dovate

Since spring hit in full force, I’ve had a hard time photographing the city. I see nothing; the light is bright, the trees are full of leaves and the streets filled with interchangeable faces. In the springtime, a downtown corner in Philly is a corner in New York, is a corner in Boston, is a corner in Baltimore. A tree full of blossoms mine as well be anywhere on the planet. This time of year, I can’t see anything.

Until it’s 11 o’clock at night and I’m on Frankford Ave. under el tracks a few blocks past Oxford station. There’s a bar with no name, its façade made entirely of aluminum, and its windows made of Plexiglas. The el sits above the street like a ribbon of decay. Everything rots in its wake. The city crumbles around the tracks. Signs are painted in large block letters, shining in neon or faded past legibility. I look to my left and see a Magic store. Its windows are full of demonic rubber masks and costumed life size mannequins. It’s amazing.

It’s closer to midnight and we’re at an intersection I haven’t been to since high school. Heading north on 5th we cross Wyoming Ave. Memories of the corner flood back. It looks nicer than it did 10 years ago. The building at the corner shares a name “Campbell” with someone in the car, so I promise her a picture of it. The ISO on my camera is up to 1600. The shutter speed is 1/8 of a second. I rest the camera in my lap for stability (not to mention not having one of the businessmen on the corner think I was a cop) and take 3 shots. When I got home and look at the raw images, an incredibly noisy self-portrait pops out of nowhere. I like it!

This old factory holds a special significance for me. I can’t quite explain it. I often photograph it. This isn’t my favorite photo, but this evening, with the wind blowing through an open window and the smell of rain that hasn’t quite arrived yet already thick in the air, I thought I’d put it up.