Prague 5: Photography in Prague

Prague Part 1: The Worst Train Ride Ever
Prague Part 2: Prague…My Favorite European City
Prague Part 3: Jewish History in Prague
Prague Part 4: Prague Castle

If you’re into photography, Prague is the city for you. It is breathtakingly beautiful. And we went to Prague in December…when I nearly lost my fingers to the freezing cold. I can only imagine how wonderful Prague is in the comfort of spring or summer.

I googled “photography and Prague,” and found countless maps and suggestions. Here are some of my favorite spots.

1. Old Town Square
2. St. Charles Bridge tower – Old Town side
3. St. Charles Bridge – Mala Strana
4. Santa Maria Boat Wharf
5. Letensky Profil
6. Walk down from Strahov Monastery
7. Lennon Wall

Old Town Square: This is an obvious spot and full of charm. Sadly, the Old Town Tower was under construction when we were there, and I missed out of the aerial views I so desperately wanted. I made it up with bubble pictures.

St. Charles Bridge tower – Old Town side: There are so many great places to view St. Charles Bridge and they each offer something different. Even on a rainy day, it’s worth a climb up the bridge tower to look down on the bridge and the city from above.

St. Charles Bridge – Mala Strana side: Different areas offer different vantage points of Prague’s most famous bridge. If you cross St. Charles Bridge and walk underneath it on the Mala Strana side, you can catch some lovely views.

Santa Maria Boat Wharf: Just under Manes Bridge, you can steal some beautiful views of St. Charles Bridge – especially at night.

Letensky Profil: This is my favorite place in Prague. If you cross over Svatopluk Cech Bridge and hike up to the top of the park, you’ll be in the perfect place to see all of Prague’s bridges. Feast your eyes on this:

Walk down from Strahov Monastery: Strahov Monastery is situated on a hill, and the walk down offer beautiful views of Prague.

Lennon Wall: This is more of a curiosity than anything else. But it’s a fun curiosity.

 

A Local Explores D.C. Like a Tourist

M and I took a break from our insane work schedules to enjoy the pleasant spring weather and explore D.C. I’ve lived in the nation’s capital for seven years, but sometimes I forget what a great city D.C. is. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day slog of getting work done, going to the gym, collapsing in bed, etc. It was nice to set aside one day to push that all aside and just explore.

Our walk started with a visit to the Phillips Collection, a private art collection in Dupont Circle. I’ve dragged M to more than a handful of furniture stores, but I had not yet stepped foot inside an art museum — which is M’s version of happiness. It was time to change that.

Stunning flowers growing on the bark of a tree in Dupont Circle

A cool shot of the Indonesian embassy

A statue of Ghandi outside the Indian embassy, kitty-corner from the Phillips Collection

An eerie tree outside the Phillips Collection

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’m not exactly an art expert. I can handle an hour or two in a museum, but I’m not one of those people who gets lost in meditation in front of a painting for 20 minutes, pondering the deeper meaning of whatever it is people ponder. It’s not that I don’t appreciate beautiful things. I am just too impatient, too distracted – in museums and in life. M tells me to slow down. I tell him to hurry up. We are a good team.

M, however, is an art critic by profession. So this trip was kind of like walking into his temple. He was a bit dismayed when I got too close to paintings with my camera and spoke too loudly – especially in the Rothko room. Museums are really meant for proper, quiet adults – and I am none of those things. For some reason, M is still dating me.

A new exhibit at the Phillips. Gotta be honest: I don’t get it.

I like this series

A moving sculpture

A Van Goh

Pretty stained glass window in the Phillips

M taking a picture

Yours truly

We left the Phillips and headed to my temple – Room and Board – one of my favorite furniture stores on 14th Street. I’m in the market for a new table and wanted to check out the wood options in person. On the way, we walked through pretty, residential neighborhoods.

A beautiful lamp post on Swann Street. I love the fire. I love the reflection in the glass. Basically, I love everything about it.

Memorial bricks at the National Museum of American Jewish Military History

After Room and Board, we headed down T Street to the Shaw neighborhood, a gritty area that is in the process of modernizing. Dilapidated storefronts mix with brand new condos and hip restaurants. There is a palpable tension between old and new.

Right next to the historic Howard Theater, I found a sprawling mural on the side of an ethnic restaurant. I can’t resist good street art.

