Palimpsest Koblenz: Between Rain, Light, and Layers of Time

Instagram: @ffm.collective Photo Walk, October 25

At first glance, Saturday morning looked unpromising. The weather forecast had been discouraging all week — grey skies, wind from the west, and an almost continuous drizzle predicted from dawn until late afternoon. But when fifteen photographers decide to meet in the city of Koblenz, forecasts become mere background noise. Analog cameras were loaded, umbrellas packed, and despite the dull light, the collective energy was unmistakable.

We gathered at 10:30 in the morning, in front of a cafe on Jesuitenplatz, under a hesitant rain that tapped rhythmically on camera bags and hoods. Some of us had travelled from Frankfurt, others from the Rhine region, some even from further afield. The small group of fifteen was organized by the @ffm.collective , a passionate network of photographers bound by curiosity, craft, and a particular love for imperfection — the kind that film still delivers in a digital world.

By 11:00, as if the weather gods had been waiting for our determination, the drizzle stopped. Clouds broke apart, and in one of those cinematic moments that feel almost scripted, a few hesitant sun rays fell on the Jesuitenplatz, our starting point for the photo walk, Palimpsest Koblenz. The wet cobblestones reflected the light like a freshly washed stage floor, and the mood shifted instantly from resigned patience to quiet excitement.

The Idea Behind the Walk: What Is a Palimpsest?

Before setting out, I gave a short introduction. Many had heard the word Palimpsest, but few had used it outside art theory or literature. Initially, it referred to a parchment that had been used several times — an old text scraped off to make room for new writing. But traces of the earlier script would remain, visible under the new words.

A city like Koblenz is precisely that: a layered manuscript. It has been written and rewritten by Romans, medieval bishops, French troops, Prussian officers, bombers, architects, planners, and now by us — the walkers, photographers, and chroniclers of the everyday.

To photograph Koblenz as a palimpsest means looking beyond its surfaces. It means asking: What stories are hidden beneath the plaster, the cobblestones, the shadows of modern signage? What remains when everything changes, and what do we see when we frame both past and present together?

Starting Point: Jesuitenplatz

Our first steps led us into the Old Town, precisely the heart of the city, the Jesuitenplatz — a square that feels simultaneously alive and ancient. The Jesuits arrived here in the 16th century and built their college, which shaped the area for centuries. Today, the same square is home to cafés, a pharmacy, and a souvenir shop that sells fridge magnets featuring the Deutsches Eck. Yet beneath all this ordinary bustle lies a deeper rhythm, one that connects the stones underfoot with centuries of prayer, learning, and argument.

The group spread out instinctively, like a flock of birds finding their own trajectories. Some crouched near puddles to capture reflections; others pointed their lenses at façades, studying how the new shopfronts clung to medieval walls. Film shutters clicked with that familiar soft snick sound — an auditory reminder that something physical was happening, light touching emulsion.

The first roll of Ilford, Tri-X, Fomapan, and HP5 began their journeys through history.

A Light Between Eras: Liebfrauenkirche

From the Jesuitenplatz, we walked uphill through narrow lanes until the towers of the Liebfrauenkirche appeared between the roofs. The baroque domes were still glistening from the morning rain. The church, one of the oldest in Koblenz, bears scars from countless reconstructions — Romanesque bones, Gothic ribs, and postwar plaster.

And right in front of it, a surreal sight: a row of colorful bras strung across the alley, fluttering in the slight breeze like rebellious flags. A temporary installation, humorous and a little provocative — but in its way, perfect. It was the embodiment of the palimpsest: the sacred overlaid by the playful, centuries of solemn architecture intersecting with a fragment of pop culture and absurdity. Cameras clicked, and laughter broke out; the moment was pure photographic joy. It was a reminder that layers don’t always have to harmonize; they coexist.

One participant remarked, “This city wears its history with a wink.” He was right. Koblenz doesn’t fossilize its past — it lets new meanings dangle across the old.

