street photography and more

This next series of street photography I took in Croatia, will take you between the cities of Split, Trogir, Cavtat, and Dubrovnik. Hope you will anjoy the trip !

The nightlife on the stairs of the old city of Dubrovnik is entertaining, with some amateur guitar player and and his fan.

In Trogir, which is sometimes compared to Saint Tropez in France, this is the typical grill on which the fresh sea bass from the day is cooked.

Some lovely tourists waiting for their boat in a café in the port of Split.

The old city of Split is a good meeting point for the locals, a place “pour refaire le monde”.

The market in the old town of Split. The money in Croatia is the Kuna. You can find a rich variety of fruits and vegetables at a low price

The vendors are fighting for a customer. As you can see some of the women working in the market wear special clothes.

And they use the old balance (no electronics !) to weight the goods.

No wolves for the sound, but an instrument and a musician…

Some young fishermen near the sea in Cavtat, one of the nicest small towns near Dubrovnik.

All with Leica M8 and Summilux 35mm 1.4

To be continued…

Apart from the beauty of the nature, and the architecture of the old towns, I must say that the dalmatian coast of Croatia has left a mixed feeling on me. First of all, in august the dalmatian coast is full of tourists, cities, towns, country, sea, everywhere many foreigners from England, Italy, Germany, etc. And also people coming from the inner land. It is nearly impossible to find a quiet and lonely place far from the people in hollidays. Every square meter of the coast seems to be occupied.

And while I was trying hard to, I couldn’t find much “typical” cultural or social substance that would make the trip more interesting and the mass of tourists more acceptable. Going from a town to another, one finds the same offering : thousands of local people who offers rooms to rent for tourists, rocks for beaches, old towns filled with pizzzerias and tourists, which I found a little bit disapointing. Communication with the Dalmatians was difficult, trying to discover who they are, their history, their family etc didn’t seem to work. Asking for information about the country and the preserved spot neither. I got small to no reply to my natural curiosity.

So street photography on the adriatic coast (Dubrovnik, Hvar, Split, Trogir, and other smaller towns) turned out to be really hard : I wanted to catch the locals in their everyday life, and instead I had to face a flow of thousands of other hollidays photographers… But still, here is what I could report with my Leica :

The firefighters of Dubrovnik. All day and all night, they have the best spot to watch the people, more especialy the ladies, come and go to the old town.

Dubro at night. The city is full of old mysteries and strange gargoyles.

Young tourists having fun near the church. Reminded me of a pic I took in Ibiza last year. Many people find analogies between the two cities. I agree about that.

The market is one of the most “typical” place I could find in Croatia. With real locals selling a rich variety of food and products.

Animals used to attract tourists in the center of Dubrovnik. This is a good example of what everybody should hate about mass tourism.

An example of the beauty of the adriatic sea.

A “quiet” place in a small street in Dubro. One could even read the newspaper…

Hate it or love it…

As usual on the mediteranean countries, many cats roam the land, for the greatest pleasure of catlover ladies.

I wouldn’t recommand traveling the Croatia without a car, as you would miss a lot of the sightviews and the small towns. But a Harley comes of course highly recommanded.

All with Leica M8 and Summilux 35mm 1.4, which I’m still learning to use, since I find this lens very different in use than the Elmarit 24mm 2.8.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Hello everybody,

I will be away for two weeks. There will be many new pictures when I come back at the end of the month

Until then, happy hollidays to everyone and “bon courage à ceux qui restent”…

Just like this stylish Vespa driver, I am going to travel to foreign countries during the month of August. But of course I will take my camera with me, and I hope to bring you some tasty shots that I will post here as soon as I come back.
So, stay tuned, and have a very nice holliday, wether you stay or you go… See you soon.

Paris, Saint Germain (Leica m8, 24 mm asph)

This is the opposite example of the reaction part 1 : here the subject just saw me taking a picture with my camera and they want to play a game with me by posing for the lens : this is a very conscient attitude, and sometimes the result can be fun, like here with those cool guys in their nice vintage car.

Stay tuned for the reaction – part 3, which will feature some other attitudes…

Paris, latin corner (Leica m8, 24 asph)