This last weekend I did my first in-person photographers’ brunch and photowalk in 18 months. I’ve been very careful about not doing anything like that until I’d had my two shots so when I passed the two week wait period after my second Pfizer shot I thought “okay, I guess I am free to do this thing now”. I must admit I felt both joy as well as trepidation about doing this sort of thing again after so long of being a social recluse (sort of anyway).

*These infernal electric contraptions are all over the city…ready for you to trip on…or get run over by!*

It’s funny the way we have to ease ourselves back into what should be an entirely normal and familiar process. I haven’t been on a bus in 18 months so even that felt somewhat strange and unusual…which is silly because I rode the buses and trains all the time before the pandemic! Yet, it felt unusual to step onto the thing and head into Malmö for the brunch. Other than the front door being blocked off for the safety of the driver it was entirely the same as before, by the way. Still as hot and miserable as a bus can be with not enough AC running!

*Outdoor dining is always an option…especially in these covid times!*

Sitting down at an indoor restaurant with other people than my immediate family is also something I’ve not done for a year and a half, and that was also something I had to “ease” myself into accepting that it’s now safe-ish to do…as long as we didn’t turn it into the hug fest that it might otherwise have turned into, seeing old friends for the first time in a long time. Nope, fist bumps were about as close as I was willing to get! Preferably a simple “hello” wave from afar even!

*I guess these two were looking up how to rent one of the infernal electric machines…*

Once we’d had our delightfully awesome brunch and filled our bellies with food, while sharing a lot of photography nerdery, we headed out onto the streets for our photowalk. When we did that it all started to feel very familiar to me. I’ve not done a lot of street photography at all this year and a half, keeping mostly with nature and landscape photography so at first I felt a bit rusty. I also shot the digital part of the photowalk entirely with my new 35 mm lens on my Fujifilm XT-3, rather than more zoom-y lenses I’ve shot street with in the past and I’ve yet to be used to how much closer I have to be with this lens. That is okay though, I’ll ease my way into being closer to people…eventually. For now I am happy with the shots I took, and the fact that I can crop with the amount of pixels that the XT-3 provides.

It did feel great to be out with old friends again…to do something very familiar in these unfamiliar times. Perhaps we can all do more and more of these activities that we used to do back in the before times…even though with the rising Delta variant that seems uncertain at the moment. I know I want to get out there more and more, now that both me and most of my immediate family have gotten their shots and are deemed “safe”, and we can only hope that as many as possible choose to get the free vaccine when the opportunity for them is available!

*She was adamant that her man pose the right way at the bridge with the shoe art piece…making him pose over and over.*

*World Pride in Copenhagen and Malmö is coming up, so the rainbow colors are popping up in many places in the city.*

*It’s been decades since I did that boat tour…I think I’ll wait till next summer to try it again…a bit too crowded for my taste!*