My father was an avid photographer – mostly amateur, sometimes professional – but he always had a camera in hand, decades before this became the norm with the advent of camera phones. This would often create tension at family gatherings and outings, because he always had to get one last shot to capture that perfect moment. After his passing last year at the age of eighty, we were left with box after box of color slides. What a treasure they are. Some of the photos are truly stunning, as my father had a wonderful eye. Most would only be of interest to us, his family, but all of them have the mystical imprint of the ethereal – Philadelphia streets, buildings, and landmarks of other eras, loved ones no longer here, train cars and trolley lines that no longer run.  In his slides these all bustle with life and movement. So many of those anonymous strangers in the photos must be gone now, as well, but in those 1″ x 1.5″ color transparencies you can still see where they once were for a brief moment, moving our city along into the next moment and the next…to where we are right now, today.