“American Flag By Your Eyes” Contest of US Embassy in Prague

And here it is - the moment that I and all people supportive of me taking pictures of the US flag all the time have been looking for the whole summer - my photos were published at the US Embassy website! Actually, all the photos that I submitted were selected for placement in the contest gallery!!!

The best selects of my work I am presenting here. To see the selected pictures in the photo gallery on US Embassy website, please visit the following links.

http://photos.state.gov/galleries/czechrepublic/31467/photo_usflag/31.html

Ground Zero, New York City, USA, July 30, 2008.

http://photos.state.gov/galleries/czechrepublic/31467/photo_usflag/155.html

Wall Street, New York City, USA, July 30, 2008.

http://photos.state.gov/galleries/czechrepublic/31467/photo_usflag/203.html

Boat cruise on Potomac River, Mount Vernon, Virginia, USA, June 22, 2008.

http://photos.state.gov/galleries/czechrepublic/31467/photo_usflag/3.html

World War II Memorial, Washington, DC, USA, July 12, 2008.

http://photos.state.gov/galleries/czechrepublic/31467/photo_usflag/116.html

Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, DC, USA, July 4, 2008.

However, as it was possible to submit the photo essay of 5 pictures only, I decided to publish also the remaining pictures and run the whole story on my blog… Here it goes!

Cardiff: Where consumerism meets the traditional culture…

UK: The place of deep truths at unexpected places...

Even though I tend to dislike explaining the meaning of my photos for visitors of my site, because I believe that the photographer is only the medium and that each viewer should extract the message the way they feel, this time I will make an exception for once.

The reason is to it is very prosaic. After editing some of the stuff that I took during the last week when walking around the centre of Cardiff and Cardiff Bay, I started to see some broader connotations of my work and its connection to the state of society and cultural values in today’s world.

Usually when shooting, I know exactly what the story is and what I’m trying to say through my photos, but this time I used a different mechanism that is a bit more intuitive. I was just shooting everything that I felt was worth capturing and waited for the story to come out itself later in the process.

As a media studies major, I have very close to cultural studies and semiology, and as a starting photographer I naturally tend to position myself as an observer. With a strong passion for people watching and trying to tell their life stories through the way of their acting, I love putting things in a broader context and see what story could images say about them…

Here’s one of the essays that I shot in front of one of the shopping centres downtown Cardiff. I attempted to incorporate the  nearby standing statue representing the traditional family in the pictures and so try to find out what the liaison between consumerism, modern architecture, and urban style of life vs. traditional family values would be.

Trying to propose more of a reflexive thought about the relation between today’s model of traditional family in the UK and the life heavily driven by consumerism, this photo essay is aiming more on independent thinking process of each of the viewers.

If you have some interesting input, and would like to say how you feel about this issue, or would just like to send a feedback, please do so in the comments section. Feedback is always welcome as it enables people to compare their own thoughts and the way they personally see things with perception of others, which can sometimes be very enriching!

Mother got a great idea to spend a day with family in a shopping centre...

The tension of consumerism in the UK: “Chercher Les Enfants” as it follows the children!

Little devils with angel faces: Children vs. Their worn out parents...

The great depression of broke fathers...

Facing this age isn't always easy...

...especially with two little children!

Man is the head of family and should take care of it! It’s a matter of his pride!

My little boy will do things better than I have, when he grows up...

Maybe we should have gone to a park instead, sighs the mother silently...

"Like all addictions - consumerism involves denial of its consequences!"

Meet My New School: The ATRiuM!

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries (ATRiuM), the brand new multimedia school of University of Glamorgan located in the heart of Cardiff that I was writing about in the previous post is for its very modern and sharp-cut design often referred to as The Fridge by locals.

This Fridge though, as some people like like to call it, is a very innovative project not only from the perspective of its equipment worth 35,000,000 pounds, but also for the synergy of culture, art and media driven subjects all taught in one and the same building.

ATRiuM offers its students the total of three main branches of studies: Art & Design, Media & Communication and Drama & Music. Each one of these has its own specialisations and study programmes on both BA and postgraduate levels.

From my point of view, the idea of combining all of these areas together is very effective as it creates for its students a truly multimedia environment. The possibilities students are getting there allow them not only to meet people with various specialisations, but also to learn more about different aspects of art, media and culture aside from the field of their studies, which will benefit them in a long run. To me opportunities this school offers its students are simply priceless!

After visiting one of the professors from the department of photography and have chatted with him about different modules options and the programme itself for an unbelievable hour and half in his office, I realized how big of a difference this school is compared to Charles University, where professors would give students the maximum of 5 minutes, if they actually cared about what the student had to say…

The difference is truly stunning! After this long chat with the professor I got an impression that I would want to stay here not only for one year, but for the whole BA programme as this school could teach me more in one year than impersonal professors with boring lectures over the last 4 years!

