Behind The Shot: Elfreths Alley

I was in downtown Philly shopping for clothes a couple of years ago when I finally decided to visit Philadelphia's oldest street, Elfreth's Alley. I am one of those people who always carry my camera with me everywhere, so I figured why not, let's see what all the fuss is about.

Surprisingly, it wasn't as crowded as I expected. Unfortunately, there is a lot of construction equipment to the right of Elfreth's Alley from 2nd street. I had to tilt shift my camera, recompose and focus my image to the left side of the street.

It was a partly cloudy Sunday, hence far fewer visitors and much less congestion. Despite the expectation of rain, some tourists ventured to visit and walk through the ally just to check it out and take pictures.

In busy tourist destinations is difficult to shoot with no people or distractions in it. I spent at least two hours just waiting for the opportunity to shoot five bracketed images taken under different exposures, without people in the shot.

After editing, even though I had to crop the final image to remove the construction equipment, I am very happy with the end result.

By far, this is the most popular and shared image from my Facebook photography page.