Day 3: Prague 2011

Today started out with sleeping in. I think it was around 10:30 before I rolled out of bed, which was awesome, though its not normal for me. Our first task this morning was to drop off the film I have already shot, and get our transit passes. Luckily around 3 corners, at a distance of about 3 city blocks, there is a photolab that will do 1 hour e-6 or c-41 processing. And they apparently do enough medium format that they asked if I was shooting 6x6 when I asked them to cut it on 3 frames per strip. I wonder if they see more 6x7 or 6x9. I always make a point to ask for it cut on three because when I forget my mainlab cuts them into pairs, which I feel is a stupid way to store film.

After the film, we got our transit tickets. The transit here is pretty cool, you stamp the ticket to validate it, and that's all there is to it. If someone asks for your ticket you can get a fine for not having one, or not having it validated, but its mostly based on the honor system. Apparently Evan had never ridden on a subway, so that was fun. I love subways. There are so many reasons, but they are plainly awesome to begin with.

After lunch, at a bagetterie, we took the train to Prague castle, which is huge. There were several cathedrals, and palaces and towers. Enough that we didn't see it all, and might go back over the weekend. We even saw a Mucha stained glass window in one of the cathedrals. I think tomorrow we will be heading to the Mucha museum, and the communism museum, which ironically is upstairs from the McDonalds. All of their posters seem to point this out as a point of pride possibly, though I see it more as an ironic twist that the McDonalds was the symbol of capitolism, and the antithesis of communism. After that we will probably try to go to the Lennon wall, a monument to John Lennon, where the youth continually paint grafitti in memorium. From there we should be able to hike back to the Prague Castle and finish up some of it. We will see, there is still lots to do here, and time is fleeting.

While shooting photos around the castle today, I realized that I had had a feeling that my light meter was wrong, and I realized why. Yesterday, at the Ossuary, I had put in iso 800 film because it is a dark place. Well, after I switched back to iso100 and 400, I failed to reset my light meter, so I anticipate some missed shots, and some underexposed shots. It would be nice to have a good digital camera, because you instantly have some perspective into the shot, however, I still feel that film provides a superior image to a ccd.

I will post more tomorrow, photos will have to wait until next week or later.