Their photography programme simply amazed me! It sounds so fascinating as it teaches lots of different modules focused on both theory and history of film and photography and the practical side of photography production. In the theoretical part, the lectures specialise mainly on the relation of photography and the contemporary media, society and cultural studies. In the practical part, the school offers its students modules based on both film and digital photography and teaches about about documentary photography, photographic fictions, fine art photography, war photography etc.

The fact that I appreciate the most about this programme is that it involves lots of creativity from the students’ part as I find Charles University being heavily theoretical to the point it feels like it created a parallel world to the reality of practical life. This programme, on the other hand, organizes lots of workshops, is heavily practical and so allows students to create on their own and produce some original content, and offers different opportunities to go places as a group of students e.g. to photography exhibitions throughout the UK and then doing a feedback on what we have seen when writing cultural reviews for the local newspapers and magazines.

How wonderful is that?! The more I will try to suck a maximum out of this opportunity and prove myself that I can fo it! See you in a year equipped with some serious ”pro photographer” skills!

Welcome to Cardiff/Croeso y Caerdydd!

So after a long time, the reality is finally here: I am starting a new year long period of my life in Cardiff, Wales! Decided to make the best experience out of it, I’m am currently trying to contact all the media-related agencies in the town and find myself a part-time job, which would support me during my studies of Photography at the University of Glamorgan for a year.

I have to say though, the school is simply beautiful! The brand new multimedia building worth 35,000,000 pounds built in the heart of Cardiff is a very unique project. Offering its future students all kinds of art and media related fields such as drama, media and communications, journalism, TV and radio broadcasting, film, photography, as well as fashion promotion and new media design, the University of Glamorgan’s ATRiuM is supposedly the only school of its kind in all of Europe. The more excited I am to start studying at the beginning of next week!

During the downtime I have before the school starts next week I am trying to get acclimatized with the life in the city and explore some of its beauties. Today I took the train to the Cardiff Bay and it was a very smart thing to do! The first thing that I am always looking for when I come to a new place is: the water. The water calms me down, gives me a certain feeling of balance and builds my impression of the place, where I find myself as a whole. It was exactly what I needed, without the bay the perception of the city wouldn’t be the same!

While the centre of Cardiff offers more of the shopping experience and the pub culture, bars and clubbing driven life, the Cardiff Bay, on the other hand, shows more of the pleasant atmosphere of just walking around the promenade, breathing the fresh air, sipping cappuccino wrapped up in the blanket in one of the local cafes or even enjoying the cultural life of the opera theatre and the drama performances that the Millenium Centre has to offer. The life in the Cardiff Bay just goes in a much more easy-going pace than the busy shopping-oriented district of the centre of the city…

Although being busy looking for a job at the moment, I managed to take some nice pictures during my quick visit to the bay today. Hope you’ll enjoy! And I promise to get back to some reasonable frequency of posting new images, which will hopefully be much shorter than a month!

The Nighttime Prague

Hradcany Panorama - The Prague Castle at Night /Martina Olbertova - August 2008/

The National Theatre at Night /Martina Olbertova - August 2008/

Artsy-Fartsy Prague? (1/2)

It feels like the new wave of “modern art” has literally flooded Prague this summer… The so-called masterpieces are installed everywhere you look around right now - a whole regiment of plastic penguins lined up just several meters off the Charles Bridge lighting up the whole place in the shades of neon yellow, a red plastic alligator installed right on the main wall of Sovovy Mlyny Museum, a pair of kitschy red plastic poodles placed in front of it in the position of “just like standing around”, or the other couple of gigantic red colored rabbits sadly looking through the bars locked behind the tall iron gate in the courtyard of the museum…

What’s up with this? Why do people produce such disgusting pieces, dare to place them in the very middle of downtown to distract the visitor’s attention from the historic feel of Prague and yet call it art? I understand that modern art can serve as a very valuable instrument of communication when reflecting the new with the history, but the most important point taken into consideration should always be an original idea and ability of such piece to create a certain cohesion with the historical core of the city… Why don’t these pieces have any taste what-so-ever then?

Artsy-Fartsy Prague? (2/2)

On the contrary to the plastic art crafts, there are also certain pieces of art in Prague that have a bigger potential to address the audience with an original idea and are installed with a clear vision of the artist of how the new and the old should interact together. It’s a shame though that these pieces are usually hidden and it takes a certain amount of inquisitiveness and an adventurous mind to discover them. One of the places where it’s possible to find such pieces could be the view of Prague from the forrest in Prague 8 (where I happen to be living), where some creative soul not so long ago installed a couple of rusty camels made of old iron pipes, who actually happened to be perfectly fitting in the surrounding natural environment.

The interesting fact about this installation is that it looks absolutely natural - like an old couple of camels just stopped by to feed on grass and enjoy the amazing view of Prague that this place has to offer… Their rustiness gives it all a feel that they’ve been standing there since ever just looking at Prague which drags the visitors’ attention not at the camels themselves, but at the view they’ve been obviously enjoying for so long… It’s one of those pieces of art engaging an original thought and creativity and challenging a person’s mind. And that to me is art - the one that truly deserves attention!

