Old Flickr Photos

I just saw this photo and decided that it was perfect. My only regret was that I was carrying my Lomo and not my Ikoflex!! :-)

This was my first ever photo of Checkpoint Charlie, taken from the Eastern side in January of 2007, when the Christmas tree was still up. This was the same trip during which I shot the other Ektachromes of the Brandenberger Tor and other landmarks.

This was taken from the western side of Checkpoint Charlie. When you face east, you see the poster of the East German soldier, and when you look west you see the poster of the American soldier, both posters being on the same post.

This was the warning sign used during the Cold War to formally inform people crossing the border that they were entering the American sector. Although it's obviously obsolete now, it's been kept up as part of the overall preservation effort on Checkpoint Charlie.

I just spotted all of these contrails illuminated by the sunset off to the left of the photo, and liked how they looked. They do serve as a reminder that there is a lot of air traffic coming in and out of Prague, even if it's nowhere near to what you would see in London or New York.

28 Rijna is not an address, but a street named for a date, the 28th of October. I took this photo because I liked the way the blazing sun that day had illuminated the street, and the action.

Same as the previous shot, I took this one for the sunlight, worried that my camera had malfunctioned on the first shot. In reality, this shot is more notable for the shadows in the foreground and the apparent light leak in the upper left. That light leak comes and goes on my Lomo 135, and I have yet to pinpoint the cause.

My Dad really likes this shot, given its illustration of globalization, even if Converse has been a world brand for decades.

I do have other photos of this hotel and its neighbors on Flickr, but this is one of my best, I think.

This was sort of one of those Lomo moments when I was walking to the Muzeum tram stop behind the Narodni Muzeum. The shot just looked good, so I took it.

This building lay dormant from the fall of Communism until this year, when construction finally restarted in earnest on it. It's one of the more interesting buildings in Prague, being a building under construction that was abandoned for so long, but I must admit that I'm generally ignorant of it otherwise, so any input would be welcome, particularly if I got the name wrong. I mainly took this shot for the sunset, though, bracketed three times, and got this shot that looks a bit like an HDR, but isn't. At least it worked!! :-)

I took this partly because other people were taking photos of THEIR film back in February. I guess these things go in cycles. Anyway, there's nothing exotic about Velvia, really, but of course Agfa Vista is no longer made, Ilford Pan F is a little hard to find but highly respected, especially among vintage camera users (which is why I have it), and Jessops is virtually unheard of outside of Britain, even if it's very common within Britain.

This was when we got to Grantham, a nice town but like Peterborough blighted by ugly car-oriented buildings. On the plus side, you can see the steeple of St. Wulfram's Church in the background.

Here's another mostly-ugly photo of Grantham, with yet another ugly shopping centre in the foreground, with the nicer, older buildings in the distance.

I was unable to get a lot of information about this hotel online, other than how to reserve a room, but my understanding is that it's a former railway hotel. Any further info would be welcome.

This is the Bradford City Hall notable for its clock tower and the fact that it features a statue of Oliver Cromwell, unusual since he wasn't popular and is often considered illegitimate. As with the Great Victoria Hotel photo, this shot regrettably suffers from glare, whiting out part of the clock tower. Also notable in this photo are the double-decker buses. Don't believe the media when they tell you that they're gone. :-) Transport For London pulled their fleet of 50-year-old AEC Routemaster double-deckers out of service a year or two ago, and then the media ran with it and claimed that all the double-deckers were gone. In actual fact, double-deckers survive in various forms all over Britain, even in London. It's just that London doesn't have Routemasters anymore. These don't look like Routemasters, though. Does anybody know what they are?

This is Tyrell Street in Bradford (thanks to Lordrich for the name). The ornate building on the end is the former wool exchange, now a bookshop.

This ornate building, one of the best known and regarded in Bradford, was once the Wool Exchange, but is now a bookstore.