Eguisheim – A Village Full of Little Discoveries
There are places where, after just a few steps, you already know: the camera won’t stay in the bag for long today.
Eguisheim was one of those places.
We had come to Alsace for a day trip – my parents, Marianne, Mabel and me. No big plans, no checklist of sights to see. Just wandering through the narrow streets, stopping somewhere along the way and seeing what we might discover.
And of course, I had my Leica with me.
Just Start Walking
Eguisheim welcomed us exactly as you might imagine a little Alsatian village. Cobblestones, narrow lanes, half-timbered houses, flowers in the windows – and around every corner, another little scene waiting to be discovered.
What makes the village so special are its streets. Rather than simply running straight through the village, they follow Eguisheim’s historic, almost circular layout. You walk a few steps, turn a corner – and suddenly the view changes again.
I quickly realised that I was less interested in the grand views than in the smaller fragments. Houses that aren’t perfectly straight. Cobblestones walked on for generations. Shutters, flowers and façades that make no attempt to hide their history.
The Little Things
At some point, I stopped looking for Eguisheim as a whole and started noticing its details.
There was this letterbox, for example. Painted on it was a tiny picture – showing the very house I had been standing in front of only moments earlier.
A picture within a picture.
And then the sun appeared.
Suddenly it began drawing shadows across the façades, bringing old wooden beams to life and turning everyday objects into little photographic subjects.
A lamp and its shadow.
Sometimes, that is all it takes.
The window shutters became a subject of their own. Some freshly painted, others marked by years of weather. Some closed, others half open – as if offering a brief glimpse into the life behind those old walls.
The longer I walked through Eguisheim, the more I liked these images. Perhaps precisely because they don’t try to explain the entire village.
They simply tell the story of one small moment.
Mabel in the Middle of it All
Of course, Mabel was with us too.
Half-timbered houses and historic architecture were probably of rather less importance to her. But there were cobblestones, unfamiliar scents, people, other dogs and something new to investigate around every corner.
And every now and then, of course, she had to sit still for the photographer.
For another photograph, she sat in the middle of one of the narrow lanes, looking intently to the side.
For a brief moment, Eguisheim belonged entirely to her.
More Than a Pretty Backdrop
The closer we came to the centre, the livelier the village became. Restaurants, little shops, visitors – and, of course, all those things that simply belong to Alsace.
I stopped with my camera outside a bakery. Not because of a perfect half-timbered house, but because of the reflections in the window. Inside, people were working; outside, life on the street was reflected in the glass – and between the two were those wonderful Alsatian kougelhopfs.
I particularly like scenes like this. They aren’t arranged. They simply happen.
A little later, the narrow streets opened up to reveal the historic centre.
The church, towers, flowers – and high above them, the storks. Somehow, they too seem to belong naturally to the village.
Time for a Break
A day trip with my parents is something special to me today. Perhaps as we get older, we become more conscious of moments like these together.
We sat down, took a break, had something to eat and, for a while, simply let Eguisheim be Eguisheim.
The camera, of course, was never very far away.
These are not photographs about Eguisheim. And yet, for me, they absolutely belong in this journal. Because one day, photographs like these may mean more than the perfect image of a half-timbered house.
One More Walk Through the Lanes
After our break, we continued walking.
Slowly, I began to realise how many different faces this little village has. Alongside the beautifully decorated façades and abundant flowers, there are also quiet corners where hardly anyone seems to go. And those were exactly the places that drew me back in.
Here, Eguisheim suddenly felt less like a postcard. No souvenir shops. No elaborately decorated façades. Just old walls, a narrow path, a little greenery and that wonderful interplay of light and shadow.
Perhaps this was even the Eguisheim I liked best.
One Last Look Back
Eventually, we left the narrow streets behind and walked out towards the vineyards.
And suddenly, the perspective changed completely.
The village that, over the past few hours, had been made up of façades, windows, cobblestones and little details now lay before us as a whole.
Surrounded by vines.
One last look back at Eguisheim.
I took 50 photographs that day. Not a huge number – and that is exactly what I like about it.
I didn’t need to photograph everything.
A few narrow streets. A few windows. Sunlight on an old facade. Mabel on the cobblestones. My parents during a break together. And finally, that view across the vineyards back towards the village.
Sometimes, that is more than enough.
