It Isn’t All Tourism

When I visit a new town or city, I tend to spend hours just wandering round the streets randomly, looking at the people, the shops, the architecture, the little things which come together to make a community within a city centre. I note the people standing in front of churches and museums, town halls, ornate buildings with a long history which contribute to the whole atmosphere, posing with their cameras or, more often, their mobile telephones to either capture memories, or to prove they were there. I see people consulting maps and tourist guides, going from one well-worn area to another, queuing up at museums, pushing heavy doors open to enter the cool, musty interiors of a cathedral, a Dom, a pompous religious building. There are those who will try to find something special in a city, a little bit out of the way, but rarely stroll further than the usual routes, well-planned, well-trodden. The same restaurants – be it fast food or leisurely – bakeries, coffee shops. The will usually buy some sort of memento, a physical thing to take home with them, and even, although it seems rare in these technologically advanced days, a postcard to send through the mail. Other people following the same path, will quickly duck out of the way, when they see a poised camera, or pause with a knowing smile. The smiles will grace the faces of all those who serve; coffee and tea, sandwiches, cakes, a hamburger, small plastic models of the highlights of that city.

I begin my day walking through the streets watching the people. I have my own ideas on what I wish to capture during the day, and what a city has to offer, and it is different to that which everyone else seeks. The off-guard moments, the conversations, people reading or simply sitting and thinking, relaxing in a shaft of sunlight, sheltering from pouring rain. In the city centre, in parks, car parks, train stations, people go about their ordinary day in much the same way as they have done for generations. Times have changed, of course, and what a worker might have done two hundred years ago, whether they would even have been in the city at this time of day, is the only difference. The same cares and concerns remain, and the same joy at a chance for leisure, to relax, to talk and take a brief respite from the nine-to-five.

As the day progresses the people change. The sights have been seen, and it is time to plan for the evening. Concert halls and theatres, clubs and bars, the restaurants offering their traditional foods from exotic lands – carefully adapted to local tastes and social acceptance. The streets darken, lights come on, the atmosphere changes. Those who have worked are either safely at home, or preparing their own fray out into the vivid nightlife of their city. Others dress in the uniforms of their respective jobs, prepare for the night and their customers.

I end my day as others do, packing my work away and preparing for the evening, the night. I look through what I have captured, write my diary, makes notes on what I wish to do the next day, what I hope will be there, or will have changed. In Würzburg, yesterday, it was the photograph which heads this post, the windows of a closed shop still adorned with the advertisement of their trade, paint slowly peeling off, dusty with the grime of a city. The textile handler might well be long gone, but there are still a few remains, a few memories. As I saw these windows, some single, some double, as they caught my eye in that backstreet just off the tourist route, I had that strange feeling inside which told me to pause, to look, to assess, and then to capture. And, in that time, as I worked through the image in my mind, a large, yellow delivery truck pulled up, reversed into a convenient parking space, and blocked my view completely.

We all have our work to do, and mine is as much about patience as it is the chance of circumstance. We aren’t all tourists, in the modern sense of the word, some of us are just standing there waiting for that moment to come, for the light, the movement, for a truck to drive away, as some wait patiently for the decision to be made between tea and coffee, doughnuts and Apfelstrudel.

Image © Urban Camera.