Letting the mind wander in snow-caused traffic

I don’t know why this scene caught my eye. I have seen graffiti-tagged walls on roll-down metal storefronts and yes, even panel trucks and vans before.

And in the past few weeks since our biggest snowfall in a decade — followed by a brutal freeze that locked in all the plowed piles — I have certainly seen enough streets lined with snowed-in vehicles. Maybe it was the combination of the two.

I was stopped because the dirty snowpack on street shoulders reduced traffic lanes and created gridlock. But while I waited through not one or two, but three traffic light cycles, I had the time to look, pick up my phone, roll down my window and take a picture.

Not the kind of image I usually look for.

Then that got me thinking, “What kinds of pictures do I like? What came first, the snow or the graffiti?” (I was at that light a long time.)

I clearly like photographing people. That’s why I got into journalism.

When doing portraits on assignments I have always tried to get people comfortable with being themselves. I have always had a hard time “directing” them. It is especially difficult when the story I’m trying to illustrate is not about them, but about where they work, or what they are doing.

Trying avoid posing subjects by saying “just do whatever you’d be doing if I — and a reporter, and the public relations person(s) — wasn’t here,” doesn’t help. And just makes it awkward for all of us.

Walking into a room where everyone is ready and waiting to be photographed — but unsure of what the photographer will do — is also hard for them. If possible I get them to interact with each other, even if it’s just sharing what they had for breakfast. In public spaces I will often enlist customers or passersby, asking if I can photographed over their shoulders. Then wait — and hope — for a genuine moment. Like in the mall retail shop, a customer interaction is much better than five salespeople standing among the merchandise looking at the camera.

That is also why I most enjoy assignments where I am just there, observing an event trying to capture something that will make readers click on a link or pause to read a story. And I keep myself enthused while doing it. Like the many public appearances of our mayor.

That goes for ordinary people too, not just politicians or executives or sports or entertainment celebrities. And what is more normal and everyday than stopping at your regular convenience store?

On Thursday, Sheetz officially moved into Wawa territory with the grand opening of a store in the Philly Suburbs — right across the street from a Wawa.

I also photographed Wawa’s excursion into Sheetz land in 2024. For decades, it was assumed there were unspoken boundaries in Pennsylvania between Wawa in the East and Sheetz in the West. But representatives of both chains deny they are rivals and as my colleague Stephanie Farr points out, they have worked together to support various nonprofits.

Next stop for me (soon, I hope) a photographic road trip to the nearest Buc-ees.

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:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column.