GREECE AND PRAGUE 2010

Shirl and I have gone on from the New York and Paris workshops to check out Prague and Greece for next year's workshops. This is a little of what we found. If you would like to come with us in 2011, give Shirl a call and discuss the details with her.

Sunday: Prague is a city of both extreme simplicity and incredible complexity, where ancient and modern coexist in what appears to be total harmony. The skyline of the old city is a barrage of domes, spires and fairytale-like towers, while below at street level there is an eclectic collection of extremely modern, chrome-and-glass shops co-existing with a small, hole in the wall type, traditional doll maker or a boot maker. Oh, and the ubiquitous McDonalds has made its presence felt!

The main problem for me, as a photographer, is that it is difficult to photograph around the tourists! I have found it almost impossible to get a clean shot of any building without the footpath being cluttered by people of all types, sizes and nationalities. I initially thought that we would have a language problem, but almost everyone speaks English. Much more so than Paris, where it was sometimes quite difficult to make myself understood with my schoolboy French and their non-existent or fractured English. Perhaps it will be better tomorrow, being Monday. We arrived on Saturday and have only experienced a weekend so far. Do tourists go back to work Monday? 

It remains to be seen.

Monday: Nope!! They are still out in force and determined to be in front of my lens wherever I point it. I climbed the shot tower to get a nice pano of Prague from a level above the people. I can see why not many people make the climb. Built in the 12th century, they neglected to include a lift, and the walk to the top takes almost ten minutes of spiralling up an extremely narrow staircase, barely wide enough to accommodate a pair of broad shoulders. Fortunately I am more pear shaped than broad shouldered. The shot of the clock is a clip from this VERY large pano. The tower is on the extreme right of the pano

NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT....

The above four pics are some of Shirl's.  Not bad eh!?

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Tuesday:  OK.........   In Mykonos in the Greek islands now, and there is no way that we can upload pictures from here to the blog apparently. 

I have been logged on for nearly an hour and not even the first small image has completed upload. I'll give it one more try! The speed of the internet is way below dial-up speed and I have used up 50 minutes of a card just trying to get this post up. No time to fix mistakes or tidy things up. You'll just have to read it as is, people. I'll try and fix in Singapore!

Fixed it!!  Our room must be in the shadow of the signal or something. I moved to the lounge near the reception and have signal!!!

Wednesday: 
Mykanos, Mykanos, Mykanos!!!  Mixed feelings at the moment. Last night after dinner we were walking back to our room when Shirl tripped over a piece of uneven ground and broke her ankle. All her time in Greece will be horizontal with one leg in the air. I think she only did it to get attention. She now has her own personal room service and I have had to make a slide show of all the images I took today so she can see what she missed. 

Speaking of images, these are a few I did today on a walk through the town. I am absolutely OVER carrying the Nikons and lenses so all of these are with the little Canon G9 point and shoot. (on manual and RAW, of course.) It is absolutely amazing how the contrast of the light here is so low that we can have detail in both highlight and shadow at the same time, unlike Australia where the shadows are black! (It may have a little to do with the reflection into the shadows from all the white buildings. :-))

There is no Photoshop trickery on any of these except conversion to B&W and some exposure control on one of them. Not my usual work, but I enjoyed the change and photographed more “pretty shots” than usual. Not saleable, but just for our memories. 

For those of you coming with us next year, I can absolutely recommend it! For those of you  who have not decided yet......... just do it!!!

UPDATE:

Have just arranged with the hotel owner to have cable internet available in our rooms next year to give all of us 24hr access without the wi-fi problems.