Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: church of our lady before tyn

The Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, or Tynsky Chram, is right on Staromestske Namesti, the old town square of Prague. Many photographers like to photograph just the belltowers, omitting the row of unrelated buildings that face the square, as the church is crammed into back streets and is itself hard to find the entrance for. It was constructed with funding from German merchants in 1385-1511, and although it was eventually taken over by Catholic Jesuits, it is just as much associated with the Hussite movement. It is also known for being the burial place of the Danish astronomer Tycho de Brahe, who died in Prague in 1601.

I took this in the early morning during my photo shoot of the Prazky Orloj. I chose this time of day (about 0700) because the tourists wouldn't be in the streets yet, I hoped. In reality, there were a few, but very few, and I don't know really if they were tourists or Czechs. One thing I learned is that street and utility repairs seem to be done in the wee hours of the morning, when the tourists aren't there to be inconvenienced. If you can't see them here, I'm not sure if they're in the picture. They should be off to the right. Digging up the street only at extreme hours of the early morning might be a nice idea, so long as you're digging up cobblestones and not using jackhammers, but it I doubt it would be the most desirable work assignment.

I took this during my experimentation with using Kodak Portra 160VC at night, and I think I can count it as a success. The church in the background is Tynsky Chram, and in the foreground are buildings which include the Alfons Mucha Museum, among other things. All of these things are in Staromestske Namesti, or Old Town Square, in Prague.

Until this day (which I think was Sunday, the 3rd of December) I didn't know that the general public could go up in the clock tower on the Stare Radnice. It just seemed incredibly unlikely to me, but in reality many of these towers are open to the public in the Czech Republic, and this one is especially famous. This is, of course, a very Christmas season shot, but in reality more attention was being devoted to the upcoming St. Nicholas Day on the 6th. On the day before St. Nicholas Day, for those who come from countries where it's not celebrated, St. Nicholas (you know, Santa Claus) tours cities in the evening accompanied by an entourage of angels and devils, looking for good and bad kids. It's a night of lots of screaming, fireworks, and the kind of anarchy that is normally reserved in the United States for Halloween or in Britain for Guy Fawkes Night. It's a little crazy, of course, but in this shot it was still a few days away, so they had a stage set up to do folk dancing instead.