Rittenhouse Square portraits: making the busiest square work

Rittenhouse Square is about the size of a city block, it is busy every hour it is light, and there is no version of a session here where you have the place to yourself. I still book it constantly. Here is why, and how.

The case for a crowded park

Three reasons I keep coming back.

It looks like Philadelphia. Not like a park that happens to be in Philadelphia. The plane trees, the low walls, the balustrades, the buildings standing over it. Anyone who lives here recognizes it instantly, and if the point of the photographs is where your life happened, that counts for a lot.

It is dense. Everything is within ninety seconds of everything else, which means a one-hour session gets four or five genuinely different backgrounds without anyone walking far. For an engagement session, which runs an hour, that density is worth more than a bigger park with more variety spread further apart.

And the crowd is not actually the problem people expect. A busy park has busy people in it, all of whom are entirely uninterested in you. Nobody in Rittenhouse Square is watching. That anonymity makes people relax faster than an empty field does, where being photographed feels like an event.

Tall buildings do strange things to light

This is the technical thing worth knowing, and it is the opposite of the gorge problem in the Wissahickon.

The square is ringed by tall buildings, so direct sun leaves the ground early, especially on the eastern and southern sides. But it does not go dark. The buildings themselves catch the light and throw it back down, so the square fills with soft reflected light from above long after direct sun has gone.

Which means the last hour here is not the golden warm light you get in an open field. It is clean, soft, even light with no harsh shadows, and it is excellent for faces. It just is not gold. If you want warm and glowing, go west to the river. If you want people looking like themselves, this is better.

The other consequence: the shadow line moves fast and predictably across the square through the afternoon. There is almost always a strip of good light somewhere, and finding it is most of the job.

The hours that work

• Early morning, especially weekends. The quietest the square ever gets. Low sun comes in along the side streets and reaches into the park.
• Weekday mid-morning. The lunch crowd has not arrived and the light is high but softened by the trees.
• Late afternoon into the last hour. Busiest and best-looking. Everything is reflected light and the surrounding buildings begin to glow.
• After dark. Genuinely good and almost nobody asks for it. Streetlights, shop windows, lit interiors. Different pictures entirely.

Avoid weekday lunchtime in good weather. Every office worker within half a mile is sitting on the grass and the square is at its most cluttered.

Inside the square

The plane trees and the diagonal paths. The signature look. Big mottled trunks, dappled shade, benches. In autumn this is as good as Center City gets.

The low walls and balustrades around the central plaza. Somewhere to sit, lean and put a child. Half of what I do with kids is finding them something to sit on, and this is the best furniture in the neighborhood.

The lion and goat sculptures. Immediate landmarks and a genuine gift with small children, who will go to them without being asked.

The corner entrances. Gates, steps and the buildings framing the view out. Good for a shot that places you in the city rather than in a park.

The streets just off it

Half my Rittenhouse sessions spend more time outside the square than in it, and if the park is unusually busy this is the escape.

The residential blocks south and west of the square give you brick, painted doors, window boxes, iron railings, stoops and quiet. Delancey Place in particular is one of the best portrait streets in the city: narrow, tree-lined, and empty at hours when the square is packed. Walking two blocks changes the pictures completely.

For couples, the small alleys and the older streets nearby do the same job as Old City cobblestone without the tourist traffic.

Parking, which is the bad news

There is no good parking answer here and I would rather say so than pretend.

Street parking around the square is metered, contested and time-limited, and on a nice weekend circling for twenty minutes is normal. There are commercial garages within a couple of blocks and they are the reliable option, at Center City garage prices.

Two things that make it easier. Come by transit if you can, since the square sits between several lines and stations. And if you are driving, budget fifteen minutes more than you think and plan to use a garage rather than hoping.

Bathrooms: no reliable public facility in the square itself. The surrounding cafés are the practical answer, which is worth knowing before a session with a newly potty-trained three-year-old.

Who it suits, and who it does not

Engaged couples: the best case, particularly in autumn or after dark. Two people move quickly through a dense location, and an hour here yields more variety than an hour anywhere else in Center City.

Families who live in the neighborhood: obviously yes. Photographs of your kids in the park you take them to every week are worth more than photographs of them in a prettier park you have never been to.

Families with one or two small children: good. Short distances, things to climb on, cafés nearby, and the session can end when the toddler is done without a long walk back.

Extended family of ten or more: no. There is nowhere to put that many people without blocking a path, and the ground is busy behind you in every direction. Take the big group to an open lawn instead.

Anyone who wants privacy: also no. If being watched while photographed is your worry, a park with two hundred people in it is not the answer, and I would send you to the woods.

If you want a short, cheap way to try the neighborhood before committing to a full session, the mini sessions run about an hour and suit a small family in a dense location like this well.