Zebra Crossing in Oslo… With Red Light

I took this frame while walking toward the Royal Palace in Oslo, on a typically overcast Scandinavian morning. I was drawn not by the architecture, but by the quiet absurdity playing out in front of me: the man, dead-centre, marching briskly across a zebra crossing, fully aware of the red pedestrian light glowing above him.

He wasn’t rushing. He wasn’t unaware. He simply decided to cross. Behind him, another pedestrian also defies the signal. Meanwhile, the older gentleman to the left seems locked in step with the more visible figure—a generational echo, perhaps. Their trajectories don’t intersect, but they form a compositional rhythm that pulls the image together.

The image is balanced on a vertical axis, with the central lamppost and pedestrian lights acting as anchor points. The Royal Palace looms quietly in the background, but it’s peripheral here. I wasn’t interested in statehood or grandeur. My focus was civic behaviour, subtle defiance, and the structure of urban choreography.

Technically, I shot this on Ilford HP5, pushed slightly to accentuate grain and contrast. The Leica’s 35mm lens gave me enough width to capture the crosswalk and surrounding context without distortion. Exposure was intentionally flat—Oslo’s skies tend to bleach the highlights, and I didn’t fight it. The shadows, especially under the trees, help hold depth in the background. Focus was nailed manually on the leading subject—his facial expression slightly open-mouthed, an almost cinematic pause.

The red pedestrian signal, of course, registers as white in black and white. But its presence—understood and recognised—anchors the irony. In colour, the shot might lose some of its quiet drama. In monochrome, the absurdity tightens.

This is not a spectacular frame. It’s not meant to be. It’s observational, understated, and reflective of what I often seek: a moment so ordinary it demands looking twice.