Five Days in Lisbon
For the last year, I'‘ve made it my mission to travel as much as I can. Before 2023 the only countries I had visited had been Iceland and Jamaica (A weird lineup I know…) But as I write this blog, I’ve been fortunate enough to have visited Barcelona, Lanzarote and most recently Lisbon in the span of nine months. Of course I plan to visit other places across Europe next year but after spending five days in Lisbon with my cousin, I’m not sure if anywhere else in Europe will top it…
My time in Lisbon was one of the best times I’ve had all year not just because of the company, but the atmosphere of the city in general. The people were nice, the weather was great and the architecture of the city was beautiful which made for some great photo spots.
For a majority of the photos I took while walking around, I went with my usual travel setup which was the Fujifilm XT4 with the 18-55mm f2.8 lens which helped me feel less restricted with my framing in fast paced environments and also keep a respectable distance from the locals who may not feel comfortable being in front of a camera. Looking back at all the photos I’ve taken with this setup whether it be in London or overseas, I think that in general I prefer to shoot at 55mm (70mm full frame equivalent) which is probably due to the compression you get as you move further towards a telephoto focal length.
I do think how I shoot street photos in general factors into it as well as I typically like to stay out of peoples way in order to allow for more candid behaviour and less opportunity for aggressive behaviour aimed towards me. I think I’ll talk about this in more depth in another blog as I feel there’s a lot more to talk about regarding this topic of shooting comfortability…
But the XT4 wasn’t the only camera I was using during my time in Lisbon as I also began using my iPhone to take photos on a near regualar basis when around the city…
This topic deserves it’s own blog but the iPhone 15 Pro is a gamechanger for my casual workflow. My issue with using my iPhone in the past was the the standard 11 I had didn’t have the option to shoot in RAW (and couldn’t connect to a 5G network…) making it difficult for me to edit properly when in Lightroom. But at long last now I can shoot in RAW on my phone thanks to the iPhones 15 Pros 48 megapixel camera which allows me to hand my phone over to anyone who’s more comfortable using phone camera interfaces and take photos of me with ease. I sound like such an Apple shill but it was rewarding to come back with a bunch of photos of me taken at a quality that was similar to my Fuji. I should add that the video quality of this phone is great as well which was important for me given that short form content is the new currency on social media…
I should add that to the surprise of absolutely no one, I did take a Kodak Disposable Camera with me on my trip and the photos developed beautifully thanks to the abundance of sun we had at our disposal.
To put it simply, I love Lisbon. As someone who has had very strange encounters due to the colour of my skin, I’ve never felt so comfortable in another European city in the same way I did in Lisbon. Perhaps I'd need to stay for a bit longer to but that’s exactly what I plan to do next year so I guess we'll see…
I’d highly recommend spending some time out there to anyone looking to get in some travel photography, there’s so much to do and so much to see and most importantly, it’s pretty damn cheap out there as well (Compared to London anyway…)
Just don’t do what I did and lose the key to where you’re staying on the first night…
If you want to see more of the photos I took during my time in Lisbon, head over to the Lisbon Portfolio page and have a look for yourself!