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Christmas wishes
Christmas will be here in just a few days so before you become absorbed in final preparations and Christmas festivities, I’d like to wish you Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. When I was looking for some wise words to share with you on this special occasion, I came across the following quote by the comedian Demetri Martin. It made me laugh and feel the mirth and I thought, why not something funny for a change? Here it goes: “I set a personal record on Christmas. I got my shopping done three weeks ahead of time. I had all the presents back at my apartment. I was halfway through wrapping them,…
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Bikes and traffic signs
I noticed that when I’m strolling along streets with a camera in my hand, I’m often attracted by traffic signs and bikes left on the streets. I often feel tempted into capturing them but actually just a few of them make it into my photo archives. In the photo above, the traffic sign is not the most important part of the photo but it complements the scene beautifully. I loved the complementary colours and simplicity of the view. I often feel foolish when taking a photo like this because I expect that nobody would find it interesting but I’m getting better at managing my feelings because this is what I…
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Inspiration or plagiarism?
There are so many photographs nowadays, you can’t avoid seeing many of them. And if you are a photographer, you can’t avoid being influenced by many of them. Also, many photographers recommend other photographers to study photos of renowned photographers as well as photos which attract their attention. To learn the craft, to find out what captivates them and to get inspired. Some even go as far as recommending others to reproduce the ideas or even the scenes to learn in that way. As a result, both knowingly and unknowingly we use the ideas, scenes, compositions, etc. in our own photographs. We need to learn the basics, the principles and…
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One plus additional
The November theme of my 12-month photo project was defined as ONE PLUS ADDITIONAL which was meant to be a photo accompanied and complemented by a few other related photos. The main photo had to be taken in November, all the photos taken this year could be used as the complementary photos. There were actually more ways of how to interpret this assignment so after having created several sets I decided to choose just those strictly satisfying the conditions. For example, I excluded a set of five observation towers… The photo I took in November was the largest in the set but it was not the main photo, it was just…
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Stachelberg fort
I have never been much interested in military history and don’t know much about it but I was quite impressed by the Stachelberg fort my family and I visited in northern Bohemia. The Stachelberg fort was built as part of border defences against Nazi Germany growing in power, it was supposed to become the largest Czechoslovak artillery fort. The fort consists of 12 objects connected by means of extensive underground, the total length of tunnels and rooms situated 25 to 60 metres underground is approximately 3.5 kilometres. Construction of the fort started in October 1937 and should have been finished in 2 years but it was stopped prematurely in October…
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Tightrope walking
“The secret to life is finding the right balance to everything you do…” Last year I visited the castle Kost with my family and at that particular weekend, the castle hosted an event including several performances, one of them tightrope walking. High above the court a rope was tightened and a few performers made their way to the other end of the rope and back. With my camera, I tried to capture the moments I loved best and here are some of them. I love the S shape of the body of the man captured in the photo above, the figure dressed in the trousers resembling a skirt somehow makes…
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Planning and scheduling
Do you like when life is somewhat chaotic or do you rather prefer planning and scheduling? As for me, I stay on the planning side of the fence most of the time, I like when things work as I expect. Planning helps me to get organised, to meet deadlines, to capture my ideas, and it motivates my creativity. It focuses my thoughts and activities in the right direction. I like to visualise the planning to see at a glance the condition of my plans so from time to time I create various tables to get there. To inspire you, I’d like to show you one of the tables today, a simple…
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Contrast
It is the last day of October today and according to the rules of my 12-month photo project I am supposed to publish 3 to 5 photos that I took throughout the month based on the theme of the month, which this time was CONTRAST. Up to now, I always posted five photos, today I have just the minimum, the three, but I’m happy to have them actually. My hubby has been enormously busy these weeks and to make it worse, I fell ill and stayed at home for more than two weeks which didn’t leave me with many options. Eventually I decided to use the last few days I had…
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Sadness
Ravens circlingabove the tree topsdeath in her eyes I do not have any photo that would mirror the images my little Haiku-inspired poem conveys so I picked a photo that conveys similar feelings which are the feelings of sadness I felt when writing the poem. You know, the poem made me think. Some days are not happy days. Some days are sombre. For obvious reasons we don’t like them but they are inevitably part of our lives. How to accept them? How to deal with them? There are so many books and websites offering pieces of advice on how to be happier and where to find happiness. You don’t need…
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Autumnal bits and pieces
Today I would like to share a few photos that I took in Rokycany in September, at the beginning of coming autumn. No. 1: Boxes in front of a vegetable shop Squash everywhere… in many types and sizes. No. 2: Light and shadows I took this photo in a park. There was an interesting wooden shape on the ground, something like a spiral, just triangular. I don’t know if it is intended as a place to sit down or whether it is just decorative, probably both. I loved how the light and shade complemented one another and that brought me to turning the photo into black and white which simplified…
