People of Bologna (and Ferrara and Padova)

I recently spent a week in Bologna in Northeastern Italy, from which I returned with a nice collection of street photographs. Bologna is a city of colours and textures (and light and shadow), and I tried to reflect these aspects in the photos I took, which is why I shot primarily in colour during the day. I resorted to black and white for the evening/night time photos. I added two sets to the People sections:

- Faces of Bologna (colour)

- Faces of Bologna (black & white)

I also made a couple of day trips, to nearby Ferrara and Padova (Padua), and a few of the pics in the colour set were taken in those two places. 

All photos were taken with a Fujifilm X-T10 using primarily a 35mm prime lens. 

More links:

- more people photography

- more photos from Italy

Paris by Night

I recently spent a short week-end in Paris. It's a city I've visited and photographed before, so I decided to do something I haven't done before, in Paris or anywhere else: I took the camera with me on a night outing. The camera being my camera of choice at the moment, the Fujifilm X-T10, this was the first time I gave it a serious try-out with low light photography, and it performed marvellously. I shot at high ISO, 6400, which adds a bit of graininess but that works just fine. Sure, some shots came out blurry, but most photos come out technically great. 

All the shots are people photographs, taken around the areas of Marais and Saint Germain, both in the street and inside cafés and bars. Some people I shot with their permission, most without. I now put up a selection of those photos here: Night Out in Paris. Enjoy. 

Neighbourhood Watch (Folks of Many Shades)

I live in Neukölln, a part of Berlin that until a few years ago was mostly a working class district, with a high percentage of 'guest worker' immigrants (that is, mainly first and second generation Turks and Lebanese, and a sprinkling of East Europeans), and an unemployment rate bordering on 30%. When I moved here some 15 years ago, nobody wanted to live here. Anyone who could afford it moved out, even more so if they had kids who reached schooling age. Rents were low and the district was going down the drain. Shops closed one after the other, only to be replaced by game parlours and betting places. There was one single decent restaurant around (a sushi place of all things), and you could count the amount of decent pubs on the fingers of one hand. The area was known for drug trafficking, for youth gangs, for schools who could not find teachers to teach, for heaps of dog shit on the sidewalk, and for people walking their beer bottles every hour of the day. Its fifteen minutes of fame came and went when national media  outlets started branding parts of Neukölln as 'no-go areas'. Oh, and David Bowie named an instrumental track after it, only he managed to spell it's name wrong ('Neuköln', on the album Heroes).

Much of that changed several years ago, when neighbouring hip Kreuzberg became crowded and expensive, and students and young new immigrants (sorry, 'expats', as the Americans, Brits, French, Israelis and Spaniards like to be known) realised that Neukölln's low rents beat its bad reputation. What started slowly is now in full swing: gentrification. That's both good and bad. Now we have decent pubs and clubs, plenty of no-fuzz restaurants (old and new) serving good food, and a mix of languages, ethnicities, fashion statements and gender fluidity to rival that of London and New York. And people clean up after their dogs. But, inevitably, this also means rising rents and unscrupulous landlords trying to force their old tenants out. There are even plans to build posh walled estates in the middle of those supposed 'no-go-areas'. 

Yet, the district is still far from being upmarket. Walk the streets and you still find discarded furniture and appliances just tossed on the sidewalk. The game parlours are still there, as are the smoke filled corner pubs with the all-day drunks. There are still plenty of people trying to make ends meet, running the gamut from homeless to jobless to those working their arse off in low paying part-time jobs. 

Nowhere is the 'clash of cultures' more evident than on Hermannplatz, a busy square between Neukölln and Kreuzberg. It's ugly and not very inviting, but for about a year now, a market is being held there on four days of the week, with stalls selling traditional Berlin food such as 'Currywurst' (sausages with curry powder ketchup) and doener kebab (which is now as traditional to Berlin as the bagel is to New York) besides stalls selling vegan, Korean or Spanish food as well as hip(ster) coffee brews. And it's here that a very colourful mix of Neuköllners both new and old hangs out: the hipsters, the homeless, the drunks, the yuppies, the refugees, the artists, the retired, the students, the housewives, the jobless and the working, from all corners of the globe.

I pass this square every day on my way to work, yet for some reason I had never stopped to take photos. This changed a few weeks ago when I was sick for a week while being on vacation. Not feeling up to criss-crossing the city, I took my camera to Hermannplatz, sat down and had coffee and observed the people. And I started taking photos. First I took candid shots, the way I usually do in Berlin, but then I decided that I might get better results if I asked permission of people. Surprisingly, I found a number of folks who were not only willing but happy to pose - much like the gentleman pictured on top, who quite happily chats with me now every time I run into him. The same goes for the lady posted here on the right. 

A number the people I photographed, with or without permission, live on the fringe. You can tell that they struggle to make ends meet, yet the ones I talked to seemed content, if not happy; or at least wanted to appear so. Moreover, you can tell that what they want to display, behind all their idiosyncrasies, is dignity and pride. And this is how I hopefully manage to portray them. 

