For the duration of the pandemic I’ve stayed away from one of my favorite types of photography…street photography. I’ve always enjoyed walking around city streets, camera at the ready to capture something interesting that people do in an urban setting…not so much during 2020 and 2021 so far, because of obvious reasons. In fact I’ve only done three or four walks in a major city, camera in hand since March of 2020 and I miss it! Now though, as more and more people get both shots of the vaccine I think I will do more of my favorite type of photography!
A few days ago a fellow member in an analog photography Facebook group put up an event where we’d walk the streets of Malmö and shoot together, because it was a looooong time since last time (for obvious reasons). I thought long and hard about whether I’d participate or not, but in the end decided that I needed it for mental health reasons. I’ve grown weary of shooting photos in nature all the time (woe is me huh, having access to scenic areas close enough to portray them on memory cards….), I needed the city.
I liked how they both had their hats at the same jaunty angle! Like father, like son!
It turned out that the only two photographers who showed up was Javier who initiated the walk and me…which is not surprising, given both the pandemic situation as well as the heatwave that has trapped southern Sweden in the last few days. When the mercury hits 30 C (85F) people understandably want to do other things than walk around urban areas!
We soon decided that it’d be a short walk around the Möllevångstorget square and the nearby Folkets Park, but while we did walk I snapped away, both with my digital Fujifilm XT-3 as well as my analog Canon 650 camera. While I haven’t seen the analog photos yet I can definitely tell from the digital shots that I am quite rusty at shooting street photography! There were several moments at the square with all the food vendors and customers where I almost caught the action, because I wasn’t quick enough to snap the picture. While that is frustrating I am okay with it…it was just enjoyable (apart from the heat) to be out there, shooting in the city again! I’ll consider this a warm-up run, a re-introduction to that type of photography!
All in all I think people were pretty well-behaved as far as maintaining distances, although I can’t for the life of me understand why some people have to stand so close when a train arrives at the station. You’ll all get on eventually…it’s not like it’s gonna leave you behind! Thankfully I wasn’t traveling to or from Malmö by train, but it definitely boggled my mind as I walked through the (thankfully very chilly) Triangeln underground station to get back to the car.
I hope he found his train…eventually!
One of Malmö’s legal graffiti walls, where the images and patterns change constantly.
Some people clearly had a busy Friday night!