My oeuvre is showing | Scene Through the Lens

I have said it here many times. My oeuvre is photographing the same things over and over and trying not to photograph them the same way.

It would be hard to find a better example than a book I did with writer Michael Vitez a decade ago. We spent the entire year outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art photographing and interviewing the disciples who make the pilgrimage to the steps made famous in the Oscar-winning Rocky film, Our 2006 book “Rocky Stories,” contains 52 vignettes of everyday people who ran up those steps for reasons ranging from love, to triumph over life-threatening diseases.

Before we even started, Mike had decided he would not talk to anyone until their Rocky moment was over (he called it following the Star Trek Non-Interference Directive). We’d just hang and wait and then we’d approach them.

Likewise, I had been determined we not have a book with 50 Identical photos of 50 people running toward me with the Philly skyline vista behind them.

Almost fifty years after the movie first came out, people still travel from around the world to recreate that iconic moment.

And, I still go there to cover events for the newspaper - twice this past week - on assignment.

Followed on Thursday by the wrestler known in the Sumo World as Oosunaarashi, which roughly translates to “The Great Sandstorm” in Japanese. (He will compete in the International Sumo League World Championship Atlantic City on June 15.)

It was a beautiful, clear day, with a bright blue sky. I don’t think I ever had a day as nice while doing the book. But once again, I did not take the skyline postcard view of the wrestler running up the steps. Maybe it was out of respect for the principles of my younger self.

Also this past week, President Biden and Vice President Harris were here. It was the president’s seventh visit to Pennsylvania in 2024. Harris has visited the state four times. Former President Trump has made two swings through Pennsylvania in 2024. What made this time different was Philly Elmo.

As my colleague Diane Mastrull said, media from out of town didn’t get it. And Donald Trump supporters mocked it. But to Philadelphians, Philly Elmo and his drum line made all the sense in the world.

As I mentioned in a previous column, in a personal homage to the Tri-X I used back in the days of my first presidential campaigns, I posted on Instagram another B&W gallery of their visit here on Wednesday.

Finally, the week ended with my covering the Philly Pride March and Festival, celebrating queerness and the start of Pride Month.

Last year I climbed under the 200 foot Pride flag as it was carried up Walnut Street. To photograph this year’s 400 foot version I found a parking garage so I could look down on it instead.

Compare the galleries from yesterday with last year’s to see for yourself other ways I avoided redundancy.

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: