prague

things about prague:

1. it is ridiculously beautiful, but much of the beauty is diffused across the urban scenery rather than being concentrated into set-pieces. this means that you want to photograph almost everything, and yet the thing that you have in your viewfinder isn't that special by itself. it's the accumulation of small beauties, street after street to wasteful profusion, that counts.

2. conversely, most of the set-piece beauties, like the charles bridge or old town square, are so crowded with tourists and souvenir-sellers that you can't get a decent shot. all the best photos of those places are in books, taken at dawn, taken ten years ago. when i was there, the old town square's best view had a giant screen set up with car advertising so that people could watch the euro 2008 football tournament. the charles bridge has roadworks and scaffolding at one end. much of the cathedral is covered in blue scaffolding [which my photos avoid, hence none of the apse].

3. so i kind of gave up on general photography of the obvious things, and yet i still came back with over 200 photos.

4. the cathedral is one of the most photogenic buildings i have ever encountered, externally at least. inside is disappointing - bald - by comparison, except for the tomb of john of nepomuk. i couldn't get anywhere near the tomb of st. wenceslaus because of the crowds.

5. signs in prague are quirky. symbols are subject to individual, rather whimsical, interpretation. the road-mender doesn't always have high heels, the zebra crossing man is sometimes short and dumpy not at all like michael jackson. in britain the signage system was created by graphic designers to be rational, legible and uniform, so the czech versions look charmingly amateur.

6. the tv tower is a great piece of communist futurism, although it was finished after the revolution. the inside is as functional as a bus shelter, but who's looking?

7. the metro is another great piece of communist futurism - at least the central mid-1970s stations. each station has a diferent colour combination. amazing what can be done if there is no advertising. note also the neat modernist graphics.

not bad for a weekend, i guess, especially when you throw in the drum'n'bass. here's a photo [taken by peter davis, top] of some of the junglists in the tv tower lift [top right is me]. lev [lower left] said it looked like "a future dub group - lunar moon kit four or something" so i added the caption. aiming for the cover of knowledge magazine.

Comments

[jonny]

great pics steve - love the empty metro!

[cloudburst]

so glad you hit up the metro there.. i think i mentioned it once when we emailed about eastern european arch.. did you go to the end of the lines?? some crazy stuff abounds.. trees encased in framework and glass.. very dr who.

prague is amazing, innit?? we couldn't absorb it at all, even after two months of living there w/ andrew and family. just too much, and yeah, totally spread out.

have you seen the film 'cesky sen'??

cheers! when are you going to visit us in portland??

[steve collins]

no i didn't go to the end of the line, my ticket wasn't valid that far. the ticket system is a little hard to understand, one pays for a time rather than a distance, within a certain zone. since the trains are only every ten minutes it's easy to run out of time, especially if you get off at every stop to take pictures!