Get a Nice Girl and a Kid So You Get to Know Your City Better

I dig deep in the city each time I go for a walk with my 4-month-old son. So if you want to get to know Berlin better – mainly the “Barrios”, Kreuzberg and Neukölln – read on after the jump and have a look at the gallery at the bottom.

I’ve been living in the same area in Berlin for more than 13 years now. I really thought I know my Barrios pretty good, as I pretty much stay in the area where I live when I go out but my little son changed my view and I have to admit that until now I didn’t really know it that well.

In a way, I have to thank my second son that I got to now my area much better. For many years I used to live only a few meters away from the Landwehrkanal in Berlin and therefore if was pretty clear that if I went for a walk, I strolled alongside the canal. Last year I moved over the border to Kreuzberg and now the route for a walk isn’t so clearly predetermined anymore.

As the little rascal is a baby and should get some fresh air while he is sleeping, I spent quite a few hours each week with him, the baby carrier, and my cameras. As I still don’t live that far away from the canal – only 1,5km upstream and 200m more to walk to actually get to the canal – it was like a magnet: I still went there automatically. But it got boring and there wasn’t much I could capture anymore if it wasn’t for the different people I wanted to shoot. So I started to make detours, and I started to have a closer look at almost every backyard in the area.

And my walks became even longer and longer as I had already discovered almost everything nearby. So I started to take a walk in completely different areas. And I got to know shortcuts, strange places, cool places, and a lot of nice photo opportunities around my home. Another nice side-effect is that alongside the routes, I already know that I should keep my eyes open if something has changed or if anything is different from the last time I passed.

Besides going for a walk so the baby can sleep a little bit, I like to take my bike and go to places a little bit farther away so that I can probably take nice shots. And the Lomo-Drives routes too are getting longer and longer.

Personally, I’m satisfied with getting to know places in my environment better. And some weeks ago a user from Berlin (@stadtpiratin) visited my LH and wrote me a nice message that it is astonishing that we live in the same area of the city, take pictures of the same places but still our shots look very different. I still have to keep my promise to dive into her photos but currently the weather is nice so I want to make time for a walk.

Check out some more Berlin pics that aren’t in any tourist-guide:

written by bloomchen on 2012-06-25 #places #people #buildings #slide #ilford #agfa #streets #lc-a #street-photography #smena #walk #backyard #berlin #b-w #canon #location #unknown #u-bahn #colourful #city #fuji #germany #agfa-clack #x-pro #metropolis #crossed #kreuzberg #urban-adventures #hinterhof #haus #neukolln #seagull-4a #hauser #strolling #select-type-of-location #metropole #la-sardina #lomo-walk #bloomchen