Philly photographer exploring the Delaware

Web site follows his two-year journey RIVER VALLEY — John Welsh, a Philadelphia area professional freelance photographer of 22 years, launched a new project and Web site in November. Welsh started photographing the river in August and estimates the project, titled “Exploring the Delaware,” will take him two years to complete. He plans to travel throughout the four states, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware that border the river. He anticipates most of his photographic opportunities will be found while driving and hiking, although he will reach remote locations by boat and bicycle. Until exhibitions are scheduled closer to project completion, Welsh created the Web site, exploringthedelaware.com as a source of continuous updates so viewers can watch as the project progresses. Some of his images are already displayed in web galleries and within single image posts on the site. “Thanks to a GPS receiver that attaches to my Nikon digital cameras, a Wordpress-based blog and Google Maps, I’m able to easily post images that are geotagged (with latitude and longitude coordinates) and display nicely with a corresponding map that shows a satellite view of each location,” said Welsh. Welsh, a Pennsylvania native, has photographed professionally and in a journalistic style since 1987. His largest project was a four-year exploration of Iceland from which he built an extensive photo collection and has had several exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally. “I have always photographed people since my career began and I have spent most of my time in Philadelphia, so I haven’t had lots of opportunity to photograph landscapes. But traveling in Iceland was amazing. I took advantage of my own lack of experience when photographing landscapes. I was free to experiment, whereas other photographers are often locked into a certain style. With the River Project, I hope to create another set of images that are as different as how I photographed Iceland,” said Welsh. In addition to the technology Welsh is using to display the geotagged images, he also has been shooting high definition video that he plans to post on the Web site as another way to share his experience. Welsh states that adding motion and sound is “just another way of telling a story.” Besides his attention to the river photography and the art he creates, Welsh also understands the social and environmental importance of the river. ”The Delaware is about 330 miles long, has a long and interesting history and without it, Philadelphia wouldn’t have the port culture it has today. If this project is able to bring even more awareness about protecting and maintaining the river, then it will have accomplished another goal.”