dark figures © Lilly Schwartz 2012

| Canon EOS 450D | 50.0 mm | f/1.4 | 1/30 sec |

I walked along a couple of streets yesterday that I didn’t know. It didn’t get me off course on the way to the shop, because I planned to explore a bit anyway and in the end I found the supermarket without problems. It’s dark around here at night, not many shops, a few corner cafés of the cheap kind and kids on the streets in little groups talking among themselves in foreign languages. I only need to go on the other side of the big avenue where the U-Bahn station is and there would be much more life, but on this side here it seems to be just a mixture between residential and industrial area, dark, quiet and a bit gloomy even on a winter night. I took the picture across from our house when I noticed these two dark figures standing there in the backyard. It seemed to reflect the atmosphere pretty well.

On the way back from the shop there was a guy with a pit bull walking in front of me. I decided not to overtake them, since you never know what such a dog might be up to. After all we call them “Kampfhunde” (attack dogs) for a reason. Then a woman was walking towards us and you could see the guy tighten the grip around the leash already expecting something to happen. And indeed the dog just charged towards the woman and she jumped back in horror calling out “Jesus”, while the guy had no problems whatsoever holding the dog. He wasn’t even surprised and had a smirk on his face as if he enjoyed such scenes. Although it was one of those moments where you’re not really sure whether you’re going to see one of the worst sights of your life in a few moments, it was strangely funny, since I was already expecting it to happen. Maybe it was the strangeness of seeing an imagined worst case scenario almost happen. And then maybe it was just human nature that made me feel like bursting out in laughter. Years ago I read somewhere that in apes laughing is a fear response. It seems to explain these collections of “funny videos” where you almost against your will start laughing about someone having a terrible accident with broken bones. Nothing happened in the end. The woman just got out of the way of the dog, who hadn’t even barked, and I started thinking about having the shopping bag in my hand instead of my camera. And since most people are strangely fascinated by the terrors of existence I didn’t even feel bad about that thought. Human nature …