Night Shots of Berlin

Last fall I took a course in night time photography that was offered by the Griffin Museum of Photography taught by Jurgen Lobert and was eager to try out my newly acquired skills on our trip to Berlin. To help me get the most out of my time by having someone who knew their way around the city, I booked a three hour private tour with Gareth Harmer of Aperture Tours.

I met Gareth near the Brandenburg Gate, pictured above with a swirl of commuters coming out of the subway station in front of the Christmas tree at the end of Unter den Linden. One shot of the Gate wasn’t enough, so I captured another from the front:

And twice from behind with traffic streaming by:

We continued on over to the River Spree, first capturing shots of the glowing dome of the Reichstag:

And then a shot of a train streaming out of the Friedrichstrasse station over the bridge that was featured in the second Jason Bourne movie where Matt Damon escaped from the police by jumping down onto a passing ship:

Moving further east along the Spree and nearing Museum Island, I first captured the building lights reflected in the water:

And then serendipitously caught the streaking lights of a tour boat passing by:

This shot was captured from Museum Island looking back to the New Synagogue Berlin in the distance with a train streaking by:

Lighting that usually brightly illuminates the buildings on Museum Island was cut way back due to the energy crunch that Germany was experiencing due to Russia cutting off supplies to Europe in response to sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Capturing a shot of the equestrian statue of Frederick William IV in front of the Altes Museum required a bit of light painting:

I’ve already used the last shot I took on this tour in my previous post, but I like it enough to share this shot of the entrance to the Christmas Market at Bebelplatz next to the State Opera again:

Up next: our trip to our cruise ship through Potsdam and the Sans Souci Palace.