Clear Water Sample: Zakopane, Poland

Zakopane is full of streams with water so clear and cold coming straight from the Carpathian Mountains. Although we didn't visit Slovakia, we saw it in the distance, and on a sunny day, it must be beautiful. When Cass turned this faucet on that drew water straight from the stream, we knew it would be amusing to collect a water sample from it, and so we did.

The faucet's hot water indicator added to the irony. To give further context, this event took place directly across the street from...

Las Vegas, Poland.

Clear Water Sample: Budapest, Hungary

 

Budapest featured trips to two bathhouses: Kiraly and the Gellert Thermal Baths. Kiraly was dark and impossible to photograph (aside from a sneaky image of the dressing room), so it was immediately ruled out as a location for a water sample. It was also over 500 years old and "pristine" wasn't an apt description.

I fell in love with Gellert online and learned after visiting that Matthew Barney's Cremaster 5  was filmed there. My biggest packing travesty was neglecting to bring a swim cap because it prevented immersion in the outdoor pool above and the one where the sample was taken below. I still regret not swimming laps in a pool a couple centuries old.

Visitor Map and location of clear water sample (hand model props to Cass Fey)

We thought that bringing a camera into the bathhouse could be grounds for immediate expulsion and didn't want to test that theory. This photograph was taken quickly when life guards were walking in the other direction with towels concealing the camera. The ledge in front of the swimmer is the precise location where the sample was collected. We walked to the balcony (visible in the background near the sky light) to snap a few images of the glass specimen container.

More illicit photography as this was taken behind the protective camouflage of a plant.

Porthole views of the indoor pool lined the tiled walkway into the changing rooms. Light boxes with imagery of the interior thermal baths decorated the other side.

Budapest was easy to love as it is the land of swimming pools. With that came sunburns that screamed skin cancer and sagging bodies too large to squeeze in such minute clothing.

Walking in the Footsteps of Josef Sudek Six Decades Later

While wandering around Prague in May, I kept thinking of Josef Sudek. The apartment Cass and I rented was located on the same street as his studio and I walked underneath this plaque almost daily.

Most of what I know about Sudek revolves around the photographs of his studio windowsill and the glass, either obscuring or accentuating, the landscape behind it. As I looked across the road, I could not help but wonder if I was staring at the same view he saw six decades earlier.

Josef Sudek, Last Roses, 1959

I ordered Josef Sudek: The Legacy of a Deeper Vision on Interlibrary Loan last month and soon realized that many of his images reflect the mood and subject matter I experienced over the course of one week in May 2013.

 Josef Sudek, Prague (Hradcany), Early Evening, 1922-24

Jaroslav Seifert writes in "View from the Charles Bridge" (from John Banville's Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City)

These are days when the Castle
and its Cathedral
are gloomily magnificent,
when it seems
they were built of dismal rock
brought back from the Moon 

One night we saw the castle with lightning illuminating the sky behind it. These days boat tours fill the River Vltava and their radiance competed with that of the spring storm.

Josef Sudek, Prague Castle, Hradcany from Lobkovic Gardens, 1950s

Looking for views of the castle, with or without obstructions, became one of our pastimes (that and finding Czech words that were written in English with a "Y" at the end).

Josef Sudek, Prague, National Theater across the River, 1950-60

I took a photograph very similar to this. On an iPhone. At night. Note it is not present here because Sudek's is far superior.

 Josef Sudek, Prague Street (Tram), 1958

This may have been the same tram line on the street that we shared with Sudek's studio. Thankfully our visit did not feature snow though it wasn't hard to imagine how cold Prague was in the winter.

Josef Sudek, St. Vitus's Cathedral, scaffolding in the transept and choir, 1926-27

When Cass and I visited St. Vitus, it was early afternoon Sunday and it smelled like sweet incense burned at mass. The smoke was still wafting through the nave. We were there with thousands of tourists and all I imagined was a view of the cathedral alone. Sudek provides two of St. Vitus here under construction. Despite the scaffolding, there are no workers, only a one armed man and his camera pressing the exposure button. Aside from the sound of the shutter, it is almost quiet.

Josef Sudek, St. Vitus's Cathedral, light illuminating the central vessel from the south side, 1926-27

Josef Sudek, Sratov Gardens, Springtime, 1960

Pink blossoms and blooming tulips filled the flower beds. Rain. Cool breezes. We missed the flooding that would occur three weeks later with the Vltava rising 12 feet into the city streets.

Josef Sudek, View of Strelecky and Zidovsky (Jewish, later named Children's) Island, from the Legion Bridge, Prague, 1950-55

We stood here at dusk and watched a boat "park" to the right of the photograph above. Back and forth it maneuvered in a narrow space, reminding me of the Locks in Seattle. The water was just as still though a deep brown. No clear water found here. I would travel south to Cesky Krumlov for that.

Extraordinarily Late Spring Postcard Collective Submission

In retrospect, I should have bailed on this round. I had too much to do and was leaving the day after the 1st May submission deadline to contemplate starting it. Also, the theme "Life and Death" was very difficult as I didn't want to fall into the "cliché trap." While in Europe, I thought of an idea and it only took an additional two weeks to materialize after my return. It was sent one month late (horrifying as I have never mailed anything this far from the deadline). Why not look at death in the form of an inanimate object? I do that all the time in most of my work so it wasn't too farfetched.

More details are forthcoming as to the content (as soon as I can formulate them into coherent thoughts) on my collaboration with Camden Hardy.

One of My Oldest Lists: Places to Visit

I have a woven box inherited a couple decades ago that holds money from different countries I have visited. I do not open it too often as I am not in the habit of traveling overseas regularly (malheureusement). Last week, upon depositing some korunas, forints, and zlotys, I was reacquainted with one of my oldest lists.

My friend, Anabel Lopez, and I made this while sitting in a park in Galicia, Spain in August 1995. Some of the entries were hers and some were mine. Remarkably we shared many of the same desires in places where we wanted to travel. The following year, I managed to visit Europe again and marked off some of the countries. I have never felt compelled to check them off after that (and part of me wished I had not started).

I studied this list for awhile, noting how the ink faded, wondering if I had accomplished much in the last 18 years of travel. Interestingly, I lived in some of the places and indirectly created a series, From Venice Beach to the Venice Bienale, from a couple of the entries.

Of course, I had to update the list - the new one is far more descriptive and rather than shrinking, it has grown. Perhaps I will give myself permission to cross the countries off or scrawl new ones underneath. Now the old one exists as a record in a box of old change. I will probably hang onto it until it's illegible, contemplate photographing it, then finally admit that it is yet another object marking the passage of time (and place and the endless search for something, somewhere else).

Acquisition for the Cat Scrapbook in Cesky Krumlov

Did I mention it moves? Image courtesy of Cass Fey.

So Much to Catch Up On

Roger Minick, Woman with Scarf at Inspiration Point, Yosemite National Park, CA, 1980

... but first a well deserved vacation. I will be back in 2.5 weeks. I promise. I will be a blogging fool for the next few months. 107 Days of Summer starts today. Off to be a tourist on a continent far away.