(Yes, there is also a fair amount of homeless people, hard-core alcoholics and a few lone junkies hanging out here, and to paint a true picture of the neighbourhood, I would have needed to include their portraits. But I'm not a reporter, and I do draw the line at photographing people's mysery just for the sake of it.)

I've been taking photos in the square and the neighbouring streets almost every day now for the past two months, usually on my way home from work, which explains why many of the photos reflect a soft, late-summer evening light. Because I wanted to use an unobtrusive camera, I mostly used the compact Leica X2, and to take advantage of that special light, I shot all photos in colour. 

I've now uploaded a selection of the photos, and you can see the full set here:

Folks Of Many Shades.

As Summertime Ends

With summer drawing to a close in these parts of the world, it's time to wrap up those summer photo shoots. I've still been out and about in Berlin over the last sunny weeks and captured more street photographs, a selection of which I added to the sets I uploaded a couple of months ago: The Singer On the Couch and Scenes of Summer, the former being in black and white, the latter in colour. As before, the bulk of the new colour photos were shot with the Leica X2, and all the black and white ones with a Fuji, this time the X-T10. These are the final additions to these sets, and I must say I'm happy how they turned out.

Apart from the images which I added to these sets, I also shot a bunch of street photos around my neighbourhood, most of them with the Leica X2, which I will be adding later as a separate set - these photos really stand on their own and don't really fit in with the happy-go-free images of the other two sets.

So, here's to a good summer almost past. Enjoy.

Links: 

- The Singer on the Couch (black and white set)

- Scenes of Summer (colour set)

- The Singer on the Couch blog entry 

- Scenes of Summer blog entry

Learning From the Masters: Eric Kim

Photo by Eric Kim 

It's been a while since I posted an article on something not related to my own work, so it's about time I do that again. Recently I attended a lecture by Eric Kim at Eyeem's Berlin HQ, which is just around the corner from where I live. I didn't know Eric before reading  the announcement of the lecture, although plenty of others do, since he is a young man who is making a living out of delivering lectures and workshops on street photography. On his web site he gives all of his ebooks and lectures away for free, and it's definitely worth a visit.

Earlier, I posted a lengthy article on how returning to digital photography has left me a bit at a loss regarding the direction I want to take. Street photography, which I had been doing on and off since the 1990s, was high on my list, but I knew that with digital cameras, I had to approach it differently from the way I used the Holga cameras. Hence my decision to attend Eric's lecture, which was entitled '7 Lessons from the Masters of Street Photography' and which can be viewed/downloaded here. It was thankfully light on technical stuff, but what little technical advice he gave was excellent and I started applying it the next day: basically, set the camera in P mode, put a high ISO (up to 6400) so that the camera uses fast shutter speeds, and there you go (or as an alternative, use a slow aperture setting to again force fast shutter speeds). Excellent advice as you needn't worry about camera settings when you're out shooting, and a voice of reason in a field where the general advice seems to be 'real photographers do it all manual.'

Eric also weighed in whether it was preferable to shoot candidly or with the subject's permission - he does both and has made some very good experiences in getting his subjects' cooperation for the shooting. I had earlier written about how frustrating it is in Germany to photograph people as they are very reluctant to have their picture taken. But on my recent visit to Marseille, France, I decided to try and approach people to let me take their photo. So I chatted with people and then asked if I could take their picture. It didn't always work out but in half the cases it did. Since being back in Berlin, I've tried the same. More people turn me away here, but certain folks are happy to have their picture taken - but that's the stuff for another article...

Back to Eric then. One of the things he also preaches is to keep things simple. That includes your camera gear. He advocates using one camera and one lens.  Again, very good advice as I was considering taking three cameras with me to Marseille (a Fuji, a Leica and a Holga), and based on Eric's advice, I only took the Fuji. The decision saved me from backaches (lugging that gear around in a backpack) and from headaches (pondering which camera to use for which situation).

As I said, Eric is full of very good advice, different from what you get from other photographers, and all his output is available for free, so there is no reason not to go and  read up on his stuff.

Eric's links:

- blog

- downloads

- his photos

Tango In the Night: Street Photography from Marseille

I recently came back from a six day visit to Marseille, in the South of France. Before going there, I did not really know what to expect. Films and books tend to paint a negative image of the city, and whenever the praises of the French Mediterranean are sung, Marseille is seldom mentioned. I basically only knew that it was old (the Greeks and the Romans had been there) and the second largest city in France. And that it was considered to lie "just outside of Africa."

I found the city charming, with plenty to see and do, and with nice places to hang out. It's a very cosmopolitan city, owing much of its charm and character to the many inhabitants that stem from North Africa. 

I took a fairly large number of photos, most of them of people. I found most

folks easygoing - I was seldom rebuked for taking pictures of people, in fact, often enough people would volunteer to have their photo taken. One lady, on noticing that I was going to photograph her, laughed and said "Ain't I beautiful?", before posing for the camera. A young man (depicted here on the right) first thought I was a policeman, but then we chatted for a while and he let me take this photo.

