The Lights in Rittenhouse Square.

Dear Reader,

I have been photographing the beautiful and colorful holiday lights in Rittenhouse Square since 1999. This first year was new to the residence of the square, and people would openly comment on how wonderland and festive the square was.
The first snow of that year gave me the opportunity to capture the magical quality everyone was feeling. From my morning photographs “Winter Walk” and “Rittenhouse Square” to the evening work which includes “Luminaire in the Square”, “Umbrellas in Snow” and “Twin Urns”, I new this was going to be a special series.

Over the next several years I continued to photograph Rittenhouse Square as it became a destination for people wanting to see one of William Penn’s original Squares transformed into a wonderland.

Even while on my show circuit, people from as far as Milwaukee would comment on the beauty of Rittenhouse square as seen through my photographs. This series has sold well everywhere I have shown them, and it has given people a new take on Philadelphia.

Then, for whatever reason the effort changed. Gone were the multicolored orbs sprinkled throughout the Square and the festive holiday feelings. They were replaced last year with a scant, seemingly unplanned arrangement of white spheres.

This year there are more of the same white globes all around the perimeter, with a lone lit Christmas tree in the middle. Again with no apparant sense of placement.

Because of my association with Rittenhouse through my photography people ask me all the time what happened to the colored lights. I have no answers.

All I can say is I hope whomever is in charge of the Rittenhouse Square holiday lighting project can see their way to going back to the original approach. It worked. It made people feel the holiday spirit.

Sincerely,

armond Scavo

Tagged as: Armond, Christmas, color photographs, holiday, Philadelphia, photographic, photographs, photogrpahy, rittenhouse square, scavo