Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

First, a quick note: We are traveling all of October 2024, so internet access will likely be sparse. If I am slow to respond to comments, it’s due to my lack of connectivity. More on that journey in the months to come.

Driving through the historic old town of Philadelphia, we noticed a small park with a large bust of Benjamin Franklin. We discovered that the park is called Girard Fountain Park. According to Wikipedia, the park was created in the mid-1960s after the demolition of some commercial buildings. In the 1970s, it received funds from a grant established by banker Stephen Girard to improve areas near the Delaware River.

The park has a fountain, though it is currently not operational. According to this site, the Firemen’s Hall Museum is reportedly fundraising to restore the fountain. That part of the city is in the original Philadelphia and has been occupied since the 1700s. The original sculpture featuring Franklin was a full figure covered in pennies, but it has since been replaced with a bronze bust. That post is a fascinating read about the neighborhood near that park and the early history of Philadelphia.

About the photo: This image is a “drive-by shooting.” Sitting in the back seat of the SUV, I saw Ben Franklin’s bust sculpted in bronze and grabbed a couple of cell pics. I picked the best one and cropped the image in Adobe Lightroom Classic to feature only the bust. Then I sent it off to Luminar Neo. The image I chose had the automatic exposure set to f/1.8, 70mm, 1/210 sec., ISO 16. As a result, a touch of motion blur was visible in the features of the bust and the iron fence at the bottom left. I used Luminar Neo’s Supersharp tool in Medium mode and set it to remove motion blur. It did a good job. I almost decided to toss this photo because of the blur, but Neo’s add-in worked nicely to fix the slow-shutter-speed error.

From there, I added a bit of contrast, reduced the highlights, and called it done. You can see the detail in the fixed image on my Flickr site by clicking on the opening image.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner