Scene Through the Lens | April 27, 2020

Before digital-everything, 35mm film was what we used. In those days they called us “press photographers.” We produced images that were printed by presses (There were also “magazine photographers” and “wire photographers” around; “news photographers” shot for television).

Using 35mm film required you to load the part sticking out of the light-tight canister into your camera. After closing the camera, you would advance the shutter and click off a few blank frames to get past the “leader,” which had been exposed to light, and was no good for picture-taking.

That action always gave you one or two “accidental” pictures at the start of every roll, and some photographers saved and collected them. Most often they were pictures of your feet. But a lot were also pictures of the stuff - a lot of it camera gear - inside your car trunk because that’s where you would stand while loading from the box of film you kept there. (Yes, it sometimes got really hot). So those pictures came to be known as “trunk shots.” Kind of an early version of “What’s in my bag?”

I bring this all up because it speaks to my photo of the young man above . . . and coverage of the coronavirus. And how our brains are wired for categorizing and classifying what we see around us. Photographers do it while documenting the pandemic. We collect your mask photos, your test site photos, your people posing on their porch or stoop photos, and the essential worker photos.

I was collecting when he walked up to me at the bus/light rail/train station in downtown Camden. With all the colorful characters hanging around there - the people in masks - I was focused on something else. “What are you taking pictures of?" he said. "What do you think of this? Do you wanna take a picture of me?”

I did take a picture of him, and I told him I was taking pictures of the yellow caution tape sealing off the bus shelters. (No social distancing possible inside a 3x8-foot three-sided glass box.) He looked at me like I was one of the transit center characters.

A few weeks ago I started collecting pictures of yellow caution tape. It’s a way to keep my mind working, when everything around you wants to numb it. I don’t go seeking it out (you can’t really search Google maps for “yellow tape near me.” Or find “recommendations in my neighborhood” on Yelp. But when I come come across it while covering the crisis, I make a snapshot.

It’s not art, it’s not information, it’s not photojournalism, but it is distracting for me. And in these times, that’s not a bad thing.

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

>>SEE MORE: Twenty years of a photo column