A new, modern restaurant with a very interesting logo (and name)

Here’s lookin’ at you… A door on a ramshackle storefront on 7th Street

A Liz Taylor mural overlooking Dacha Beer Garden at 7th and Q Streets

As we headed through Chinatown, I stopped to photograph this church. I love the way the street lights cast a glow on the brick facade.

The Greater New Hope Baptist Church

Our last stop of the day was CityCenterDC, a new development in downtown DC. A mix of apartments, retail shops, restaurants and a public park, CityCenterDC is a great place for this camera-crazed girl.

An up-close shot of water jumping out of the ground

These colorful lanterns line the narrow alleyways of CityCenter and reflect on the windows of high-end stores and office buildings

Pretty

One day, I will bring a tripod. Then, I can really have some fun.

I love traveling the world, but days like this remind me that I’m lucky to live in a beautiful, historic, and thriving city, filled with old and new surprises. I’m a local getting to know D.C. like a tourist, and I’m okay with that. 

Running While Carrying (My Camera)

Can someone please invent a contraption that allows me to run with my dSLR camera? I would get a lot more running done, and take a lot more pictures in the process. The former keeps me relatively in shape; the latter keeps me relatively happy.

As many of you know, I’m an avid photographer and reluctant runner. But taking pictures with my iPhone just doesn’t cut it. So yesterday, I did something weird. I strapped my bulky dSLR around my chest, laced up my sneakers, and went for a run.

Yes, I looked a bit ridiculous. Yes, it was not the most comfortable way to log miles. Yes, the camera awkwardly bounced against my hip. Yes, my running got interrupted by “oh my God, I must take pictures of that” epiphanies. But…it was possibly the most enjoyable run I have had in a long time. I was actually excited to venture off my couch. The weather was brisk but beautiful – bright blue skies with steady sunshine. And Washington D.C. is full of interesting sights to satisfy any hungry photographer.

I’ve never photographed the Korean Memorial soldiers before. It was a fun challenge.

Then I jogged my way over to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.

Look how blue that sky is.

And then the creme de la creme: Washington D.C.’s floral library. It’s not massive, but it is beautiful. The colors are simply breathtaking.

Full disclosure: I am not a fast runner on my best days. Running (jogging really) with a camera is that much easier if you are limited to a glacial pace (silver linings, right?). I also switched out my regular heavy lens for the smaller, lighter 50mm lens. It takes great pictures and makes running with a camera less cumbersome.

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS… TAKE PICTURES

It’s been a crappy day. There really is no other word for it. Just crappy. And not the kind of crappy where I stubbed my toe and can’t find my iPod. But the kind where all I wanted to do was sit on the couch watching Friends reruns while I made my way through half a container of fat-free Pringles (which I did and which will probably end badly for my digestive system). The kind of crappy where even watching TV didn’t sufficiently distract me, and that’s when I know it’s a genuinely bad day, because TV is almost always a magical elixir that makes everything okay. Except today.

So what’s a girl to do? All the things I should have been doing — running, writing, cleaning up my messy apartment — required too much energy, both physical and mental. So I grabbed my camera and my second lens, threw on my favorite baggy sweatshirt and ventured out to the Mall despite the chill in the air and the grey in the sky.

Taking pictures is therapeutic. At least for me. It is also a mental reprieve. Instead of thinking about all the things I really didn’t want to be thinking about, my brain was consumed with apertures and shutter speeds and framing a photo just right. Of course, I will have to go back to dealing with life eventually, but for an hour today, I escaped. Here are the results:

In the spring, these trees come alive with cherry blossoms for about two weeks. It is a photographer’s dream.

I love the World War II Memorial, but I find it one of the hardest memorials to capture well on camera. These are mediocre shots, but they were the best of the bunch.

I love this shot. The wreath is so simple, yet so evocative.

PHOTO FUN: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

One of my favorite things to do on airplanes is take pictures from above. There is something uniquely awesome about seeing a city or landscape from a completely different perspective. This is especially fun if you’re flying over a particularly picturesque area. It is much less fun if you’re are landing in a corn field in the dark.

Here are my bird’s eye pictures of Washington DC from my recent trip.

And here are my favorite bird’s-eye pictures from my Croatia trip:

I’m not sure, but this might be the Alps on my way home from Croatia.

What are some of your favorite plane pictures? Post your links below. I’d love to see them.