Wrapped up in an overpriced Levi's wool sweater and an oversized black hoodie, as well as spouting some new black fingerless gloves -- @vincentnijman yeah I finally got some, meet me at the homeless section of the Christmas market for that roasted rat tail -- me and @maars ventured out into the streets of Yerevan yesterday with a particular goal in mind: find me a new coat. Something to keep me dry and warm as the winter continues to roll in. Even teasing a little bit of snow in the evenings. Clothing and general fashion has been a bit of a difficulty for me with the differences in culture, a challenge to find something that my picky brain takes a liking to. Cars are wrapped up in gold or glitter, as are much of the clothes, for example.
As a strong reminder from nature to get that coat, it was the rainiest day I've experienced in the city so far. We grabbed hot chocolate from one of the Coffee House stalls that sits by the side of the road, and began a walk around the city in search of new places to check out, with clothing options a bit of a rarity unless you go to the malls. Actually where I am typing this post right now, sat drinking a somewhat-warm cappuccino. Slight reminiscing the prior day in the rain, and its the enjoyment despite the dampness and coldness.
Photography potential was huge. The streets were covered in brown and golden leaves, and you can still see them falling to the ground throughout the city. The sound of them rustling into the ground can be heard alongside the pools of water that accumulated, the cars driving through it; each footstep a little risky in my pair of dirty Converse shoes that need drastic replacing for some waterproof boots. Unprepared for winter, to say the least. Yet we walked through some shops, checking out their options, drinking hot chocolate as we roamed through the streets, the camera dangling from my neck as I attempted to shield it from the rain with my arm. I snapped pictures here and there, so much beautiful lighting and composition, and so much risk with damaging the camera. But this is often when photography is best, when it's chaotic, and the environment shifts.
Alleyways contained huge deposits of rainfall, rolling down form the buildings, sometimes someone would walk down them, I'd quickly pull out the camera and snap a still without really having time to check the settings, yet things would still work out quite well.
Yerevan's streets are coated in colourful light. A mixture of old and new in the sense that even old Soviet buildings might have glowing LED lights around their borders. ATMs all over the street as a cashless society slowly starts to spread. Christmas decorations hanging from above, hard to distinguish from Yerevan's already existing yellow, warm lighting that is present all year round. It's hard to actually put it into words how much I loved this atmosphere. The sound and feeling of the wind, watching vast sums of leaves fall around the city into piles left all over, untouched and just ignored. The rainfall reflecting city lights, and the feeling of the cold while trying to stay warm wrapped up.
Brief moments of safety as we'd enter different jobs with different Christmas atmospheres: bookstores with little bits of stationary, Moscow Theatre, an old Soviet building with a working cinema on the top floor and a few cafes and bars at the ground level; one of which was surprisingly a comic book cafe, selling comics and offering seating areas to read through some.
I couldn't help but point my camera down at the ground in order to capture some of that density in the leaves, though with so much rainfall it wasn't always possible. Fears of splashing the camera, while also trying to manage light in that moment. With a 35mm lens, I really wanted to get up-close and capture really shallow depth-of-field images, getting the beautiful lighting and the bokeh in the background, but in many instances I couldn't. As you can see in the following image, I tried it again but near one of the still running drinking water fountains in the city. Fresh, cold water that still would flow even in the rain. In this regard, this landlocked nation is way ahead of what many would consider the 'first world' like the United Kingdom. Really, how are we that behind in comparison?
Here is that image, the shallow depth of field, the rainfall and the highlights of the light on the side of the fountain. The bokeh and the crispness of that leaf. It didn't turn out exactly as I intended, but I'm sure I'll have plenty more moments to try again with the recent weather we're having. This also would've been a very beautiful image on 35mm film, but we didn't really use that camera throughout the day. Digital as of late has been a little more appealing due to how fast and easy it is. And the newly obtained Macbook I have that'll make editing a lot more fun and easy.
Oh, and here's a giant spider statue that stands outside Moscow Theatre, I have no idea what the context is, I do know it's quite old. It has a bit of a Tim Burton look to it, not in the sense that it looks like him, but is more his kind of design style in his films, of course. I wanted to capture it again, with a wider lens and better composition. It's quite a big statue, quite impressive. And everyone seems to pay little attention to it, already familiar with it. One thing that surprises me here is how people care for such additions to the city, respecting it, not climbing over these things or drawing things on them. Just idle, like a snippet of history.
These images were shot on a Sony A6000 with a Sony E 35mm F.18 lens. Pretty good quality for low light conditions, and not even their full quality given they were not transferred in their RAW format. I'll be doing that from now on though!