flashback

One of my entries for the street photography contest at Sony’s community.  mobile snapshot of a rare moment. Chemnitz. One person on an ordinary bike is overtaken by a man on a historical bike, who is wearing quite modern outfit. This caught my eye and later I found out: The historical bike is an English Velo from 1878, made by Daniel Rudge. The ‘penny farthing’ enthusiast on the bike is Helmut Arnold (http://hochrad-penig.de). He even takes part in international Velocipediades, races on historical bikes… What I considered ‘ordinary biker’ is actually his wife on an old Diamant bike from 1962. The Diamant Fahrradwerke is said to be the oldest bike factory of Germany, near Chemnitz. In the background, the historical facade of the town hall is reflected in the glass front of a modern shopping center. The vintage look of the scene and the harmony of old and new is even more intense as both bikes roll on modern cobblestones, which were put there only some years ago, to restore the historical inner city, of which was hardly anything left after World War II and architectural changes under the communist rule in GDR. When I took this photo, I just thought it has something special. Only later I realised how interesting it actually can be if one really finds out more about the people and things you snapshoot on the street. Very cool experience! You can see all of my entries and the full competition online. Enjoy! Get inspired, street photography can be very surprising! http://community.sony.de/t5/media/v2/gallerypage/album-id/15602