November is upon us. And with it the obligatory November blues. Many persons I know are dreading this month, as it is the month of remembrance of the dead, the month of grey, wet, foggy, cold dull days. There is lots of work in the garden to prepare it for winter. With the change of the clock to winter time this past weekend it is practically dark by 5pm. It is also the transition month between the last warm days of the year with the explosive colors of autumn and the happiness and joy of the upcoming festive season.
Tonight is “All Hallow’s Eve”, the eve before the religious feast All Saints (aka All Hallow’s Day), remembering the dead, saints and martyrs of christianity. Many of the traditions of Halloween are believed to originate in ancient Celtic harvest festivals and pagan traditions. It was mainly Irish immigrants to the USA who brought along the many more secular traditions like trick-or-treating, Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns and lighting bonfires. In Europe, All Saints was mainly celebrated in the religious sense (remembering the dead, lighting candles at their graves). Only in the last ten years the more “American” way of celebrating Halloween became more popular into what is now a big commercial business for retail.
This year, we in Frankonia are blessed with a colorful and sunny last October weekend. And with this image of an enchanted haunted house in a forest near Nuremberg I wish you a very happy halloween!
Photograph taken with my iPhone 12. Jpg out of camera.
Life’s been wild lately, not only for us, but also for the rest of the world. “Looking at you” I dubbed this shot of The Significant Other looking at a Steve McCurry portrait of an Afghan mujahideen. The world famous documentary photographer, known for his intense portraits, took this image in Afghanistan back in 1979. We are in Zurich for the weekend and took the opportunity to visit the Steve McCurry exhibition that’s currently on display at the Maaghalle. Over the years, McCurry has been multiple times to Afghanistan, and some of his most iconic images are from there. On display at the exhibition, they now emit a strange sense of actuality, given the current sad events.
You know I like to shoot street photography in exhibitions and museums, and this beautiful curated and presented display of McCurry’s work provided an awesome background. For tonight I leave you with this initial image and get now busy with more editing from this afternoon’s photographic outing.
Image taken with my iPhone 12 Pro Max, post processed with iOS photo app.
A quick post with a street photograph in between. Isn’t this drive through shopping at it’s best? Driving a scooter through a market shopping veggies directly from a stall still sitting on the machine? Life as it happens on a greek Saturday market.
Image taken with the Leica M and the Summicron 50mm F/2. Image specs 1/125 sec @ f/11 and ISO 400. Postprocessing in Lightroom Classic.
Stay tuned for more posts of my series “Greece explored”.
Sure enough our vacation in Greece offers some opportunity at street photography. We spent the morning of last Saturday at the market in Argos, the town nearest to our holiday getaway. I brought along the Leica M (Type 240) with the Summicron 50mm F/2. Here are a couple shots from that outing.
“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept” is one of my favorite quotes from the godfather of street photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004). Not that I want to use it as a fig leaf to cover up the fact that I wasn’t able to capture a tack sharp image of this couple being in a rush in a dark alley in Bologna’s historic old town on a late Thursday evening. Image specs are 1/15 sec @ f/5 and ISO 3200 with a 80mm focal length.
While thoroughly enjoying our days in Greece (and being busy filling my SD cards) here is some more from the streets of Bologna. This series is all monochrome (RAW conversion in Lightroom Classic). I loved the harsh contrasts the bright afternoon summer light threw onto the streets in the old town.
Wondering about the story behind the image. This is what makes Street Photography my favorite genre. Reading between the lines. What was my subject up to? This example nails it. What does this taxi driver read? Is ist a letter? A handwritten contract? Just some notes? Definitely something unusual in the times of everyone only looking at LCD screens.
The next time you are out and about in your city, try to capture a photo that gets the imagination going. You can capture it even with your smartphone. Be on the lookout for those scenes wherever you are. It can be in the grocery store just as well as when you are roaming the streets. You can train your eye even when you have to camera or smart phone with you. Find your image that makes everyone try to find the story behind.
If you are looking for more tips and inspirations around street photography, check out my free Learning Center.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Far in the distance, barely visible. Pessimists might even argue that, in all likelihood, it is the headlamp of an oncoming train. Well, Murphy’s law won’t happen in this tunnel. While indeed being an old railroad tunnel at the Ligurian coast, nowadays it belongs to bikers and hikers. So why I’m musing about a light at the end of a tunnel in Italy that, due to Covid restrictions in Europe, can’t even be reached these days from Germany?
With the third Covid wave rolling with full force through Germany, we are now facing a socially distanced Easter holiday. It’s been more than a year since the pandemic started. A year of failed promises from the countries leadership. People are worn out, it is visible everywhere. We are all in need of closeness, being able to able to physically embrace our friends when we see them. You remember the times when complete strangers stood in our pedestrian zones holding up signs offering free hugs? Instead we now only talk from a distance. But what is the photographic lessons learnt?
Anyone home? This would be the title to this street photograph. But it also would have been the right question to ask the “Streets of Nuremberg” in the past weeks, the last post already dating back to the end of February. No worries! I’m still here, alive and kicking (as much as the Covid restrictions allow).
I simply took a break from blogging. I needed it, after five years of continuous content creation. But now it’s time to be back and continue to share my photographic ventures. Will need a few days to answer all comments and catch up with all of your blogs. I hope that you all got through these pandemic time unscathed.
