[Created: 26/May/2005]
[Last modified: 26/May/2005]
After watching Jarnik's awesome Millennium Actress AMV set to a song by Lucie I really wanted to get the CD, but they didn't have it here in Canada so I went to the Czech Republic and bought it at the rather quaint "White Swan" department store. While I was at it I took a spin around the place, snapping a few photos here and there. Below are some pics...
What struck me about Prague is that it's just like those fairy-tale European cities which Miyazaki likes so much. Very picturesque!
Even their sewer lids are pretty cool:
Of course, once you've seen one sewer lid you've seen them all. The statues, however, are more varied. Some of them are actually pretty nice. In particular I like the second one from the set below, the wear has given it a rather eerie aspect, quite interesting. For once the bad weather helped, as I think the clouds made the last image more dramatic.
There planty of lovely churches too, unfortunately I can't quite remember the names, but that's why I take pictures :)
Styles vary, there's gothic, classical, geometrical, whimsical, and, frankly, ugly. Those creepy babies crawling up the tower... still gives me nightmares!
The Prague museum featured some of the most dry and boring exhibitions I have ever seen. I pity their high-school students, I can imagine the field trips. Their rock collection is thorough and utterly, massively dull. The rest is more or less equally tedious. Um. The roof was nice.
As usual, there were palaces owned by some rich dude or other. The gardens weren't half bad...
Colourful red rooftops!
The Prague botanical gardens allowed for a peaceful break from exploring. Flowers make pretty good subjects.
The last of Prague: lighting really helped on the last day to give the buildings a nice golden glow, and a parting shot of the impressive Vltava river.
Off to Berlin! The day of my arrival I spent quite some time taking the shot below (sans tripod, I might add).
A view from the inside of the church, and a memorial.
The Bugatti Veyron is, I believe, the world's fastest production car.
I did not take that many pictures in Berlin, here are a couple more which I thought worthwhile. The last one actually features four distinct planes: the two bright squares are windows, with some trees peeking from behind (then there's the door itself and the reflection of the tree in the foreground).
Statues and churches, you know the drill...
I think these turned out quite OK given the difficult lighting conditions:
Experimenting again with silhouettes (more successfully, I think).
A couple of side trips to Bruges and Ostend:
Pictures of Brussels: the obligatory sunset photo, an old building. Soon after we said goodbye to Belgium.
Channels and narrow, crooked houses sums it up pretty well. I grudgingly took the photograph of the magnets at my mom's request... lo and behold it turned out to be a pretty nifty picture.
Some friendly locals. These girls were interviewing people for a student turist survey. Afterwards they asked to take my picture (as proof they didn't cheat ;) In return I asked to take theirs, I think it was a pretty good trade!
Some artsy takes, and the obligatory windmill.
The night shots are tricky. I like the boats in the middle picture better.
Ahoy matey! I couldn't leave without causing an international incident, now could I? :)
Well, that's all for now. I took all pictures with my Canon A70 and performed some minor digital manipulations afterwards. Reading various review sites I've noticed that many people have had problems with this camera after a few months of use, mostly because of failing zoom lens. I did have this problem, but it was caused by defective batteries. Other than that the camera has performed very well (over two years of use, nearly 4500 pictures taken). Overall I'm very satisfied with it, which nonetheless doesn't mean that Canon's quality control may not be that good (i.e. I was lucky). Be it as it may, I'm quite satisfied with the image quality, although I might consider purchasing a new camera within the next couple of years, at the Nikon 8800 level or so.
Anyway, hope you liked the pictures.
Comments and/or suggestions? marco@reimeika.ca