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.
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….
In this image waves meet love. Hmmm….can you call this a street photograph when it was taken at the beach? The question came up the in the comments of my previous post. While the question is valid, the answer is simple. Street photography isn’t defined by where it’s taken, but by what it captures. It’s about observing real, unscripted human moments in public spaces. A beach, just like a sidewalk, a subway, or a park, is a public stage where life unfolds naturally. Or as Shakespeare says “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women, merely players” which is the motto of this blog.
Taking with my iPhone 14 Pro. If you are looking for tips and inspirations around street photography, check out my free Learning Center.
The other weekend, The Significant Other and I spent an afternoon in Celle Ligure, a picturesque little town a few kilometers west of our Southern Home in Genoa. In March, we are still a few weeks removed from start of the swimming season. Now, Celle’s beach is still a quiet stretch of shoreline, where the world seems to pause between sky and sea. I was intrigued by the two figures sit at the edge, somehow dwarfed by the vast horizon, sharing a moment that feels both intimate and infinite. Street Photography can be very calm and minimalistic.
Taking with my iPhone 14 Pro. Slight cropping in Lightroom Classic. If you are looking for tips and inspirations around street photography, check out my free Learning Center.
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.
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.
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.”
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