020

Like a wildlife photographer waiting in a blind, I have waited patiently, sometimes even minutes (OK, so I’m not quite like a nature photographer) for my subject — a human figure — to appear.

While photographing Philadelphia’s blue light night last week to honor health-care workers fighting on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic (with colleague Steven M. Falk), I drove to the Museum of Art knowing people are always there — day and night — running up the “Rocky Steps.” I parked and waited, and sure enough, human figures appeared at the top.

Unlike a scenic photographer, I want people in my pictures. Many landscape photographers, concerned more with light and composition, even use Photoshop to remove distracting elements — like people — from their photos. In photojournalism, even anonymous figures add emotion, human interest and empathy to news photos.

While city streets emptied of people as the coronavirus spread, news photographers around the world captured scenes of isolation, often picturing a single figure walking by.

Of course, photographers are also showing the medical workers, the first responders, the essential workers and the regular people trying to live their lives in these fraught times. We try to photograph all the human connections we can.

But as we work in the increasingly empty concrete jungle of our cities, I wonder if waiting for a human figure is no longer the best way I can visually report the new reality on the streets. Looks like I will leave those empty streets empty — devoid of human figures.

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

>>SEE MORE: Twenty years of a photo column