From the Swan’s Perspective - or in other words - Prague as you don’t know it…

The confusion arisen after coming back from the States after two months is slowly settling down… The last weekend was amazing and it brought me back to realizing how wonderful, relaxed and easy-going place Prague really is!

My friend and I took a ride on a swan paddle-boat around the river Vltava and immediately became the centre of attention for all the curious tourists and other paddle-boats fellows, who started taking pictures of the plastic swan plowing the waters alongside the National Theatre, Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle.

We were enjoying the ride so much! And of course, we couldn’t resist taking pictures as well! As the sun was setting down and it was generally very cloudy that day, the swan’s head on the dramatic sky created really nice images.

Reminiscent of the story that happened in one little town in Germany last year, where one of the local swans fell in love with its significant other plastic paddle boat and got very depressed and even lifeless over the winter when the boat season was over, we were also observing the interaction of the swans with our plastic one and found this observation to be quite funny actually…

If you’re thinking how could also you capture a gigantic swan sticking its noisy beak in the major historical sites of Prague, then rent this one and only paddle-boat at Zofin Island and try it out on the river Vltava yourself! It really is worth it as the atmosphere of this ride is truly unforgettable!

When I spoke about the unique atmosphere of a pure relax that Prague has to offer, I meant not only my “swan experience” from last Sunday but also the Jazz Week festival that is currently going on at the Old Town Square. Where else than Prague - and now honestly - can you sit down right on the cobble stone ground of one of the majorily crowded places in all of this country, drink a wonderful beer from a plastic cup on a public and listen to some high quality jazz by Jiri Stivin Quartet for free in a less than close distance to a bum sitting on his plastic bag from the local supermarket, happily stinking 10 meters around but being obviously passionate about jazz and clapping in the rhythm with the rest of the listeners? I don’t know of any such place that offers both locals and visitors as low-keyed atmosphere as Prague!

We all know that the customer service is not necessarily the #1 in Europe, it still has a LONG way to go, but the mindset of people living here is simply: easy! So PLEASE don’t try to apply such high requirements that you would expect from the city of your origin and try to take Prague for what it is because it undoubtedly has other (and better) things to offer! What can seem as a lapse on one hand is on the other hand enabling us to live the way we do… So simply try to go with the flow and acclimatize to our way of living and feeling things. You won’t regret, I promise! If you are opened enough, you will get into it very quickly.  Just don’t take things so deadly serious and take it easy, after all you’re in Prague, right?

Welcome home?

Strange, Prague seems so distant all of a sudden… It feels like I came back in a totally different place than the one that I left for the US… Everything around me feels so grey, detached, unwilling and uninteresting…

It is so awkward coming back home and seeing the postcards on the table that I sent to the members of my family a couple weeks ago. “Who sent these?” is going through my head. It feels almost unreal that it’s only a week ago when I went for a trip to New York City on my own and came back to DC for the last day of internship and the graduation ceremony in Georgetown. Straight back to the reality of my life back home where every single day feels the same I am questioning myself “was it only a dream or was it real”? 

I miss DC, I miss the people from all around the world that I became close friends with, I miss even the hot humid DC weather which I would have never though I would, I miss the atmosphere of the program, I miss myself over there, but I know that coming back now it wouldn’t be the same… Why do the good things always have to end? It’s probably because we wouldn’t be able to realize how good they really were otherwise…

After realizing that for my own happiness in life I need to be independent, need to live internationally and experience things on my own, I feel like I’ve over-grown this place from the inside. I feel trapped in a transition place that I call home between coming back from the US and leaving for Cardiff, Wales in a bit more than a month.

In the meantime, I would like to post some of the impressions of Prague that I took through pictures earlier this week while walking around downtown again for the first time in last two months…

TFAS Graduation Ceremony - IPJ class 2008! :-)

Yes, that’s right, 8 weeks have gone by really fast and here we are standing at the Gaston Hall of the Georgetown University taking our diplomas from the hands of our program directors… Sad that it ends, though the experience that I have gained out of it is simply priceless - in terms of my personal development, in terms of making my own first-hand experience about the US, experience that opened my eyes about lots of different things, experience that has made me a stronger and more driven individual who is now able to prioritize things much easier and clearly determine what is and what is not important for my life and who now knows where she stands, who she wants to be and how to pursue it… For all of that, I would like to express my BIG thank you TFAS for enabling me to come here and personally grow more than I have ever managed to grow before! You have been a huge part of me finding myself and for that I am eternally grateful to you!

…and here come some pictures from our today’s graduation ceremony!

IPJ director Joe Starrs and I after the graduation

Economics Prof. Thomas Rustici and I after the ceremony

Prof. Richard Benedetto and I after the ceremony