The Deutsches Eck – Monument, Symbol, Mirror

The walk continued toward the Deutsches Eck, where the Mosel meets the Rhine. A few clouds rolled back, the river shimmered with silver, and for a moment, the city felt like it had been freshly painted.

The Kaiser Wilhelm I monument stood above us, solemn and slightly theatrical. We discussed its history: built in 1897, bombed in 1945, left as a ruin for decades, and finally reconstructed in 1993 as a symbol of German unity. Few places in Germany compress so many political eras into one sculpture. I invited the group to think of it not as a monument, but as a sentence rewritten again and again. First an imperial statement, then a scar, then a symbol of postwar hope, and now a tourist attraction framed by smartphones. Every photograph taken here adds another layer — our layer — to that ongoing text.

Below the statue, the rivers were full of motion: ferries crossing, ducks drifting, cyclists stopping to take selfies. Every small movement seemed to rewrite the scene once more.

Along the Rhine Promenade

From the Deutsches Eck, we walked along the Rheinpromenade, that long ribbon of trees and benches tracing the river’s edge. The clouds had softened, and sunlight filtered through the last remnants of morning haze. The air smelled of wet stone and chestnuts.

Here, the idea of the palimpsest turned quietly poetic. The promenade itself is a layer of 19th-century city planning, born from the era of “Rheinromantik,” when poets and painters imagined the river as Germany’s soul. Today, it’s a jogging path, a cycling route, and a promenade for tourists enjoying ice cream. The photographers dispersed again — some shooting the glistening pavements, others the reflections of clouds in puddles. One participant was crouched low, composing a shot of a jogger passing under the shadow of a 200-year-old tree. Another experimented with double exposures: the old city wall and a modern poster of a smartphone overlapping in one surreal image.

The river carried it all away — sunlight, clouds, time.

The Kurfürstliches Schloss: Order and Aftermath

Our next major stop was the Kurfürstliches Schloss, that pale neoclassical structure facing the river. Its symmetry still carries echoes of baroque grandeur, but its story is one of interruptions. Built in the late 18th century for the last Elector of Trier, it became Prussian property, then served as a military headquarters, was reduced to rubble, and was finally reconstructed as a civic building in the 1950s.

Standing before it, you sense both pride and melancholy. The proportions are elegant, but the plaster tells of hasty postwar rebuilding. It is both history and compromise. At present a construction site. For a moment, we paused in silence — the light soft, the air still damp, and the city humming quietly around us. It was one of those pauses that make photography more than observation. We were not capturing beauty, but continuity.

Lunch, Farewell, and Reflections

After nearly three hours of walking, framing, discussing, and occasionally dodging sparse raindrops, we found ourselves back in the Old town, ready for warmth and a seat. The collective spirit carried us into Pizzaria La Mamma, a cozy Italian restaurant not far from our starting point. The smell of espresso and tomato sauce replaced the damp scent of film and asphalt.

As plates arrived and cameras rested on the tables, conversations shifted from f-stops to philosophy. We discussed why photographing a city like Koblenz differs from shooting Cologne, Frankfurt, or Berlin. Here, history doesn’t shout — it murmurs. It peeks through corners, worn stone steps, and faint outlines of past windows in plaster. Someone noted how the group had unconsciously mirrored the idea of the palimpsest: different people, different backgrounds, each layering their own vision onto the same physical space. One participant had focused on textures — flaking paint, corroded metal. Another had spent the entire walk chasing reflections of the sky in puddles. Yet another had shot only people, the way they move through and inhabit old streets.

That’s what makes collective photography so fascinating: fifteen pairs of eyes, fifteen interpretations of the same city, fifteen new layers written onto the page of Koblenz.

Palimpsest in Practice: Seeing the Layers

Throughout the walk, one realization kept recurring — the palimpsest isn’t just in the buildings; it’s in the act of looking itself. Every photograph adds a layer of interpretation. Take the image of the Liebfrauenkirche with bras strung across the alley. It’s an unplanned composition of irony and devotion, an urban metaphor if there ever was one. Sacred stone meets cheeky fabric; centuries of moral codes collide with a street artist’s humor. That’s what the camera reveals when we stop treating history as something static. Each frame becomes a visual dialogue: between the builder and the observer, between yesterday’s intention and today’s improvisation.

