Cesky Krumlov, CZ

Cesky Krumlov is great. :-) Although it's clearly a tourist town now, the medieval streets and buildings are absolute eye candy, and if there's anything to be criticized, it's that the city is too well-maintained and sanitized. This building was an exception, which is maybe bad for the city, but good for photographers. :-) I love the way the ancient details of this building are exposed by the flaking paint, which itself is still quite a brilliant reddish brown. The contrast is also good, although in honesty I Photoshopped it a bit. In general, this is one of my favorites.

I took this from Krumlovsky Vez in Cesky Krumlov. The intricacy of the medieval street layout can clearly be seen, and this was the main reason I took the shot. If you zoom in, especially on a high-res version (this one isn't), you can see deck chairs, TV antennae, and many, many other little things that tell you something about how the people live, and you end up completely missing all the tourist activity going on at street level, which many people would say is good. As with my York Minster--Sky shot, this would have been better with a medium-format camera, but I don't have that kind of money.

The centerpiece of Cesky Krumlov is the Castle, or Chataeu, which is Zamek in Czech. Actually it fits the mold of a castle, or "Hrad" more, as it's on a mountain and heavily fortified. The most famous part of the castle, though, is the main clocktower, or Vez, and this was my first look at it when I arrived the night before I took the other photos on this page. It's one of the later parts, though, having been added in the 18th Century, according to most sources I've read. I has a cornerstone from the 1880s, though, so I'm not sure how original it is.

This was the day after I took my "Krumlovsky Zamek" night shot, when I spotted this view of the castle through a narrow medieval street, and took this picture.

Admittedly this theme has been done uncountable times by many, many other photographers, but I decided to take another pond reflection photo anyway. This was in the gardens behind the castle in Cesky Krumlov.

This is an experiment. :-) It's my photo of the rooves in Cesky Krumlov, only in a much higher resolution, and converted to black and white. I hope you like it. :-)

I took this in Cesky Krumlov, mostly because I liked how it looked. It's a wall around the castle gardens, which I managed to photograph as the sun was going down, shining through the trees onto it.

This was taken in the gardens in Cesky Krumlov, and is also a very common theme, in my opinion. It's technically okay, though, according to what I know.