2007

The owner of the restaurant on the left is a friend of a friend, although I've only met her once. I took this photo because I liked the contrast of the colors and the snow.

Because I liked the contrast of the colors with the snow, I decided to put Picture 3 into Gimp and crank the contrast and the saturation up, thus producing this.

I've seen this alleyway a few times, and eventually I found the right time to photograph it. I really like the composition that it gives, and the color contrast with the snow is also noticeable in this one.

I've never found out why this little dam (which I'm standing on, as it also forms a road) was built, but I suspect it was for a water wheel. Does anybody know? In any case, I liked this scene, so I shot this photo.

Here's another high saturation edit. I noticed that in the original shot, the winter lighting had made it quite grey, even greyer than it was in reality, so I figured this edit would be the antidote.

Here's another shot of Josefuv Dul from a location close to the dam I pictured earlier.

At one of the pubs overlooking Josefuv Dul, there's a pile of rock (I don't know whether natural or human-made) which is topped by an observation tower, or maybe a better word would be a perch or overlook, as there is no "tower" per se other than the rocks. I struggled to the top of it in the ice and snow, and shot a few photos, but none of them were as spectacular on film as in real life. I don't mind this shot, though.

On this Josefuv Dul trip, in addition to the snow on the ground, we also had a lot of snowfall while we were there. It was so heavy that, as you can see here, it obscured visibility somewhat, although since we were dressed warmly it really wasn't unpleasant, but part of the fun.

There was so much snow on this hill that even after I had this photo developed it wasn't immediately clear whether this Trabant 601 was on blocks, or simply held in place by blocks. As on careful inspection you can see the tread of the right front tire, it is in fact held on the hill with blocks. Yes, I know that I normally avoid car pictures, but I make an exception when it's something special. There aren't too many cars like this in the U.S. :-)

Here's my first-ever test shot taken with my Contina LK, right after I stepped out of Fotoskoda on Vodickova, where I bought it. Surprisingly, this camera gave me decent results from the very first shot.

In spite of the popularity of Czech pub names starting with "U," meaning "at," "near," or "by" in Czech, U Novaku is actually a clothing store, and the building houses many other stores as well.

Palac Koruna is a very elaborate art deco (basically) building at the Mustek end of Vaclavske Namesti. I'm not sure if an architecture historian would agree with the term "art deco," though, as the building is a bit older than is generally associated with the term, and is even a bit too ornate to fit the mold. It even has these statues hidden behind the tower, meaning that they're only visible from the air, or from the other side on the top floor, as there's a glassed-in courtyard that you can shoot across. This was another test shot for the Contina, though, as the ideal camera for this shot would be an SLR with a zoom lens.

Actually, it wasn't quite Christmas when I shot this, but the festivities were well underway. The thing that most amazed me when I got these shots back was how good they were, in spite of being taken with a camera that doesn't have a functioning light meter (it had one originally, but there's something wrong with the Contina's light meter now).

Smazeny Syr, or fried cheese, may be the ultimate Czech junk food, and it's also one of the easiest things to get late at night. This is both because the pubs sell it, and because these kiosks stay open late into the night, at least in Prague. This was another shot that I never though my Contina could get, especially without having 400 ISO film in it, but somehow it took a nice picture, I think.

Lumbard Hall, which dates to 1926, houses offices for the Village of Clinton, although going through the websites for the village government I was unable to determine if it still qualifies as a village hall.

The village of Clinton is part of the larger Town of Kirkland, and this is the town library on College Street in Clinton. Part of the Mid-York library system, this library building was originally a school, with the top floor serving as the gym. I tried to find some quick historical info online, since I've forgotten most of it, but I didn't have any luck. I've had video presentations there before, but no slide shows yet. I may have some in the future, but that remains to be seen.

Originally a church, the Kirkland Art Center now hosts concerts, dance classes, and just about anything else having to do with the arts in Clinton. Too bad there's a Scion out front. :-)

Ontrack, when it was first inaugerated, was part of the revival of rail transport, particularly within cities, which was going on during the 1990s, and continues to this day, in the U.S.A. This long predated the current spike in fuel costs, as pollution, traffic congestion, and simple public demand for more effective transportation all played more of a role in the beginning. Back in the 1990s, gas prices were sometimes as low as a dollar a gallon, so it's hard to make an argument that they played much of a role in the public transport revival. So.......what's going on with Ontrack now, in the days when it's needed more than ever? It's shut down, of course. It suffered a long decline, and as I understand it, this was partly due to simple failure to run at all. I'll always remember the time back in the early 2000s (I don't remember the date) when I was train watching on this platform for several hours, watching the scheduled arrival and departure times advertised on the platform come and go without seeing a single train. The platform was full of passengers, and when me and my railfan friends finally left after standing for several hours without seeing a single train, the passengers followed us. In any case, the station now seems to be in use for storage of the equipment, and in the middle of the Christmas season, when I took this photo, the parking lot of Carousel Mall was so congested that it took 20 minutes for us to find a parking space. Such is the predicament of public transport in Central New York.