Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Among the most common types of newspaper photo assignments, I have a least favorite: a portrait of someone being interviewed by a reporter. Or being interviewed by a bunch of reporters. (Don\u2019t worry, this is not a half-empty glass gripe. Keep reading, it\u2019s actually a positive post.)<\/p>\n
On TV they\u2019re called \u201ctalking heads\u201d and in still photos they\u2019re \u201cheadshots.\u201d But they\u2019re not really heads. Their sole purpose is to show viewers\/readers what a person looks like. A face.<\/p>\n
A while back, possibly while focused on a person standing behind a bank of microphones, my mind wandered and I started to think about different ways of photographing the press conference. Call it an anti-headshot. <\/p>\n
That evolved into something I continued, collecting unconventional views of non-faces.<\/p>\n
At some point, maybe with more press conference daydreaming, I wondered what if\u2026 Say the images ended up on an art gallery wall? A highfalutin critics might say something like \u201cthe work is a meditation on our identity and desire to be seen. Gralish turns the idea on its head (no pun intended), showing us images that conspire against the countenance, and therefore, counter the very premise of a portrait.\u201d<\/p>\n
If I weren\u2019t having fun with photography I would have stopped doing it decades ago.<\/p>\n
My \u201cfunnest\u201d assignment this week? My colleague Peter Dobrin<\/a>\u2019s sweet story of a musical prodigy, and what it takes to get into a top music conservatory while still in elementary school<\/a>.<\/p>\n As is often the case with businesses and institutions, the public relations department always has ideas of how to pose the picture \u2014 usually with their sign, name or logo prominent. After photographing the young pianist playing \u2014 with an extender to reach the piano\u2019s pedals \u2014 I just watched her as we toured the conservatory.<\/p>\n I prefer letting things unfold in front of me, anticipating what a person might do. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn\u2019t. I wondered how Olivia would pass though the security entrance. I guessed correctly \u2014 but used too slow a shutter speed. But, my glass was still half full. I had plenty of good photos (even one that likely made Curtis happy \u2014 with their name displayed).<\/p>\n Having just one person to focus on is a joy, but I also love photographing when there are lots of people and lots of action at events or gathering. The difficulty for me is just dealing with the visual overstimulation. Sometimes there is just too much going on.<\/p>\n Over the years, I have learned how to cope. I try to find one or two people in the crowd, meet them, and let them get used to me and to being photographed. Then I watch for them throughout the rest of the time I\u2019m there. Sometimes even arriving early.<\/a><\/p>\n That way, no matter how distracted I get as my head is spinning around while I keep turning to see things happening all around me and missing other photos while I write down names, I always have those first folks I can return to.<\/p>\n That brings me back to the photo at the very top. I had noticed officials looking out of a window of the district\u2019s bus on its annual Back-to-School Celebration visit to schools all around Philadelphia. <\/p>\n But I knew I had my photo when Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. (at far left in the photo) started to gather everyone together for a group photo outside the bus and the president of the principals union showed up in the window. (She then left the bus to join in the photo.) <\/p>\n Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish\u2019s \u201cScene Through the Lens\u201d photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer\u2019s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:<\/p>\n August 24, 2026: Pencils were sharpened in the first-grade classroom of teacher Lauren Cucinotta at Fanny Jackson Coppin Elementary as she prepared for the start of the new school year for the Philadelphia School District on Monday.Read more<\/a>Tom Gralish \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Among the most common types of newspaper photo assignments, I have a least…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[351598,228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-830093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-anti-headshot-scene-through-the-lense","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}