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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…
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Mirrored
I took the photo above based on several reasons: And funnily enough, look at the resulting image, where it all ended. Colours are gone, patterns and textures are partly sidelined, and the overall tone is quite dark. And yet this is a much more expressive scenery than the one captured in the original photo. The same and yet not the same, mirrored in my thoughts, feelings and expectations. Sometimes it’s not good to stop just after you started. Sometimes you need to make a few more steps to arrive where you wanted to be in the first place. Sometimes we perceive more than we realize and it takes time to…
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Construction imaginary
It is relaxing to try and see images where there are no obvious ones and it is enriching to try and transform their raw shapes into something more. You have the tools, yet you need to add your own vision to tell an interesting story. A story that may not need words, only deep and quiet perception. I find the process healing… “The technology you use impresses no one. The experience you create with it is everything.” – Sean Gerety
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Structured
Sometimes I find my surroundings way too showy, chatty, loud and unstructured, almost to the point of hurt. It’s a relief then to create images like this. Images withstraight linesclear directionminimalist contentcolours limited to shades of black and whitejust some grain and wispy patches to let the scenery breeze Sometimes I struggle to add text to my posts but fortunately a picture is worth a thousand words…
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Glassworks cutting room
As I mentioned in the previous post, last summer we visited old glassworks in Harrachov. It was interesting to see how the glasses are produced manually by men blowing into hot glass pieces and forming thus shapes of the glasses but the part of the glassworks that got my full attention was the room where the clear glasses are decorated manually by cutting their surface by a grinder, creating so various ornaments. I was absolutely taken aback by the quiet atmosphere of that room and I wished I had opportunity to spend at least an hour or two by absorbing the light, the colours and the objects and their mutual…
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Glassworks still life
The other day we visited glassworks in Harrachov where we participated in a guided tour. Imagine a large hall with old furnaces in the middle and several glassblowers showing how glasses are made manually and then tilt your head back and look at the humble “exhibition” of glasses, sitting high under the ceiling and creating a serene still life… Amid all that activity, this quiet spot felt like a touch of eternity.
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Hydroelectric power station
Last year I started a photo project I call “Technical” and one of the places I visited when looking for interesting technical views was an old hydroelectric power station “Čeňkova Pila” in Šumava mountains. It is not used anymore but you can visit it and have a look at its Francis turbine to admire the technical work. As a visitor without special rights you usually have quite limited options when taking photos. I wish I could have had more time for extracting interesting details and I wish I could have used a tripod because there was little light and I had to shoot with ISO values climbing to the stars……
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Lost beauty of old factories
You must have seen them. Old factory buildings that used to be full of machinery producing all sorts of goods but after the companies lost their success at the market, all that remains is emptiness and a state of gradual dilapidation. I came across one of those buildings during our holiday in Giant Mountains, in the town Rokytnice nad Jizerou. The building housed one of the textile factories of the company SEBA, a company that used to employ altogether more than four thousand people. The local textile industry did not survive all the changes happening in the ninetieth and many of the factories were abandoned. There were some plans to…
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Round the village
The last week was cold, with occasional snow showers, and as much as I like snow, the time has come for spring to seize control. I’ve been looking so much for flowers to bloom in the garden and fresh leaves to appear on the trees and plants! In the meantime, before that happens in our neck of the woods, here are a few photos from Saturday’s walk around the village. Birds singing and chatting loudly in the branches (and I love how different impression the tree with the birds gives in colour and in black-and-white)… …and hopefully the last snow of the season… When passing power lines outside the village,…
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Technical Příbram
This year I’ve been pursuing a photo project called “Technical”, you can read more about its rules and my expectations here. My first target for the project was the town Příbram and its vicinity and here are the photos I liked most. When editing the raw files, I was aiming rather at the atmosphere than at the actual look, there is often much more to it than what we see with the naked eye, isn’t there? Click on the photos to enlarge them if you want to see them better. Příbram used to be a mining town and the traces of its history are present in many of its parts.…