One of my favourite hang-outs was around the old Fort Jean, at the mouth of the Old Port, and the adjacent (stunning) MUCEM museum complex. Here, locals like to hang out, to swim, sunbathe, fish or snorkel; while the youngsters made a sport of jumping off the fortress' ramparts into the sea. So it's not by accident that I shot many photos around that place.

I took other photos of Marseille as well, not just people photographs, but at this point I don't yet know if I will put them up. Meanwhile, though, here is the set entitled "Tango In the Night and Other Tales of Marseille". Enjoy.

The Singer On the Couch....

I recently uploaded the second part of the street photography project I have been pursuing this summer (read the blog entry here). After the initial set of colour images, I now put uploaded a collection of photos in black and white which I entitled 'The Singer On the Couch and Other Berlin Tales'.

On any given day, I decide before heading out whether I will shoot in colour or

in black & white. I seldom mix and match during an outing, the reason being that I find it takes a certain mindset for either option (the same for choosing between shooting in analog or digital). While in winter I generally use black and white, in summer I like to vary. I love shooting in colour, but shooting in black and white in sunny weather has its own rewards as you get to play with light and shadows and stark contrasts. Some of the images in the set hark back to last winter, but the majority was shot this summer. They reflect the joys of summer, the feeling of being alive that people exude during this all too brief season in our part of the world. Sometimes the scenes are serene, sometimes playful, sometimes even silly; but always joyful - something which I find black and white photos are able to bring better to the forefront than colour photographs do, possibly because colours tend to distract or infuse emotions of their own.

Again, I tried to select photos that go beyond being more snapshots, taking into account factors like framing, grouping, use of light and darkness, but also context, which for me is as important as the subject being photographed. 

I used three cameras for this project, the inobtrusive and reliable Fujifilm X30, thr more flexible Fujifilm X-T10 with a zoom lens as well as 27mm and 35mm lens, the latter having become my favourite lens. I also used the Leica X2 for a few shots, but mainly I keep that camera for the colour sessions. 

Links:

- The Singer on the Couch and Other Tales of Berlin (Black and White Street Photography)

- Scenes of Summer (Colour Street Photography)

- more Berlin street photography

- more people photographs 

Summer Scenes: Berlin Street Photography

I recently blogged about the fact that for the time being I'm concentrating on digital photography rather than analog as I used to. Earlier this year I posted architectural photographs from Berlin and London shot mostly with the Fujifilm X30, which was the first project I undertook with the new digital camera. 

I have now also uploaded a of new set of images which I took as part of a second project that I embarked on with digital cameras, namely street photography. This is the first set for this project, and it features colour photographs which were taken this summer, mostly using the Leica X2 camera, but also a Fujifilm X30 and more recently a Fujifilm X-T10. I'm quite enamoured with the Leica's colour output, I must say, which is why it seemed to me the best choice when heading out on sunny days (although I do wish the camera came with a view finder!). Although Fujifilm cameras do a great job too with colours, I find I use them mostly for black and white.

The project is ongoing, as is summer, so the set may yet change. I'm also putting together a second set with black and white photos which will be up later this summer.

I hadn't really attempted street photography in Europe recently. When travelling in India and China, I enjoyed photographing people, be it candid shots or casual portraits. Asians in general, and Indians in particular, are very relaxed about being photographed. It's usually a matter of 'you shoot me, I shoot you' attitude, which is all about sharing. Not so in Europe, and particularly in Germany. Germans have this thing what they call 'the right to your own image.' They like to cite that to you like a mantra whenever you mention that you photograph strangers. I blame Karl May for that. Karl May is that 19th century German author who wrote novels about the American West (and other exotic locales) without ever having set foot there. He claimed in his novels that Native Americans did not want to be photographed as they believed that it robbed them of their soul (May had a lot of BS theories about Native Americans). Germans, who basically grow up on Karl May, seem to have internalised this philosophy: if you (a stranger) take their image, you rob them of a part of them. At least that's my theory as to why so many people tell me off, give me the finger, hide their faces or give me the evil eye when I aim the camera in their general direction (ok, I may be a bit harsh here on the Germans, maybe all Westerners have internalized this Karl May philosophy). 

So, to cut a long story short, street photography in Berlin is mostly about stealth. Sometimes some folk consent to begin photographed if you ask nicely, but in general it is best to remain inconspicuous when shooting in the street. This is one of the strengths of the Leica X2 of course, it is small and silent. Using the Leica however presents the challenge of using a fixed 27mm lens,  meaning you have to get close to your subject. That's one skill I'm still working on, one deep breath at a time....

This set, then, is a representation of a typical urban summer: locals enjoying the elusive sun or coping with the heat, tired tourists trying to put a brave face on things, street people trying to cope with life etc. When selecting the photos for the set, I looked out for two things: that the picture is interesting in itself (or because of its subject), and that somehow it goes beyond being a mere snapshot. I hope I succeeded. 

Enjoy... and have a good summer :) 

Links:

- Berlin Scenes of Summer

- more portrait and street photography sets