The challenge of photographing a palimpsest city is not to find the perfect “clean” view, but to embrace the interruptions — the parked car, the graffiti, the telephone wires. They’re not obstacles; they’re context.

The Social Texture of the Walk

If you had observed our group from the outside, you’d have seen a mixture of quiet concentration and sporadic laughter. One photographer was shooting with a Rolleiflex, methodically checking the light meter. Another carried a Leica M loaded with HP5, hands moving with mechanical grace. There was also the instant-film enthusiast, handing out small Fujifilm Instax prints as mementos.

Film photography has its own rhythm: slower, more deliberate. You look longer before pressing the shutter. That slowness matched the spirit of the walk. We weren’t chasing spectacle but reading the city like a faded manuscript — line by line, texture by texture.

Occasionally, curious passersby asked what we were doing. When we said, “A photo walk about the layers of the city,” most smiled and nodded, as if that idea somehow resonated. One elderly man told us, “Ja, hier ist alles alt und neu zugleich.” He wasn’t wrong — that could be Koblenz’s unofficial motto.

Light as a Metaphor

As the day progressed, the weather seemed to cooperate. The clouds that had threatened us all morning became our allies. Diffused light softened edges, giving façades a painterly look. The brief sunbursts added drama — a cathedral wall glowing for a minute, then fading into shadow.

In the language of photography, light is time made visible. In the language of a palimpsest, it is a history that reveals and conceals itself alternately. The way sunlight hit wet stone felt like a memory surfacing from the depths for a fleeting second.

By the time we reached the Castle, the golden hue of late afternoon began to emerge. The wet leaves shimmered, the city seemed to exhale. The rhythm of shutters slowed; everyone was content.

Departure and Looking Ahead

At around 15:30, after a last espresso and a collective round of goodbyes, the group began to disperse. Cameras were repacked, negatives were ready for development, and memory cards were safely tucked away. As I walked back toward the carpark, the first raindrops returned — gentle, almost ceremonial, as if to mark the end of the story. The city, once again, rewrote its atmosphere.

The FFM Collective’s first Palimpsest Walk in Koblenz had become more than an exercise in photography. It was an experiment in perception — a day where weather, history, and friendship formed their own layers of meaning. Soon, the images will begin to appear on Instagram, each one a fragment of the larger mosaic. Some will be gritty, while others are poetic, some humorous, and others solemn. Together they’ll create a visual diary — a contemporary layer added to the ancient palimpsest of Koblenz.

And as we already discussed over pizza, this won’t be the last one. Other cities have as well more corners to unfold, and the collective has more rolls of film to expose.

Epilogue: What We Learned

What stays with me after the walk isn’t just the images — it’s the way the group learned to see differently. To see the gaps between eras, the traces of time not as decay but as dialogue. A modern city often hides its age behind glass and asphalt. Koblenz, in contrast, lets the old breathe through the cracks. Its beauty lies not in perfection but in persistence. Photography, at its best, is not preservation but translation. We translate light into memory, memory into form. In that sense, every negative is a small act of archaeology — a rescue of something fleeting.

As I write these lines, rolls of film are drying in bathrooms and darkrooms across several cities. Somewhere in Frankfurt, a contact sheet is being examined under a desk lamp. Someone else is scanning a frame of the Jesuitenplatz, noticing how the puddle captured the sky just before the sun came out. Each of these moments, each print, each pixel, continues the story. The palimpsest lives on — not in books or archives, but in our shared act of looking.

Credits and Thanks

Many thanks to Lotti, Jannik, and the entire FFM Collective for their coordination, energy, and inspiration. Thanks also to the city of Koblenz for once again proving that even in the rain, history has texture, light, and humor. To everyone who joined the walk: keep your eyes open for the next one — perhaps under sunnier skies, but with the same sense of curiosity. And to those who couldn’t attend: look for the hashtag #PalimpsestKoblenz on Instagram in the coming weeks.

The story is still being written.