• Focused on photography

    Spiky

    You wouldn´t find many black & white photos in my archive but surprisingly enough, this year I created quite a lot of them. I didn´t shoot the photos with the intention to get the b&w result but when I was editing them, the limited colour range brought out the voice they spoke to me with. Like the image above. I took the photo at a maize field where the patterns and structures caught my attention. I still like the original colourful photo. I also like the b&w version I transformed it into. But I went even further to create this contrasting image and realized this was the voice I heard…

  • Focused on photography

    Calendar Technical

    Better late than never so on Sunday I finally (!!) – after almost two years – completed the calendar I promised myself to put together for my photo project “Technical” and sent it to be printed, which makes the project fulfilled at last. I can tell you that when the printed calendar arrived today, I felt somewhat nervous before opening the package. I was afraid of being utterly disappointed but eventually I was very pleasantly surprised by both the look of the photos and the quality of the calendar itself. I decided to share printscreens from the calendar software here rather than photographing the pages, I think it will give…

  • Focused on photography

    Mayrau Mining Museum in black and white

    I wanted to have my project “Technical” completed till the end of 2021 so I am a bit late with this post. Nevertheless, the photos presented here were taken in 2021, during our visit of the Mayrau Mining Museum in Vinařice, only they were sitting in my files waiting for my being ready to tackle them. It is an interesting place to visit, a piece of history but it feels lonely and somewhat depressive… … and the photos captured it mercilessly. Eventually I decided to go with the somewhat artistic black & white depiction as it seems to add certain tranquillity to the original shabby look… Frankly, I am so…

  • Reflections

    Ideas lost and forgotten

    I commute to work daily and on my ways there and back, often the dots connect and I have ideas that capture my attention. Sometimes also words of a song I am listening to on the radio along the way trigger a train of thoughts I am glad to get on. I believe the brain works in a different mode at that time… And I often think “this would be interesting for my blog to ponder and write about…” But when I come home, the ideas are usually long forgotten, replaced by happenings at work and home routine and then in the evening I stare at the empty screen of…

  • Miscellaneous

    My Wordle stats and what I find interesting about them

    First I have to ask, do you know the online game Wordle? It is a simple yet quite entertaining game in which you have to find a 5-letter word in six lines. No hints other than colours showing which letters are placed at the correct spot (green), incorrect spot (yellow) and which do not occur in the sought word (grey). Only words can be entered, not random clusters of letters. Of course you see the letters in the cells but when you want to share your results, the boxes are empty not to spoil someone else’s game. There is a small keyboard depictured under the 5×6 matrix where the letters…

  • Miscellaneous

    Easter hope

    Easter always brings a message to me conveying hope that nothing is so bad it could not turn into something good. The concept of suffering and how it could lead to something great is difficult to grasp but if one opens themselves to the hope, the life can feel and become very different. Sacrificing oneself may be utterly wrong or utterly heroic or utterly compassionate, it all depends so much on circumstances. From the point of Christianity it is a gesture of love giving a man a chance to make their lives better. I know, if one is not a Christian, the gesture seems non-existent, yet it is there in…

  • Reflections

    Showing through

    What can you see behind window panes of your life reflecting everything around? Trees covered in lush green leaves or dry bare branches waiting for new life? Fresh blue sky inhabited by flying birds or overcast nothingness letting you down? Sometimes it takes much effort not to see just the negatively obvious but let the supporting and the encouraging show through Yet when it happens, it feels like nothing else in the world…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Unexpectedly beautiful

    Some time ago my husband and I visited a small hydroelectric power station “Vydra” in Šumava mountains. Its history goes eighty years back but it was modernized and is still in operation when there is enough water to propel it. Adjacent, there is a small information centre showing some history and interesting facts about how local watercourses have been used and then there is a window, through which you can see the actual power station consisting of two Francis turbines and generators. I loved that glimpse into a technical colourful world where flowers and machines enhance one another and the high space adds certain loftiness to the whole view. Sometimes…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Frosty walk in Rejvíz

    The village Rejvíz in Jeseníky mountains is a place where I like to come back. I always enjoy strolling through the village and a walk to the adjacent Great Moss Lake is almost a must and definitely a welcome relaxation. During our last visit we could enjoy charming frosty views and as it was quite early in the morning, also not so many people in this usually quite intensively visited area. That was good, I find it important to get away from crowds here and there to listen to both sounds and silence of the nature around… When I was looking at my photos later at home and was editting…

  • Focused on photography

    Magical

    Some places feel magical without any obvious reason. While you might be bored and wondering why I am staring at a spot or an object, I might feel a pull towards it not being able to take my eyes away. Another time it might be vice versa. Me wondering and you staring. I experience such a situation repeatedly on photo walks with my husband as we are often attracted by quite different sceneries and objects… The triptychs below are created from two photos that I took at the end of last year – one of an old cemetery and the other one of a garden in the same village. Both…