NOVEMBER 2025 · ESCAPE
F*ck sh*t. Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark
Late November in Denmark, the sun is up for maybe seven hours and it spends most of them undecided. Grey light that flatters nothing, then twenty minutes of gold that makes everything look like it was built to be photographed, then grey again. You learn quickly to move when the gold appears.
I gave myself one lens — a 35mm — and decided to look for colour. Not chased colour, not filtered colour: the colour the city was already offering. Copenhagen turns out to be extremely willing. Orange stucco walls running the length of whole streets, red shutters, green copper on every church spire and canal bridge, murals on warehouse corrugated iron in ochre and dusty pink. The bicycles everywhere, every possible shade. A dark teal one leaning against a warm orange wall, colour combination so deliberate-looking it could have been staged. It wasn't.
Copenhagen is a city that lets you look.
Copenhagen — November 2025
The title came from a ceramic relief on a brick wall — circular, pink, two words, mounted at about head height between layers of stickers and tags. Someone made that object and put it there. It's a considered piece of work.
The evenings were their own thing. Wet cobblestones under the lights of a hot dog kiosk at nine o'clock, a woman waiting for her order, the whole scene lit from inside the booth. A colonnaded arcade with a candy-cane sticker on one of the columns, rain on the brick floor, no one else there. The city empties quickly in that cold.
One afternoon I climbed the Round Tower — a seventeenth-century astronomical observatory, access via a spiral ramp wide enough for a horse, which is apparently why it was built that way. The interior is whitewashed curves and vaulted arches, herringbone brick underfoot, latticed windows letting in what light there was. At the top, three women were photographing the skyline through the viewing platform's lattice, church spires and the Marble Church dome behind them, the power station chimneys steaming on the horizon.
I got the shot. Then I watched the sun drop before the grey came back.
Three women photographing Copenhagen's rooftop skyline from a latticed viewing platform at golden hour, church spires beyond
Industrial warehouse facade painted with a pastel landscape mural, bicycle mounted on the wall and bikes parked below, Copenhagen
Round pink 'FUCK SHIT' ceramic relief artwork on a peeling brick wall with graffiti stickers and tags, Copenhagen
Blue bicycle leaning against a tree in a graffiti-covered courtyard strewn with autumn fallen leaves, Copenhagen
Outdoor skate plaza with 'FAKE SOCIAL MEDIA PERSONALITY' graffiti wall, lone skater and bikes, Copenhagen
Dark teal bicycle leaning against a warm orange stucco building with green shuttered windows, cobblestone street, Copenhagen
Red brick church with green copper spire framed symmetrically by red brick apartment buildings on a Copenhagen street
Graffiti-covered brick building with 'HELSEKOST' shopfront and paste-up poster wall, bicycles outside, golden hour, Copenhagen
Woman ordering at an illuminated hot dog kiosk on wet cobblestones at night, Copenhagen city square
Long warm orange stucco wall with red shutters receding along a cobblestone street, gas lamp and bicycles beyond, Copenhagen
Rooftop panorama of Copenhagen at golden sunset, Marble Church dome visible, power station chimneys steaming beyond
Red brick church with dark steeple framed between two modern white apartment buildings in a quiet Copenhagen courtyard
Large corrugated metal warehouse with a pastel geometric mural, two pedestrians and bicycles along the base, Copenhagen
Dimly lit columned arcade at night with candy-cane sticker, warm ceiling lights and rain-wet brick floor, Copenhagen
Interior of Copenhagen's Round Tower, curved whitewashed walls and vaulted arches with latticed windows, herringbone brick floor
Masonry bridge with copper-roofed control tower over a grey Copenhagen canal, moored vessel in the foreground
Christiansborg Palace baroque gateway at dusk, gilded crowned gateposts and tower centred beyond, pink sunset sky, Copenhagen