There are many musicians busking on the streets of Center City Philadelphia, so they can’t all get pictured in the newspaper.
One of the most notable, David Puryear, the Historic District saxophonist known as “Etta’s Baby Boy,” has been photographed – and published – often.
So I wasn’t looking for a busker while doing some street photography of buses as SEPTA service cuts began this week due to an impasse over mass transit funding in the Pennsylvania legislature.
I made photos of buses in between covering separate press conferences by both City Council and the Mayor. Then, as long as I was inside City Hall, I walked to the east side of the building to look out toward Market East.
It is a street I walked for weeks photographing while the Sixers’ intended to build a $1.55 billion arena so I was well acquainted with the view.
I looked down at a succession of buses while listening to the sharp notes from a trumpet echoing off the marble and limestone walls of City Hall’s East Portal.
The buses didn’t yield a photo, so I started watching as pedestrians mostly just passed by the musician.
Then suddenly the sun shining from the west reflected off a building momentarily casting patches of light onto the sidewalk behind the trumpeter and the wall across from him. I photographed frantically during the short time the until a biker paused – right inside one of the patches of light.
I had my photo so I walked down to meet Rome Leone.
He told me, as he would share with anyone else who stopped talk, that he did other instruments as well, including violin and piano, which he started learning to play when he was 3 years old. He added that music was always in his family- his grandfather played trumpet with Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, and Dizzy Gillespie.
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 print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: