Kraków After Dark – Images from the Old City

‘Twas the night before Christmas and given that Kraków locals take their Christmas traditions earnestly, we decided that we had to check out Midnight Mass at the churches in the Old City. The churches were bursting at the seams and the singing and the atmosphere were special.

Back out on the streets of Kraków, the start of Christmas day, the Old City was spookily shrouded in mist. We snapped a few photos and from then on tried to capture the city at night every time we went out. It was often eerily beautiful during our stay here.

These were photographed with my Nikon D700 (still my all-time favourite digital camera) and generally with my 35mm lens. Occasionally, I would grab my old wider Nikon 12-24mm DX lens that I still carry around when I need to get those really wide shots. Even though I was freezing, the camera still kept working and didn’t miss a beat — unlike my heart when slipping on icy paths.

The reason for making these images black and white is because there really isn’t much colour in the frames anyway and black and white film is what a first learnt to process and make prints with and while I don’t really miss the darkroom, the stink of chemicals and the long hours under a single red light, I miss the feeling of making a hand-crafted print.