Photo Trip to Center City Philadelphia yesterday.

     Ok, so not exactly the brightest idea I've had in a while. Since I have the week off for the bi-annual plant shutdown, I decided to head downtown to work on some projects I've had in my head for a while. Unfortunately, I picked the hottest day in over a decade (official high 102 degrees).

     I started off the afternoon at the querilla skateboard park in South Philly, but there was nothing really going on (no great surprise,) so I headed up to center city. I had no idea how much they've done around the art museum. It's actually a really nice place to hang out.

     I wandered around the Waterworks/Boathouse Row for a while, a little before dusk, and then wandered a little bit down West River drive, figuring on shooting the obligatory Boathouse Row from across the river shot. I found a decent place about 45 minutes before it was going to get dark, so just hung out for a while watching the cars/cyclists/joggers (!?) go by. Thank goodness there was a breeze. I got a few decent shots in increasing degrees of dark, and then headed back toward the museum. Out the corner of my eye, toward the Waterworks, I kept seeing what seemed to me to be flashes of light, but I wasn't entirely sure. After working my way around to the north end of the 'Works complex, I set up my tripod for a 30 sec. exposure of the rest of the building. About halfway through, a very nice older gentleman showed up with his grandson, and his point-and shoot with the really annoying strobing orange redeye reducer and flash... totally buggered up my shot- thank goodness for digital. I also noticed that the flashes I had seen were people taking pictures of the building, and not turning off the flash. For anyone not familiar with it, The 'Works is a quite attractive Greek Revival building complex on the bank of the Schuylkill river, off the north side of the art museum (I will be posting photos soon- they're currently in post). The way the buildings are lit up at night offers a spectacular range of contrasts in shadows and shapes, which would be totally destroyed by camera flash.