Philadelphia Photostory: Bricks & Blooms

Infancy

From my favorite new alley called Try On. Gosh I'm so jealous of people who have these little courtyards with sakura trees! Also I feel a bit creepy peering through their gates to capture the beauty but I'm getting over it hahaa.


Slowly coming out

Another really spectacular small alley, I forget what its called but I got a lot of great pictures from that will be in another post soon.



Full brick & bloom

Same alley as above, I'm really loving the dark brick buildings around my neighborhood, I often feel a bit transported back in time when I come across buildings like this.



OMG when I entered this particular alley I was greeted by a HUGE cherry blossom dream tree, it was magnificent. I just love the whole environment of this alley.





Church in the bg, while I was taking this a pic two men were talking and one of them was saying how he was tempted to take a stem back to where he's from so he could plant a tree.





Taken at sunset, I love how my camera captures the sky reflected on windows. ♥

Maxstudio little black dress

I wish I could afford things in this store, they have the most amazing dresses. I have one dress from them that I bought to wear at a wedding, its made of silk and is so comfy.



I really, really want the dress on the far right, its like a perfect little black dress. I also love the women's tailored suit on the far left, so chic and sexy.

Philadelphia Photostory: Found Type

I've been taking photos for this photostory for a couple of weeks and its my most favorite one so far! As I was walking around I noticed some really great examples of typography on signs and row home addresses, but then I also found some cool uses on everyday objects and then of course the ultimate subversion of typography, tagging!



2006
Entrance of a row home, I kinda love everything about this pic, the textures, the paint splatter on the door and the decaying print of the letters. And the reflection in the glass, that was quite accidental.



Angled
This entrance was quite odd, its on an angle like that. This was located in a small side street called Tryon and it has some really fantastic houses and architecture, I'm waiting for a sunny day to go take some photos over there.



Apt 1 & Apt 2
I was actually walking around Chinatown and saw a collection of mail boxes and the type on them looked so fantastic, I didn't have my camera with me at the time! Which sucked because I saw a lot of cool stuff I would have liked to photograph that evening, anyway I'm glad I caught another cool looking set of mailboxes.



2010
This is a new house they finished building last summer, I don't think anyone moved in yet though but I love all the modern elements on the door compared to the 2006 door.



IPA advice
Lagunitas IPA beer label on my dark blue jeans. I was intrigued by the slogan, well the label had many sayings on it but this was the best one, "Life is uncertain, don't sip!". I'm not sure what that means though.



S is for schwinn

This is the same yellow bike I took a pic of a few weeks ago but this was taken in a totally different location haa. We meet again yellow bicycle! I just love the S on the seat and because S is my initial.



Books behind bars!
I was wandering around and came across this amazing old bookstore, I didn't go inside because I feel bad going in small local businesses and not buying anything, but they sell like really old 50 cent books.



Twerp
I'm kind of obsessed with Twerp's tags, I see them all over, there's even one outside my workplace!! Its on a small gold pipe, I haven't gotten a chance to take a pic yet because people take their smoke breaks there.



Meats and Provisions
This was painted on the afore mentioned bookstore building, I loved the old Western type and style.

All images copyrights to S. Bakr, please do not reproduce or repost without my permission.

Diesel store Philadelphia

The Diesel store in Philly has this weird new window display, usually their displays are rather innocuous but I walked by yesterday and out of the corner of my eye I saw this dude sitting there with his hands out like he was begging and I was like WTF? Then I looked closer and realized that he was a screenprinted rag doll of some sort but his facial expression and skinny body just made the whole thing rather bizarre looking, kinda reminds me of Christian Bale in The Machinist.



The girl one isn't nearly as terrifying, and I guess they should be congratulated for not using mannequins like every other store on the block, the whole thing is definitely weird and eye catching.

Anthropologie Philadelphia & Joan Shepp

Anthropologie's latest window visual, honeycomb! The lighting is really cool at night.



Joan Shepp has this awesome shoe display, I need to get some new shoes so bad! Pay day today I think :O! I've never actually been in this store because I could never afford anything in there but their visual merchandising is always pretty eye catching.

