Prague Without The Trains or the Cameraphone

This was just a random, lucky shot with the Contina. When I saw the scene, I knew that I wanted it.

I don't know as much about Tunel Blanka as some people, but honestly, how much do people need to know? The project has been going on for years, turning Hradcanska and the north side of Letna into a dirty, noisy construction site, with blasting going on. The blasting has resulted several times in lethally dangerous cave-ins that have opened giant holes in the ground in random locations in parkland full of tourists and hikers, and even the cut-and-cover method of construction often being used isn't what the city said would be used, resulting in massive disruption beyond what they had promised (even if admittedly it's not as dangerous as the blasting). Then there's the purpose....to encourage automobile use and the car culture, increasing traffic congestion in the city and diverting business out of it, potentially collapsing the local economy and leaving taxpayers with an astronomical bill for construction. The reason for this? Apparently they think people are ignorant enough to believe that freeways reduce congestion instead of increasing it. You'd think that after Communism people would know better, but apparently the Communists' ideas about urban transport haven't been adequately discredited, even though everywhere freeways have been built, everywhere in the world, they've been catastrophic failures in traffic abatement.....at least until the local economy collapses to such a degree that all the people leave.

This was the first of a series of photos I did on a long walk through Prague on the 12th of June. I've got more photos on the way shortly, from the next roll of film.

Here's my fourth shot taken from Vysehrad, with the castle wall visible in the lower right.

The Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul is one of the older churches in Prague, although the site is far older. Many of the vaults in Vysehrad castle, which has no keep (like Prazky Hrad) have exhibitions of art treasures that are too valuable to keep above ground, although many other statues and sculptures can be found in the gardens around the Basilica.

These tennis courts have been in this condition for the whole time I've been in Prague. I don't know how old they are, but they never seem to be in use. At the same time, they're not too overgrown, so it gives me the impression that someone is caring for them.

During my day-long walk, I took a break at NOD, a bar and coffeehouse on Dlouha. While I was sitting at a table by the window (NOD is on the first, in American terms second, floor, above Roxy, the famous rock club), and randomly noticed with my cameraphone that this would be an interesting shot, in its own way. I took pictures with both the cameraphone and the N80, though, and in the end the better camera won out, so this is an N80 shot.

Letna is a surprisingly short walk from NOD, so I walked across the river and up the hill, into the beer garden. I wanted to hang out there, but changed my mind and continued looking for photo opportunities, getting this somewhat gloomy shot of Stefanikuv Most and the Ministerstvo průmyslu (Ministry of Industry). It was actually a sunny day, but the sun was behind a cloud when I took this.

Here, from a different angle, it's possible to see Zizkov and the Zizkovska televizni vez, or Zizkov Television Tower, the tallest structure in Prague.

Turning further to the southwest, the Ministerstvo průmyslu becomes visible again, this time on the left, in addition to Tynsky Chram, which is just visible in the distance in the Stare Mesto.

This is another soft focus (again because either of the eyepiece or because of the shutter speed) shot that still looks good in small size. This is the view of Husitska from the opposite side of the Pendolino shot, so in other words we're facing away from Hlavni Nadrazi here. This illustrates the extent to which Husitska is narrow in comparison to the buildings on it, even if it generally isn't a narrower-than-average street.

This is another heavily-edited shot, that I've marked as such. The original wasn't particularly well exposed, since getting an ideal balance was very difficult. I've brightened it, raised the contrast, and raised the saturation in Gimp. In any case, notice the crescent moon by the tower of the Stare Radnice? That's what I was trying to get.

Prague is divided into a number of districts which include within them many neighborhoods with their own names, but the districts generally go by numbers. The districts can be so large that they have their own city, or maybe it would be better to say town, halls, and this one is for Praha 4, the largest of all Prague districts which includes the boroughs of Nusle, Michle, Podoli, Zabehlice, Krc, Branik, Lhotka, Hodkovicky, and Kunratice. Some residents of other districts also legally have Praha 4 addresses for reasons that I'm not clear on. In any case, although I've been to this radnice (town hall) before, I was surprised especially by the fact that I had never photographed it before, as it's quite an ornate building. So much so, in fact, that I'm assuming it's a 19th, instead of 17th, Century building, although I could be wrong. I'm still trying to get information about it.

I'm someone who knows virtually nothing about flowers, but when I noticed Namesti General Kutlvasra next to the radnice for Praha 4, I walked over to experiment doing closeups of the flowers, bees, and butterflies. I've edited this shot for higher contrast and saturation, although not too aggressively.

I spent a lot of time photographing this group of flowers (does anybody know what they are?), because they were the easiest to get shots of bees and butterflies on. They move around a lot, so they can be a challenge, but I caught this butterfly in mid-flight. I don't know the species, but maybe someone more expert does.

This was the same butterfly a few seconds later.

This butterfly stood out for its black color, but the black color also hid detail. I didn't have a proper telephoto lens anyway, so I'm not sure how much it mattered. If you look carefully, you can see another butterfly off to the lower right, and an airborne bee below the black butterfly.

This was after the black butterfly turned. Note that the other butterfly and the bee are still there.