special

The other day my mum complained that I don’t tell any stories anymore that go with my pictures. Well, the truth is that there just isn’t anything to tell! This “city” is so small that everything interesting to see can be covered in a day or two and walking from one end to the other takes less than an hour. I have by now seen every street of several neighbourhoods many, many times over and they don’t get any more interesting. In fact most of them weren’t even very interesting in the first place! One of the nearby neighbourhoods is always so empty that it’s hilariously bad for street photography and the neighbourhoods that I haven’t really explored properly yet seem like more of the same, empty and one of them even a little ugly. So, if one day I decide to explore these neighbourhoods in detail too, I probably won’t have anything interesting to tell about the experience either. There is just little to say about a small tourist town that is mainly known for its food and surfing, even less so when you’re allergic to the food and can’t surf due to bad health!

Yes, living in a beautiful beach town where other people go for holidays seems like paradise on paper, but in reality it can be rather dull, especially in winter when it often rains for weeks on end. For a street photographer it’s definitely a serious challenge even on sunny days, because being reduced to a few street corners and squares, a few blocks of a shopping area and a few blocks of old town makes it difficult to get new inspiration. On bad days it seems like I have taken every possible shot a hundred times over already. The same woman with bread, the same old lady being pushed around in a wheel chair by the same Latina, the same dogs in front of the same shops, and the same groups of people standing on the same street corners blocking the way (they do that a lot here). This place is just not like Berlin where there are 20+ exhibitions on every single day of the week and a million new things to do and see. Instead of going to see one of those things I now walk to another square that I’ve seen and photographed literally hundreds of times already, secretly hoping for that zombie apocalypse to finally start to give me something interesting to photograph (occasionally I also wish for alien invasions, dimensional rifts or judgement day …)!

So, be patient with me, when I bore you with technical details! Believe me, it would be even more boring to tell you how I walked to another street corner hoping for a good shot, only to come up empty again because rich surfers / hipsters / old people are boring 99.9% of the time. Oh, and don’t even get me started on yesterday …! In an effort to do something “special” for the opening of the cultural activities this year they had another tamborada: People dress up as cooks, soldiers and in traditional dress to march about drumming. They do it every year several times. Seeing it for the second time is actually extremely boring and I’ve seen it 3 or 4 times already. Lesson learned, “special” means “just another tamborada” around here. A regular Saturday would have been more interesting to shoot probably.

Do I sound bored? Yes, but don’t worry, I always carry on anyway hoping for those magical 0.1%.

All pictures taken with: Leica M6, Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8.
HP5+ developed in Caffenol-CH, Jobo CPE-2.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Get a room …! Oh wait, there is even a mattress … no need.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Muppets who take up the whole sidewalk get photographed.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Just couldn’t resist the light. However, turns out Caffenol-CH is weak in the shadows with the Jobo. This shot is probably the reason why I switched to HC-110.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Prettiest dog of the neighbourhood. When I say “the same dogs in front of the same shops” I literally mean the very same dogs.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Tight fit.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Hello!

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Note the pigeon in the background!

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Skill.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Hello!

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Climbing around.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Young and old.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

Cool kids.

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

© Lilly Schwartz 2015

So, that’s how it works?

Comments

  • Julia McClelland

    Not at all boring! Especially as there are a few doggie photos here!

    • Thank you, I’m glad you like them! The boring scenes are of course the pictures I don’t take 😉 I knew you’d like the doggie ones!

  • G.A.

    A shame you didn’t believe me, but that’s exactly what I told you, besides that going time after time to take photographs to those amazing corners makes people feel uncomfortable with you.
    I have some pretty ones though.
    Still you can try some of the villages around. Or go to Bilbao… it’s not probably Berlin but perhaps.

    • Oh, I did believe you and knew it myself before too, but choosing where to live is a luxury I don’t really have. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people are quite uncomfortable with me thanks to the picture taking, I don’t really mind 😉 True, Bilbao isn’t Berlin either, but Berlin has its downsides too – it’s too cold in winter for once, which can be just as annoying as the rain over here, especially when shooting film.

      • G.A.

        The luxury is keep on taking photographs and enjoying that illusion.
        I’m happy to have it.

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