It was the first time I went to Germany so I had no prior understanding on what to expect from the city overall and in terms of street lighting. I was surprised the experience the city at night feeling frozen. It seemed like the electric lighting aimed at allowing minimal visual guidance around the city for those who have not come home yet. Even the main streets – for example the Potsdamer Platz intersection, which seems to act as the main financial, touristic and transport hub becomes quiet and somehow slow at night. I realised, however, that in my head this dim lighting connected to the history of the city. Pieces of the Berlin wall, appearing throughout the city and the Holocaust memorial – all of that looked more natural this way – it was as if the city remembers what had happened and wants its citizens and visitors to feel that connection. Shadows seem to commemorate the past and at the same time guide people in. I had a feeling that people are not welcomed to the streets once the sun is down – that is when the family should re-gather around the dinner table or the edgy teenagers should leave their homes and streets to spend their night in clubs around strangers who they would never see under the light of the sun.

There was one area that we came across by chance that stood out from the rest of the city. The river added a more romantic aspect to the nightscape. However, even there the warm and relatively bright light seemed to encourage people to go inside and street lighting seemed to show the way to the entrance doors of their homes.

Thinking about the main case study of Venice, I realised that for me it is important to walk around by myself or with people who are aware of the study, not to be directed by other people. Taking nothing with me apart from the camera and the phone with the mapping app on would be a good idea so that nothing distracts me. I should also try and think of the ways to focus on my senses rather than a search for a ‘potential photograph’ (Sontag, 1986). I also realised that often places we too dark to be captured by camera but this could be fixed by changing the video settings of the camera. Using the wide-angle lens proved to be a good idea. It distorts the image but, to my mind, works better because it captures a wider range, which is similar the experience one a person in space.