It's big.
Philadelphia's city hall was constructed from 1871 - 1901, and the architect and city made no small plans; it was, and still is, the world's largest free-standing masonry building. When construction finished it was also the tallest inhabited building in the world. The foundation walls are made of granite and are 22 feet thick!
The building covers more than 14 acres, which is why there is no street level view that can capture it all. You get glimpses of it as you travel around the city though, and what a sight it is, especially after sunset, the clock lit from within, and the statue of William Penn atop, some 500 feet high.
This photograph was made from the vantage point of South Broad Street in the area known as the Avenue of the Arts, where we feel most at home.
We're old school.
Pictured here is a medium format Plaubel Makina, a film camera from the 1980s that gets plenty of use here at CLYDE.
When it comes to photography, we like film. Our fashion models are photographed with cameras from generations past, and so are the photographs in our wall art series. We develop the film and scan the images ourselves, and value the analog hands-on nature of the work.
While we're on the subject
Say, could you use a book recommendation? Check out The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, by David Sax.
Michiko Kakutani, writing for the New York Times, had this to say about the book:
In an increasingly digital world where physical objects and experiences are being replaced by virtual ones, Mr. Sax concludes, “analog gives us the joy of creating and possessing real, tangible things”: the hectic scratch of a fountain pen on the smooth, lined pages of a notebook; the slow magic of a Polaroid photo developing in front of our eyes; the satisfying snap of a newspaper page being turned and folded back; the moment of silence as the arm of an old turntable descends toward a shiny new vinyl disk and the music begins to play.
About framing, and if you should choose it
We offer our wall art in framed and unframed versions because framing is a matter of personal style and we want you to have the look that you want for your room.
The wood frame we offer features a clean black design, and the art is protected behind clear acrylic with no decorative matting surrounding the art. We made these choices because we love the look and want our art to be affordable. So if you want a more custom design, the best choice is to start with one of our unframed prints and work with a local framer.
(But we think you'll love our framed version!)
And finally, about delivery
Printing, framing, and carefully packaging your art takes time, but not as much as you might think. Normally it takes days, rather than weeks. We think you'll agree that the short wait is worth it.