Philadelphia Photostory: Street Graphics

My weekly pics post is late on here, this week my theme was Philadelphia street graphics, I don't know if I'd call it art necessarily but last week I got obsessed with the tags I saw around the streets that I take to and from work. Although I think tags can be a visual nuisance, the colors, shapes and humor I found were very visually stimulating. Plus now that I notice all these tags, its like a fun game to walk around the city and notice where some people have laid their names.


Stop Rape
This first one isn't a tag but I thought it was really bold and awesome. I found this at the end of small side street featuring many historic Philadelphia row homes. It was kind of a shock to see such a bold statement.






I love the humor in these two.







I see Twerp's tags everywhere now! There's even one right outside my workplace o.O;

All images copyrighted to S. Bakr, do not reproduce or repost without my permission.

Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossoms, originally uploaded by swabreen.

Just shot these, I can't wait for more of them to populate the trees! More over on my flickr

Philadelphia Photostory: Branch Road

Spring Alley
This little tree continues to thrive and be pretty! I love the shapes the branch's shadow's make on the wall.



Sakura branches
While walking down Lombard I found another fledging sakura tree. Taking pics of branches like this is kinda tough because one little wisp of win and you have a blurry pic D: But this composition reminded me of sort of ukiyo-e style illustration but in photographic format with a modern building backdrop.



Blue and Orange
I haven't take sunset pics in ages! I was obsessed with sunset pics in college and I have a little photo album of the sunsets I saw from the various dorm rooms I lived in. The framing of this pic and the tree makes this pic seem set in a more exotic location rather than Philadelphia.



Red bloom
These little red blooms are terribly hard to photograph because they never show up well against the sky backdrop but they look great against this building.



Silhouette
The branches formed all sorts of amazing silhouettes during sunset, this tree is actually not that good looking under direct sunlight but it looks amazing here.



Sunset down the street
The view down my street while I was crossing it.

Pink Philly

Ubiq sneaker store on Walnut St. Philadelphia

Ubiq's current eye catching store front, they actually have some pretty cool graphics on their store fronts. Last November they had an Obama mural plastered on their window. Last summer people were camped out across the street from the store to buy limited edition ?uestlove related sneakers. The actual store also sells really cool and hip clothes for men along with sneakers and toys, but the few times I've been in there the customer service wasn't that great. Maybe you need to be a sneaker fanatic to fit in haa



I am so excited about the impending Spring Cherry Blossoms! Philadelphia has a Cherry Blossoms Festival every year, when spring rolls around many side walk trees bloom white and pink. It looks gorgeous, one of my fav times of the year.



Random pink Whale tag I found, they always tag these post storage boxes and they always get painted over eventually.

Philadelphia Photostory: Night & Day

I've gotten into the habit of taking my camera with me everywhere because there have been too many missed opportunities in the past where I see something weird, funny or beautiful that I wish I captured! These were taken from last Tuesday 10th to yesterday Saturday March 14th and are from around my neighborhood.



The week started off foggy and it looks pretty much the same outside right now.



Awesome yellow bicycle found on Pine street on my way to work



Beautiful heart shaped shoes from Anthropologie, too bad they were a size 8! And cost over $100 D: I'm a size 6 boo but they're still out of my price range



Twilight pic taken on the way home from work





The first signs of spring have sprung! Yey! Cherry Blossom time is one of my fav times in Philadelphia and I look forward to it every year! Here are some cherry blossom pics I took last year over by the Rodin Museum and around my neighborhood.

Anthropologie Philadelphia

Teacup displays at the Anthropologie store in Philadelphia

This store has some of the most amazing visual merchandisers around! Every time I go in there I spend a lot of time just taking in all the little details and the amazing creativity on display. I find the whole place really inspiring and go in there a lot when I'm feeling mentally drained, it provides a great pick me up.

I snuck in these pics when I was there yesterday, I mean you could photograph the entire place they're so many great details to admire and capture. I love the initialized teacups, I have three of them featuring my initials S, A and B :D
I usually only buy stuff at Anthropologie when they're on sale because it is a very pricey store lol, they always have great sales on home goods though and I have a lovely collection of plates and teacups from there.

dick tag

.Dicko* struck my nice neighborhood with douchebaggery! Way to turn what is ordinarily a nice little side street into something ugly. I don't get bombin', its completely selfish and devoid of artistic merit. If you're gonna tag your name then at least do it in some cool spray painted font or something that requires some thinking and artistic vision D:
More lame neighborhood tagging here.