2010

Completed in 1968, this futuristic looking hotel resembling an antenna is also exactly that, a television tower. It was also featured in the Czech film "Grand Hotel." I've tried to photograph it many times, but I've almost always been too far away, even though I've visited Liberec twice. This time I tried getting the shot with a video camera that had a still function. The resolution on the camera was awful, worse than my cameraphone, but the reason I wanted to try it was that it had a 25X digital zoom. Actually, it had a 700X digital zoom, but beyond 25X the resolution was so low that it was pointless. After uploading the .jpg to my Mac, I still had to edit the image for higher contrast because the cloud cover had played more of a role than I had foreseen.

Here's another version of the previous shot that has been edited for maximum contrast and saturation short of making it look like a painting. For some reason, shots from the video camera get vignetting when you crank the contrast up, and I have no idea why that is.

This was the tower that I shot the Jested photo from. It's in Bramberk, and is one of several observation towers constructed in the early 20th Century for tourists in the Jizerske Hory (mountains).

This is the Chata, or cottage (hardly a cottage actually) next to the Bramberk tower.

I took this at the zoo stop on the DPML (Liberec) tram system. The dual gauge is in order to facilitate operation to Jablonec, which has a 1-metre narrow-gauge tram system. Actually, as pre-1990's tram lines go, this route is relatively new, having not been completed until 1955. Since 1969, however, the line to Liberec has been the only surviving tram line in Jablonec, and is now operated by DPML. Even the line to Liberec saw sporadic use in the 1970's and 1980's, as reconstruction work was done, and planning argued over. The current operation dates to December 17th, 1989, exactly one month after the Velvet Revolution. The line is currently under reconstruction again, so I'm not aware of what the current service disruptions are. It is proposed as part of the new rebuilding to convert the Jablonec line to standard gauge, but I didn't see evidence of this for certain when I was in Jablonec or Liberec.

I took this in the Strand Theater, which is really a cinema, in Old Forge New York. This is one of two 1930's Simplex projectors in their collection, but this one was actually installed in the cinema in-period, in 1934. They claim to have had two, but I don't actually know if the other one was theirs in the old days. They would not have been the originals, though, as the cinema dates to 1923, according to the website. A new Simplex projector was supposedly acquired in 1993 to replace the two old ones.

This is the other projector. I don't know if it was one of the two originals, but it seems likely.

Here's a detail of the second projector.

This was my first train photo in the U.S. in a long time. I took this in Fonda, NY, because I noticed that the gates at the Broadway crossing were activated and walked over to see if I could get something. I took video initially, and this is a still capture that my Panasonic can do. This was a work train, sitting in the siding, and the crossing gates kept going on a off, which I'm hoping CSX dealt with eventually. The locomotive is an EMD SD50-2, which is a rebuilt SD50 downgraded to 3,000 horsepower (from the stock 3,500). CSX primarily uses these on MOW (work) trains at the moment.

There isn't anything important about this photo, also from the video camera. Notice that an Extra Value Meal is listed at $579. Weak dollar.... :-) :-) :-)

This was my first photo from the south end of the new Cercany platforms, of an express running nonstop through the station at about 80Km/h.

I took this at "Den bez aut," the "day without cars," which used to be a Critical Mass event coordinated between the city of Prague and Auto*Mat. This was the first year that I went with only the city organizing it, as the city and Auto*Mat events have supposedly been separate for a few years. The embankment on the Vltava was closed to cars in the vicinity of the Karluv Most and Most Legii, although I've forgotten if it was exactly between them. In any case, there were freestyle (stunt) bicyclists there doing shows, but there were especially large numbers of businesses selling food, bikes, and bike parts. This was the display for the Author bike company.

The Haje Metro was under reconstruction at one end when I took this, with the escalators being replaced. If you look carefully through the space above the boards here, you can see that the station originally had staircases, or maybe they were built under the escalators as backup.

This isn't my greatest ever rail photo, but I liked the blur on it.

This was a much better blur shot taken a few minutes later of an express coming through at about 80Km/h.

I also attended the Auto*Mat Cyklojizda just under a week later. Although there was a proper mass ride, which was well attended and received by the city, this event was also a chance for bike shops to promote their products. Some of these bikes are just direct human-powered, chain drive bikes, while others are electric, and the little one on the ground over on the upper left is a folding bike, which is in the folded position. Some of the bikes in this photo are designed to look vintage, but virtually all of them are state of the art.

Here's the folding bike again. It's made by Brompton, a company in England that sold a lot of them in York when I lived there. It isn't really small enough to stuff in your backpack, and it has the disadvantage of small wheels, but it's easier to stuff in the corner of your office or put under the table in a restaurant, etc.

Here are some more of the vintage-look bikes. The one in the foreground is an electric bike disguised as a non-electric one.