The other week in our Southern Home in Genoa, I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed something different in the room. The full moon was shining through the bedroom window. I was immediately intrigued by the scene, the light kind of magic, the textured curtains casting soft silvery shadows onto the bed. It felt simple but special. I had to get up and grab my iPhone 14 Pro to capture that moment. Sometimes, the best scenes are the ones you almost miss.
Taken with my iPhone 14 Pro with the built in dark monochrome filter. No post-processing.
Three boys around a small café table in Genoa’s Giardini Luzzati. Ignorant of the world moving around them. Children playing, trees swaying in the cold wind blowing from the sea, chatting people sitting at surrounding tables (including us enjoying a drink). Their focus is somewhere else. Pondering their next moves.
What I liked about this moment is how calm it felt. No phones in their hands. No rush. Just a simple game that has been played for hundreds of years. It’s cool to see young people still playing chess like this, out in the open, face to face. In a time where everything is fast and digital, they chose something slow and thoughtful. Chess makes people pause. It brings them together. It creates small worlds like this one—just a board, a few pieces, and three minds sharing the same space. And for those teens, in this moment, nothing else seemed more important.
Taken with my Fuji X-T50 and the Fujinon Super EBC XC 1:2.8-4.8/16-50mm R LM WR. Image specs 1/500sec | f/4.8 | ISO 1000 | 50mm (75mm full frame equivalent).
If you feel inspired to capture the stories of the streets and are looking for tips and inspirations around street photography, check out my free Learning Center.
Yesterday, The Significant Other and I visited the fantastic exhibition of dutch painter Anton van Dyck in Genoa’s Palazzo Ducale. After, we went for some errands in Via XX Settembre. And while the wife went into a clothing store, I stood under the arcades of La Superba’s principal shopping mile, snapping away at the passing faces of the street. I used my Fuji X-T50 and the Fujinon Super EBC XC 1:2.8-4.8/16-50mm R LM WR. And what can I say, the tiny camera/lens combo basically went unnoticed by the passing people. To see more images from a 15 minute stretch of street photography, click “read more”…
Street Photography is also about capturing juxtapositions. Like a girl having too many legs. I snapped this image with my iPhone 14 Pro one the steps of San Lorenzo Cathedral in Genoa. Click “read more” to see it from your slightly different angle.
More monochrome photography in this post. Taken yesterday on a stormy highway while enroute to our Southern Home in Italy. No worries, I didn’t drive under the influence (of photography). Our e-car was driving autonomous on the highway in Southern Bavaria, supervised by Big Boy sitting behind the wheel. While I was snapping at the amazing cloudscape with ever-changing light with my iPhone 16 Pro Max from the passenger seat. To see more images of this photographic road trip continue after the jump….
There’s something truly special about black and white photography. For me, it’s more than just removing color; it’s about stripping away distractions and getting right to the heart of what makes an image compelling. It’s about reducing the scene to its purest form: composition. Serenity in Shades of Gray.
Take this shot, for instance, captured in the Ligurian Apennines, northwest of Genoa. The moment I saw these majestic trees silhouetted against the misty mountains, I knew it had to be black and white. The layers of hills fading into the distance, the stark outlines of the pines – it all just sings in monochrome.
When I shoot in black and white, the entire process becomes a tranquil enjoyment. It forces me to see shapes, lines, and textures in a different way. The absence of color simplifies everything, allowing the eye to focus solely on the interplay of light and shadow, and the arrangement of elements within the frame. It’s photography reduced to a minimum, and in that simplicity, I find immense satisfaction.
This image, with its quiet strength and layered depth, perfectly embodies that feeling for me. It’s a reminder that sometimes, less truly is more, and that beauty can be found in the most understated of palettes.
What are your thoughts on black and white photography? Do you find it as calming and focused as I do? Let me know in the comments below!
Image taken with a Fuji X-T50 and the Fujinon Super EBC XC 1:2.8-4.8/16-50mm R LM WR. Image specs 1/3200 sec @ f/7.1, ISO 250 and 31mm focal lenght (full frame equivalent). Acros Film Simulation – jpg out of camera.
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.
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.
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.
If you are looking for more inspirations around street photography tips, check out my free “Learning Center”.
During last week’s stay in our “southern home” in Genoa, The Significant Other and I grabbed the opportunity to visit the World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 at Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. A hefty thunderstorm was passing through the city, so we gladly took the opportunity to spend some time indoors and explore this annual iconic photographic display. The exhibition was set up in the basement of the historic palace—once the seat of the Doges of the Republic of Genoa. To see more of it, continue after the jump…
Recent Comments