Dementors incoming in 3,2,1…
Brussels is a weird city.
It has one foot in dingy and one foot in delightful and the rest of its body bounces back and forth between the two camps like an inflatable waving guy on a car lot. We had arrived at Gare di Mudi without much expectation as to what the Belgian capital offered and remained both pleasantly surprised and mildly uncomfortable for the three days my friend and I spent there between London and Amsterdam.
I think a visitor’s experience is entirely dependent on how they get to their accommodation. After an early morning train leaving from King’s Cross we arrived before noon without much of an idea of what we were walking into. Leaving the station, I thought maybe there would be a few waffle stands and chocolate, but instead we passed vacant storefronts and trash in the streets. Our fellow train passengers dispersed into taxis and blahblah cars and excitement turned into anxiety as tried to navigate to the correct direct our hostel was in.
Used napkins, plastic bags, rotting fruits and vegetables tumbled down the empty streets in the breeze. Being two bearded white men offered a privilege walking through unknown streets, but we both gripped our osprey bags a bit tighter. Not guarded yet, but on alert.
And we weren’t the only one’s surprised.
We arrived at our hostel room and found six Canadians camped out on their beds. They looked like they hadn’t left the room in four days and when asked how they were enjoying Brussels, laughed and said, “Brussels is a shit hole,” before returning to their laptops to watch TV.
We dropped our bags, freshened up and went down to the hostel bar to decide on what to do. Andrew was ready to pack it in and head to the Netherlands that moment. He had already been traveling the UK and Europe for the last three months and this was his last leg before heading home, something he was anxious to do.
“It doesn’t even look like there is much to do here. A square, some museums and that’s it.” His voice was curt and he was angry at my lack of research, just holding back a snap.
In the end, we spent our days wandering around Antwerp and Bruges before returning to Brussels during the evening and while Ditto recuperated at the hostel, I went out with my camera and fell in love with the city.
Any new place I travel, my camera is always beside me. I think one of the benefits of being a tourist and photographer is that you can focus on small moments people might miss in their everyday lives and I never want to miss them. Its part of the reason why I don’t spend nearly as much time shooting in NYC as I might – growing up in central New Jersey it was always a forty-minute train ride away. Easy, accessible and familiar it didn’t spark creativity the way a new city does.
When this photo was taken, the heat wave that was plaguing in Europe settled and all morning the sky looked like it was going to crack open, but the most it they did was ring out a couple drizzles like a wet towel. We just finished a lunch of waffles and fries and wanted to wander some more before returning to the hostel.
What I like best about it is that it reminds of movement, being dynamic. The trolley car coming forward, the clouds anxiously sweeping across the city, the relaxed vibe of the people sitting. There are some edit changes I would make toward it now (brightening up the shadows a bit and increasing some range of colors), but the structure of the individual parts makes up for that.
It was only that night as I went back out to shoot again that my opinion shifted. Brussels, for all its fringe and smudge has a distinctive vibe absent in Antwerp and Bruges. Where those two cities sing their qualities, Brussels hums them. If you take a second to look past the flurry of used waffle napkins it has an energy that vibrates from the buildings and street.
In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Philly, intimidating and a bit grimy, but a charm that grows on you.