Welcome to my first edition of TIFF for 2016! Five things I found this week!

Compared to some other major metropolitan cities, Philadelphia may seem quite small, but we have an amazing cultural scene full of music, amazing food, and lots of visual stimuli. Since around the late 1960's, Philadelphia streets have been the home to some amazing street artists who color the city with their murals, mosaics, and their accompanying political ideologies. The first mural I really ever took notice to was Keith Haring's project at 22nd and Ellsworth in Point Breeze, not too far from my home. I was pretty young when it went up, but wise beyond my years and had already seen quite a few of his pieces on TV and in magazines. My mother never drove so we had to take the bus pretty much everywhere and in the early 1990's, the Mural Arts program had starting revolutionizing the way we saw street art in the city, especially, in my opinion, impacting lower income sections of the city with positive messages. I remember staring at the Dr. J. mural while riding the 61 Bus back from my Grandmom's house heading down Ridge Avenue and being overcome at the magnitude of the painting, trying to figure out exactly HOW someone could manage a canvas of that size. Then, as I started becoming more independent in my travels as a young teenage (riding my bike and rollerblading places my parents didn't even realize I was), I started seeing more and more of these giant canvases coming up as well as pieces rebellious youths were spray painting. And although fine art as far as drawing and painting on this level is the one things I could never seem to get good at, I still loved enjoying it both in its formal, and, especially it's informal settings.

Five things I found during my journeys throughout the city this week:

Today I took some times to upload a few of my more recent photographs to my Society 6 account, just in time for the holiday season. Anybody who knows me know that I just about always have a camera on my person and am up to photograph just about anything from trees and nature scenes, to family photos, to simply photographing parties for friends. I found out about Society 6 during the early summer and listed a few things, but never really had any sales (mostly because I failed at promoting).

I love how the site takes something timeless like your photos and allows you to customize and display it in alternative means like mugs, throw pillows, and laptop sleeves, giving you the opportunity to truly have a one of a kind item of your own for reasonable prices and allows me to showcase the different aspects of my photography to a new audience.

If you check out the shop now, there are lots of holiday sales going on and FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING TODAY!

Every once in a while I like to break from my normal morning gym routine and go for a nice bike ride throughout the city. Despite the fact that city riding is stop and go, I can usually cover around 7 - 10 miles in a 45-minute (give or take) time frame. Although this is quite slow, I spend a lot of time trying to take in the scenery, grab some photos, take note of places I want to come back and visit (is there a new mural being painted somewhere, a new museum being built, those sort of things) and do come calm prep time for the day ahead of me at work. You wouldn't think that there are so many splendors in a cold, concrete city, but I do my best to try and find the little specs of natural beauty among the garbage and skyscrapers.

This weekend we took one of our trips to our favorite local orchard, Styer Orchard. The weather was perfect and the skies were clear all day...plus we were out of apples and I am in the mood to cook up some apple pie jam! (That post to come!!!)

The end of the picking season is quickly approaching so we loaded up the buckets with whatever was left. E had fun crawling under the little trees while mommy spent some time climbing up them. Plus, he got to ride the tractor wagon...twice! Unfortunately I only have a few photos from the trip to share, but the change of season was really wonderful to see.

Five new finds from this week...

While I was home doing some work on the house the other day I was outside painting my front railing and chatting with my neighbors, something that, despite the annoyance they can be sometimes, I relish. Living in a decaying urban area of Philadelphia filled with social breakdown and blight, I am so happy to have the majority of houses that surround me inhabited by the same people I have been growing up with since childhood. I have lived in my home now for about 28 years of my life. It belonged to my grandmother and then my mother and father, and, upon their divorce, I secured its rights. But that's another story...

So in our conversation she remarked about how nice the house was looking and said that she wants to be the "Tuscany of Beulah Street." I didn't quite know what she meant by this. "Oh you've never looked at pictures from Tuscany? I love it, everything has paint chipping and is covered in flowers. Things are hundreds of years old and covered in flowers," she said pointing to the paint chipping on her railing and posts....and watering her dozens of flowers. But she got me thinking. There's a difference between aging and dilapidation. The problem is that, considering where I live in respect to other places in the city...and the world...when things start to age, people simply leave it to fall apart hoping that the city of their landlord will fork the cost out to repair instead of taking an initiative to make a change. Sad. A chipping wall will turn into a broken window and a building covered in graffiti in a matter of days. But not everywhere. There are place in the city where a crack in the wall is beautifully accented by ivy, an aging statue and terracotta pots - just like Tuscany. My neighbor's house might have flaking paint, but she cleans her porch every day and tends to the little things that she can.

Every Labor Day weekend, without fail, we attend the Oktoberfest festivities at Canstatter's Volkfest Verin in Northeast Philly. This past holiday weekend was no different. Miniature in scale to the Volkfests in Germany, there was still plenty of authentic German food, beer, and festivities to enjoy including a German band, Mummers String Band, games, and rides for kids (and adults still the size of kids). The three-day festival is the oldest German Volksfest in the United States, with this year being the 143rd annual festival. It is one of the first in a series of Oktoberfest festivities in the tri-state area.

Welcome to my new photo series where I like to show some of the lovely things I found this and every week:

Photography is so cliche' anymore. It is quite disappointing in its own way how everyone sees themselves as a photographer thanks to affordable SLRs, I-Phones, and Instagram. I never claimed to be an expert as I can barely maneuver my SLR in manual mode, yet, I still find myself thoroughly enjoying a quite ride in the morning searching for a spot to snap a few photos.

One such recent morning I decided to forgo my morning session at the gym for a quiet bike ride into Olde City. I wandered into the Olde Pine Cemetery early enough to take it all in without the sounds of traffic and kids heading to school for the day. It was quite nice. Peaceful. Inspiring.

For the past few years I have been a bit obsessed with finding little gardens in the Philadelphia area, mainly in the areas where I live and work because it gives me an excuse to get out on my bike at lunch with my camera to enjoy the sun. Well, today, even though there was no sun, I rode to one of my favorite spots to grab a few photos.