Safe Living (?)

I took this photograph sitting at a café table in Brussels, camera inconspicuously in hand, not to catch a moment of drama but to freeze the dissonance that unfolded naturally. A plate of food cooling in the foreground, a couple mid-conversation, and beyond the empty chairs—military trucks parked tightly against the glass façade of a commercial complex. No one paid them much attention.

This image isn’t about extremes. It’s about the almost absurd coexistence of casual living and implied threat. It’s a subtle juxtaposition—the idle comfort of café life shadowed by the presence of camouflaged machinery. Compositionally, I used the umbrellas and columns to frame the shot and push the viewer’s eye into the central tension. The image naturally splits into foreground intimacy and background unease.

Technically, it’s a candid street shot taken handheld with an iPhone—not my usual tool, but effective here. The light was forgiving: diffused enough to avoid blown highlights, yet crisp enough to preserve texture in the building, the tables, and even the fabric of jackets. Depth of field was limited, but sharpness held up remarkably well, particularly around the central subjects.

What draws me back to this photo isn’t the quality of the light or the neatness of the composition. It’s the quiet awkwardness of that moment—security lurking behind leisure, both tolerated, both normalised.