Night Walk Through the Dijksgracht Graffiti Tunnel in Amsterdam

Dijksgracht graffiti tunnel at night

Night Photography

On Dijksgracht, a short walk from Amsterdam Centraal, this tunnel glows with graffiti under the night lights.
Both sides of the underpass are packed with colour, characters and maritime references that echo the harbour nearby.
I walked through late in the evening with the Canon EOS R5 Mark II, letting the ceiling lights draw the eye to the exit.
It looks scary and deserted, but Use normal city awareness.
Dijksgracht is a canal and street on the eastern edge of central Amsterdam, running between the railway embankment and the water.
The quiet here after dark feels at odds with the busy tracks and traffic that run just above the painted ceiling.

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This first frame focuses on the stern looking sea captain who stands guard over the tunnel wall.
His uniform, anchor and the crest on his cap nod to Amsterdam as a historic port that always faced the sea.
The side light from the fixtures above shapes his painted beard and picks up texture in the concrete surface.
Just behind him the painted ship and lighthouse recall the working vessels that once lined the nearby Eastern Islands and harbour basins.
I composed the scene so the horizontal line of the handrail slices the picture in two, separating the churning sea from the calm sky.

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Stepping back reveals how different artists claim space side by side along the same stretch of concrete.
A film like portrait, heavy block letters and another storm driven ship collide in one long ribbon of paint.
The tunnel lighting is harsh but even, so I kept the exposure just bright enough to hold detail in the faces and sky.
Graffiti has long been part of Amsterdam street culture, and walls like this pull that energy away from the train carriages and houseboats along the canal.
Here you can read layers of local history in the imagery, from seafaring symbols to tags that belong to crews active across the city.

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Further along the wall the mood flips from maritime history to cartoon chaos and bright typography.
The big smiling face and snarling blue character give the tunnel a playful but slightly uneasy energy.
I framed this panel with a slight angle so the line of lights runs out of the top right corner and keeps the eye moving.
Pieces like these change regularly, which is part of the charm of photographing a living graffiti tunnel in the city centre.
Working at night meant watching my shutter speed and keeping a steady stance so the spray strokes stayed crisp instead of turning into a blur.

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On the opposite side the art competes with everyday life as bikes lean casually against the painted concrete.
An enormous elephant head pushes out of a field of overlapping letters, all stacked above the silver racks.
The bicycles give an immediate sense of scale and remind you that this colourful corridor is still a functional route home.
Dijksgracht connects different parts of the Eastern Islands neighbourhood, so tunnels like this carry commuters as well as curious visitors between the water and the city streets.
From this angle you can almost hear the click of locks and the echo of tyres on the bricks as riders pass through.

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The final frame ends with a wall painted by the Amsterdam Sign Painters, full of dancers, patterns and a watchful eye.
Lines of yellow and teal bend around the figures and draw you toward the centre of the frame where the eye looks back.
I let a parked black bike sit in the foreground so the viewer can imagine arriving here at night and leaning their own wheels against the rail.
Events like the Tunnel Jam project brought dozens of graffiti writers to this spot, turning a neglected underpass into a dense open air gallery in just one weekend.
There is also a nice bar next to it, although a bit , still nice: Hannekes Boom.
If you enjoy this kind of low light urban scene, you will find more images in my Night Photography gallery and more stories in the Night Photography section of the blog.

Amir
Photographer, Builder, Dreamer
amir2000.nl