What is the best way for the street photographer when the summer in the city gets too intense? Right, then it is the time for some high contrast monochrome photography. The monumental circular bronze fountain in Genoa’s Piazza de Ferrari, built in 1936 by the architect Cesare Crosa di Vergagni and donated by the Piaggio family, provides the perfect background. To see more images taken on this beautiful Piazza in the heart of Genoa, continue after the jump…
I have always admired photographers that have managed to capture a plane flying across the moon. And always dreamed about one day doing it myself. And then, as most often in life, things just happen. The Significant Other and I were sitting on the balcony of our Southern Home, enjoying dinner and the moon rise over the roofs, towers and domes of Genoa. The admittedly not completely full but rather large disc of the moon was rising quickly into the sky.
I had the Nikon Zf out with the Nikkor 24-200/4-6.3 attached to capture some close ups of the moon behind the historic skyline. Then, a bit later, the evening flight from Munich was coming in, also from behind the city, flying along the shoreline for landing at Cristoforo Colombo Airport. And I thought….this might just work out. And so it did. I squeezed off two shots, and the first one nailed it. Fly me to the moon….
As the saying goes…luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Although I nearly screwed up. As I should have switched the camera to burst mode, but completely forgot to thing about in this moment. Maybe because the Nikon has no lag at all and I completely trust that I can nail the exact moment. In my second shot, the plane was already half out of the moon.
I took the shot handheld, image specs 1/400 sec @ f6/3, ISO 500, 200mm focal length and -1 exposure compensation, retaining details in the moon surface. The image above is heavily cropped in. Postprocessing in Photoshop and Lightroom Classic.
Caught this gem while walking past a diner window. There he was, mid-bite, mid-thought. A bearded man in a hoodie, sitting solo with a bowl of what looked like healthy regret (possibly lentils?), frozen in the decisive moment. Flashing me the universal gesture for “I Dunno, Man” or more likely “I have no idea what’s going on.”
His eyes locked with mine through the glass, and he gave me the shrug, palms up, eyebrows raised, expression halfway between confusion and enlightenment. It’s the face of a man who just found out the Wi-Fi password is “password123.” As if the universe just asked him to explain crypto.
Behind him, the city lights blur into a soft bokeh, the kind only a prime lens and a dirty window can truly deliver. The reflections in the window only add to the chaotic magic, making him look like he’s pondering life in two dimensions.
Judging by his face, he was okay me taking his photograph. This, friends, is the candid gold we street photographers live for. Pure, unscripted “what even is this?” energy.
Street photography at its finest: awkward, honest, and strangely profound. 10/10 candid confusion. Would photograph this again. And again.
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