“A Lisbon Street” — A narrow, curving street in Alfama, lined with colorful buildings.
From my limited experience, this feels like a “typical” street of Lisbon’s Alfama district… except that the street is wider than many of the passageways. The lines suggest that it is two lanes wide — though I imagine that when a trolley goes up and down those tracks there isn’t a lot of room for anyone else!
There is a lot in this scene that attracted my attention. The street itself with its pairs of tracks and optimistic center dividing line is one. The stacked and tightly spaced buildings are another. And I love the saturated colors, from the nearly pure white to the many yellow buildings, and the bits of blue here and there.
“Night Street, Santiago de Compostela” — People stroll along quiet streets in the early evening, Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela was one of two Spanish cities we visited on this trip almost on a whim. We knew almost nothing about it, aside from the fact that it is the endpoint for thousands of Camino participants, who take weeks or months to walk there. We ended up loving the town, with its old central district that is charming and has a different feel than other cities — in part due to the connection to the caminos.
When traveling we walk a lot and often just head out with no well-defined plan, expecting to see and discover things as we go. My recollection is that this was a post-dinner walk — though given Spain’s late dinner our it could have been pre-dinner! This street, with its old stone buildings, porticos, and narrow passages was almost deserted.
This is one of those “shoot fast” street photography images that I sometimes like while traveling. It happened so quickly that I barely remember the act of making the photo. My recollection is that we were walking along a street in Bruges, Belgium when I spotted this group and fired off a frame. I think there might be several ways to “see” this image…
One is simply compositionally — the arrangement of figures and colors, the direction of their attention, the pointing hand, the one fellow standing slightly apart from the other three people, a parallel between the body positions of the two at the right/left extremes, and the physical contact between the two in the middle. I think it also conveys something important about the experience of travel — the possibility of being astonished, the public innocence about that experience, and more.
Thanks, Brenda. I especially appreciate the comment on _this_ photograph as it is a big of a challenge for some of my landscape fans to make sense of the street photography stuff! :-)
“Marché de Noël, Paris” — Crowds at the Paris Christmas Market in the Tuileries Garden.
Last year’s late-fall and early-winter travel that took us to Germany, France, and Spain. We were in Paris for a few days about a week into December, and holiday festivities were in full swing. Stores had their decorations up, some streets had overhead holiday lights, and the Christmas markets were open. We briefly walked through this one at the Tuileries Garden near the Louvre.
Although the German markets seem to be the most famous — or at least the best-known in the United States — Christmas markets are all over Europe. Here it Paris it is the “Marché de Noël.” The basic idea is similar everywhere we went, from Germany to Spain. Vendor booths are set up in a public place, often a town square. They sell seasonal items, gifts, and local food and drinks. Mulled wine is the popular drink — vin chaud in France and gluhwein in Germany.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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