Just a quick post today, with a photograph I took when The Significant Other and I visit the Old Town Fair that the city has organized on Nuremberg’s Central Market, as kind of compensation for the two big city fairs that had to be cancelled due to Covid this year. Does it then make sense to still have fair with a ferris wheel, a rollercoaster, an auto scooter and a carousel when cases are still raising with all the people returning from vacation? I’m not sure, but it sure was fun. Fully masked though….
Who would have seen that coming, the Oly fan-boy venturing out in neighbor’s garden. Even I myself never thought I might be exploring another camera system. But it has really happened. I bought a Fuji….
Who would have thought that Covid has some positive side effects. And I’m not talking global effects, like blue skies without contrails, clean city air and coast lines that see sea life returning. To compensate reduced occupancy due to distancing requirements, the City of Nuremberg allowed restaurants in the Old Town to put tables out on the streets combined with blocking traffic and turning streets into pop-up pedestrian zones.
On the weekend, The Significant Other and I made use of it, enjoying a dinner together with friends in an excellent French Restaurant in a beautiful alley in the Old Town below the magnificent towers of St. Sebald Church.
I took this photograph of my beautiful wife with the Leica M and the Elmarit-M F/2.8 28mm. Image specs are 1/25 sec @ f/3.4 and ISO 3200. The Leica handles the ISO quite well, the only challenge was to manually focus the rangefinder to make sure her profile is sharp. Who says a 28mm isn’t suitable for portraits? There is nothing like the smooth rendering of the Leica lenses shot wide open.
Do you have similar positive side effects from Corona? Let me know in the comments!
“Isolation is not good for me” – remember the line from the 1995 song “Lemon Tree” by the band “Fool’s Garden”? Well, despite the loosening up of the Covid-19 restrictions everywhere, we are still far from life as we knew it from before Corona.
I have no idea if the guy staring into his cellphone was checking the weather. But a weather check for the Streets of Nuremberg would have shown a cold front passing through today, with heavy rains and a significant drop in temperature. Was definitely time for a warm jacket for everyone out and about.
I was playing around with my Elmarit F/2.8 90mm on the Leica M. Image specs 1/125 sec @ f/4 and ISO 3200. The high ISO is not a problem for the M, and the monochrome images directly out of camera are quite beautiful. The backdrop shows the historic Heilig-Geist-Spital with the River Pegnitz passing underneath.
From a distance – wasn’t there this song by Bette Middler? It’s the core theme of these days, with countries slowly returning to the “new normal” and people trying to find the right balance between staying safe and the necessity of somehow have to carry on with their daily lives.
This photograph of a mother and her child was also taken from a distance. I was standing on the balustrade above the “Liebesinsel” (Island of Love), a small island in the River Pegnitz in Nuremberg’s Old Town.
Happy Mayday from the Streets of Nuremberg. A strange first day of May it was. Covid-19 lockdown, stormy weather, empty streets – far away from the usual cheerfulness at the start into what we Germans call the “Wonnemonat”. Dearly in need to see something else than our home and the supermarket, The Significant Other and I headed downtown to the Wöhrder See, where the Pegnitz River is dammed to a lake just before entering the city walls.
Last November, The Significant Other and I visited Jordan. It was a great trip into a fascinating country. I already wrote about our visit to the ancient Nabatean capital Petra and the tour of Kerak Castle, a stronghold from the time of the crusaders. Today I take you along to explore Al Balad market in the old town of Jordan’s capital Amman.
Public life has come to a total standstill on the Streets of Nuremberg. Bavarian state authorities have issued a 24/7 curfew for the next two weeks. We can leave our homes only to go to work (if we have a pass from our employer), to seek medical assistance or to buy groceries. Single persons (or people living in one household) can also go for a walk outside. Only grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and places selling take-out food are open. When things got bad in China and the government locked up 15 million people in Wuhan, we all said that would be impossible to do in our western democracies. Four weeks later we know better. Crazy world. Amazingly, the majority of the affected population is fully supportive of the measure. Including me.
March is upon us, and spring is coming to the Streets of Nuremberg. And it’s really time for it. Albeit, how much we will be able to enjoy it will also depend on how things will continue with the new coronavirus. And it doesn’t look good these days. The latest company directive is to avoid all travels, and everyone who can work from home should work from home for the time being (affecting me as well). And I just learned from TV news that Italy has put the entire nation under lockdown, that means 60 million people. And who’s to decide if that’s insanity or necessary precautions. But, coming back to the Streets of Nuremberg, well into the fourth year of existence of this blog, I thought it was about time for some needed personal spring cleaning.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women, merely players”, said William Shakespeare once. It’s also the motto of this blog. This monochrome street photograph is yet another example of it.
