The Lion never sleeps. Neither does his marble companion on the other side of the grand stairs leading up to Genoa’s San Lorenzo Cathedral. The silent sentinel just lies there, watching the threshold and people come and go. Somehow it also feels welcoming, inviting passersby to lean against it or climb up and sit for a moment. My kids did exact that when they were little, turning the ancient guardian into a temporary playground companion. The pedestal beneath the beast is hardly empty. There seems to be always someone sitting there, resting, watching other people or, like in this case, checking whatever on the cell phone.
I took the image with my Nikon Zf and the Nikkor Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR. Specs are 1/160 sec @ f/6 , ISO 400 and 60mm focal length. Monochrome jpg out of camera.
Today is Befana, as the Feast of Epiphany is called in Italy. Traditionally observed on January 6, it commemorates the visit of the Wise Men in Bethlehem, celebrating the moment Jesus is revealed to the world. Across many cultures, the day is marked with festive customs, special foods, and local celebrations that reflect its message of revelation and unity. Here in Italy, the children get their presents from the Befana, a friendly old woman depicted as a witch. Befana also marks the end of the Christmas season. And for Genoa, this is the last day the Christmas lights are turned on in the evening. Traditionally, The Significant Other and I spend the first week of the new year in our Southern Home at the Ligurian Sea. And over the past days we have enjoyed strolling through the medieval city center and the harbor, enjoying the decorations. Join us for some impressions of the Genoa Christmas Lights….
There is nothing to worry about – the young talents are already roaming the streets. I captured this image of a next gen photographer the other day on the streets of Genoa.
The photograph was taken with my Nikon Zf and the Nikkor Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR. Specs are 1/400 sec @ f/6.3 , ISO 450 and 200mm focal length. Jpg out of camera.
I wish all my friends a blessed, happy, marvelous, successful, beautiful, inspirational, creative, wonderful and healthy 2026. May all your wishes and dreams come true!
Yesterday afternoon, The Significant Other and I went for a walk up the mountain behind the house we’re staying. Sure enough an opportunity to capture some of the surrounding beauty on a sensor. As “real” camera I brought the Nikon Zf plus some primes. And then there are the two iPhone cameras in my office phone (iPhone 16 Pro Max) and my personal device (iPhone 14 Pro). The camera I grabbed for our walk was the technically “weakest”, the iPhone 14 Pro.
Photography literally means “drawing with light”. There is no reference about technology in this. While having a capable device to capture light on a sensor (or film) certainly is a prerequisite, it is not the key component for taking good photographs. In fact, some of the world’s greatest images have been captured with technology that was far inferior to what we can use today. Photography is more about the eye, the creativity in our minds than technology. Taking landscape images, it is about light, contrast, color, shapes, textures and composition. And this for me is the fun when out and about, doing my “visual push ups”. So come along for a walk with my phone…..
We are wrapping up 2025 with a little family vacation in the Austrian mountains. Actually it is the first time in what seems ages that the four of us spending off-time together. Actually we are 4+1, as Big Girl’s boyfriend has joined us for the trip. Using the downtime to go through the year’s images, I found this photograph of a teenage boy I took in one of Tashkent’s markets. He’s framed by a butchery stall that looks almost sculptural—piled high with pale pink bones, cut clean and stacked with casual precision. And there he is, calm and completely at home, perched behind the counter like the quiet conductor of controlled chaos.
What caught me first wasn’t the scale of the meat or the gleam of the blade resting nearby, but his expression. Lips pursed, a whistle clearly forming—maybe already sounding—he looks as if he’s passing the time with a tune only he can hear. It’s a wonderfully human detail in an otherwise raw, visceral scene. While customers come and go, while orders are shouted and cleavers rise and fall, he whistles.
There’s something timeless about it. Markets like this have existed for centuries, and so have moments like this one: a young helper learning the trade, standing knee-deep in the everyday reality of work, still finding space for playfulness. The whistle softens the sharpness of the setting. It turns a butcher’s stall into a stage, and the boy into its most memorable character.
Street photography is often about contrasts, and here they sing—quite literally.
Taken with my Nikon Zf with the Nikkor 40mm f/2. Image specs 1/60 sec @ f/7.1 and ISO 1250.
If you are looking for tips and inspirations around street photography, check out my free Learning Center.
To everyone out there, but particularly to all the many magic people I’ve had the blessings to meet through my blogging on the “Streets of Nuremberg”, I wish a peaceful and merry Christmas and much love and laughters together with your family and friends.
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, Big Boy and I headed to Madrid to watch the Miami Dolphins play the Washington Commanders in the 2025 Madrid Game as part of the NFL’s international series. To give you some impressions of this fantastic event (with the right team winning 16:13 in OT), here a few images from and around the game. Fins Up!
This young couple obviously didn’t mind stepping out into the rain after leaving the Madrid Metro at Gran Via Station in the city center. It was really rainy, the long weekend that Big Boy and I did spend in Spain’s capital on the occasion of attending the Madrid Game of the NFL’s international series at Bernabéu Stadium. While carrying my Fuji X-T2 in my backpack most of the time, I ended up shooting the whole weekend with my iPhone 16 Pro Max only. Which is perfectly capable of handling my street photography. In this scene, I took three shots of the couple as they left the Metro. The third image was the keeper, with the girl smiling in the rain.
A scene from a wet and chilly night on the streets of Madrid. A young couple seated in front of the Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena, across from the Royal Palace. Leaning into each other, enjoying a moment of shared silence while the city moved around them. I don’t know what they were looking at on that phone. Maybe a photo of a friend. Maybe a message, or a train schedule, or nothing important at all. But in that frozen instant, the world outside stopped mattering.
This is the kind of thing I’m always on the hunt for with my Street Photography. Not grandeur, not drama, but the gentle realities we walk by every day. Snapped with my iPhone 16 Pro Max. Postprocessing in Lightroom Classic.
If you are looking for tips and inspirations around street photography, check out my free “Learning Center.”
The Significant Other and I took the metro train into town today, heading to the Humbold Forum in the center of Berlin. The first photo I took on this week’s trip to our Nation’s capital. I just love the striped hoodie and its reflection in the train’s window. I shot this image from the hip using zone focusing on my Nikon Zf. Easy to do as I had a manual M42 mount lens attached via an adapter, the roughly 60 year old Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 2.8/35. Image specs 1/400 sec @ f/4 with ISO 1400. Setting an f/4 aperture, the aperture/range markings on top of the Flektogon told me that the guy staring into his cell phone had to be in focus. Post-processing in Lightroom Classic.
Today, October 3rd, is the German Unity Day, or “Tag der deutschen Einheit”, as it is called in our language. It commemorates our countries reunification in 1990, when the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ceased to exist and joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), so that for the first time since 1945 there existed a single German state. German Unity Day on 3 October has been our national holiday since 1990, when the reunification was formally completed.
In this post I share some (vintage) images from the Reichstag dome on top of our national parliament building in our capital Berlin. Continue after the jump for its history and some more image, taken back in 2007 and 2008 with a Nikon D80 – remember the old days 😉 ?
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