Photo blog @ Kaufingerstrasse, Marienplatz

This is part two of my photo blog post on Marienplatz.

In part one, I ended at the Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche). Next, I continued along Kaufingerstrasse, moving away from Marienplatz and towards Karlsplatz. It was indeed a pleasant walk. It was still early and wasn't crowded yet. There are places to sit and relax along the way, beautiful plants and flowers, a nice fountain, fruit stalls, cafes, etc.

I surreptitiously took the first photo in this photo blog post (above) of this man reading his morning paper. This scene with the man reading his papers lends a sense of tranquility to the shot. I reduced the saturation, making it (almost) black and white to eliminate bright distractions in the scene. The red canvas sheet of fruit stall in the background for example, kept pulling away attention from the subject, which is the man reading the papers.

The second photo in this photo blog post (above) shows one of the many fruit stalls along Kaufingerstrasse. It had gotten very bright and sunny when I took this shot, resulting in a slightly blown out sky.

The third photo in this photo blog post (above) shows a poor man collecting trash from Marienplatz. Munich is one of the most expensive and wealthiest cities in Germany. Scenes like these are not often seen during the bustling hours of the day. Nonetheless, they obviously do exist. With this photo, I try to capture this contrast in society. In the foreground, a man is collecting trash for a living while in the background, you have George Clooney sipping his Nespresso.

The final photo in this photo blog post (above) is my favourite from the outing in Marienplatz that day. It does suffer from a bit of lens flare in the bottom right but I still like it. When I took this photo, I was a little tired from lugging my tripod and camera gear around, embarassed from the quirky stares of the people there and a little pissed off that I hadn't really gotten a spectacular shot yet. I wanted to capture the "street mall" side of Kaufingerstrasse and I think I achieved that with this shot here.

I used two trees to frame the shot. Their different distances from the camera gives this photo more depth. I took the shot low, just a few inches off the ground, to make things look larger than life. Call it a cat's perspective.

More to come in my next and final photo blog post on Marienplatz.

joel@shutteria.com