Stockholm

A short trip to Stockholm produced one of my favourite shots from that time. The city sits on fourteen islands, and in the low November light Gamla Stan glowed almost gold.

I only had a few days, and that alone sharpened the way I looked at things. No putting it off until tomorrow, no “I’ll photograph that later” — just the decision to look now. In November the sun barely climbs above the horizon in Stockholm anyway, and that flat, warm light settled over the waterfront like a filter you would otherwise have to build by hand.

Gamla Stan, the old town, won me over immediately with its narrow lanes and coloured facades that seemed to glow against the light. And then there was that peculiar calm of a city built across so many islands that water is always present, even when you cannot see it.

One image survived from that short trip, and it is one I keep coming back to. Not because it is spectacular, but because it captures the exact few minutes when light, water and city briefly fell into place together.