Table of Contents
Whether you are a professional street photographer or a tourist, if you find yourself in the capital and largest city of Germany, you shouldn’t miss the opportunity to shoot your camera around its streets and landmarks.
Underground Culture and Street Art
The first thing you have to do in Berlin as a street photographer is to walk and get a feeling of the city, its streets, its people and its artwork. Take your camera, your backpack and walk.
Street-art Walk
Starting from the S- or U-Bahn station Friedrichstrasse, walk along Georgenstrasse and reach the Museum’s island. Once there, cross the Spree and continue towards Hackescher Markt. Visit Hackesche Höfe and Haus Schwarzenberg. Use Neue Schönhauserstrasse and Münzstrasse to end the journey in Alexanderplatz. This 3 km itinerary will take you around several hot spots for releasing your street photography lust. You have to be ready to capture
127 our experts are availableright now
everything from the busy Friedrichstrasse station to the ugly but lively Alexanderplatz, passing through outdoor Tango dancers, coffee-shops, hipster areas and everything in between.
One particular spot you must not miss in this itinerary is the Haus Schwarzenberg Street-Art Alley. Enter the courtyard of this creative space for alternative street art via Rosenthaler Strasse. There you will find a café, an independent cinema, some museums, and exhibitions. Peculiar metal sculptures and paintings by El Bocho, Miss Van, Stinkfish, Otto Schade –to name a few, will be waiting to be captured by your camera. If this is not enough, you will find more artwork in the stairwells and shops located inside the Haus Schwarzenberg building.
Urban Scapes at Dawn
If you are looking for rough urban vistas instead, start from U-Bahn station Schlesisches Tor. Once there, walk through the Oberbaumbrücke to cross the Spree. Visit the Eastside Gallery –if you haven’t done so already, and continue walking all the way along Warschauer Strasse until you reach Revaler Strasse. This 2km walk will offer you amazing views from Oberbaumbrücke, awe-inspiring urban ugliness and stunning light at dawn and sunset. The area is always busy — day and night. Be careful, as the environment can get a bit rough the closer you get to Revaler Strasse. Don’t go alone at night.
Mauerpark
Berlin is a big city with many things happening all the time, but there’s a particular place which every Sunday boils in vibrant energy: Mauerpark. Its name translates to ‘Wall Park’ and is a former part of the Berlin Wall and its Death Strip. Reach U-Bahn Station Eberswalder Strasse and prepare your camera to photograph hipsters, jugglers, musicians, hippies, cyclists, joggers, a flea market and much more.
From 3 pm on, you will also be able to immortalize with your camera the Mauerpark-Karaoke and its singers. Improvised in the amphitheater, this home-made karaoke allows Berliners to perform their favorite song in front of around two hundred people. Singers take their performances very seriously, awarding them always huge rounds of applauses.
Many cafés and designer shops surround the area, and the route of the Berlin Wall runs directly through the park. Cyclists love it for sightseeing. You cannot miss a Sunday in Mauerark.
As a big city, it is not difficult to find a photo studio in Berlin to unleash your creativity and come up with your own new ideas and, once you have photographed the soul of Berlin, you may want to dedicate some time to its main landmarks.
Landmarks
To photograph the main landmarks of Berlin, you may need more than your backpack and your camera. Equip yourself with a zoom lens, a wide angle lens and a lot of patience.
Brandenburg Gate
Be there during the evening and you will delight your camera with a sky full of dramatic tonalities. If you are lucky enough to be there during the first days of March or October, you will find the sun tracing a path right through the middle of the Brandenburg Gate while sinking in the horizon.
To obtain symmetric shots, walk away from the Gate through Unter den Linden and use a zoom lens. The further you go, the more parallel the vertical lines will be projected. To instead achieve an imposing appearance of the Gate, do the opposite: stand close to it and use a wide-angle lens. Avoid at all costs digital zooms of digital cameras and smartphones, as they produce low- quality images.
If you happen to be there during a bad weather evening, do not despair. Rain and snow will reward you with great reflections from the cobblestones in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
Remember that the Brandenburg Gate is an important Berliner landmark. Beware of the hordes of tourists and the many festivals and conventions held there, as they will hinder your efforts of capturing the neoclassical monument in all its glory. To get rid of people in your shots, you may need to use a tripod, get multiple long exposures and do some editing in Photoshop.
Reichstag
It boasts a modern glass dome, which allows a 360-degree view of the surrounding cityscape. The dome is open to visitors for free by prior registration and is certainly the best location to photograph the Berliner skyline. A large sun shield that tracks the movement of the sun electronically will block direct sunlight for you –this will help you against over-exposition in your shots. Be sure to bring a zoom lens to photograph single buildings and landmarks from above and a wide angle lens to obtain vast panoramas of the skyline.
When you finish photographing the skyline, turn your head and amaze yourself: you certainly don’t want to miss the inside of the Reichstag. Its rich composition of curves, reflections and modern architecture silhouettes will unleash your thirst for abstract photography.
Additional great shots from the outside of the Reichstag can be obtained during the night hours, as the building artificial illumination highlights its imposing figure above the dark background. You will need long exposures and a tripod at this time of the day and, if there are still people around, the feeble ghosts they project in your pictures will enhance the strength of the building.
Berlin Holocaust Memorial
Located one block south of the Brandenburg Gate, this architectural piece consists of 2,711 concrete slabs of different heights (0.2 to 4.7 m), covering 19,000 square meters. Walking towards the monument center, as the ground slopes down the concrete slabs grow taller. This disposition will allow you to experiment and create abstract light patterns and perspectives. Remember to be respectful, as this is not a playground but a memorial.
Remnants of the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery
A heritage-protected landmark, this is a monument to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the peaceful negotiation of borders. It is a 1316 m long collection of 105 murals painted directly on remnants of the Berlin Wall. Due to the ideals it represents, the past for which it speaks, its unique beauty and the pleasant walk that involves visiting it, it is a hotspot for tourists. The best way to photograph the paintings is to arm yourself with patience, set a tripod from afar, take many long- exposure photographs and stack them later in photo editing software to remove the people. However, good street-photography tells the story of a culture and a population; perhaps it is worth taking a couple of photos of tourists taking selfies, enjoying the walk and eating ice cream while walking along a monument that speaks about rather difficult times.
To sum up, Berlin is a big city. You can find many books on street photography dedicating their pages to its streets, so take this article as an invitation to explore the areas, tickle your curiosity and come up with your own ideas. If you are still looking for some inspiration, visit CO/Berlin, the Willy Brandt Haus and ‘Bildband Berlin’ while you are there.
Happy shooting!
