2005: Prague

We went to Vienna for our honeymoon in 2005. Before we left, a friend of mine gave us a digital camera. I was still a film guy at that point. It seems so strange to me now that I was still using film as late as 2005.

     Vienna is a great city to visit. Originally we were supposed to go to Italy but it didn't work out but I am not sorry. The city is expansive and reminded me of Washington, D.C. in the size of its buildings and the width of its boulevards. There are also hundreds of small restaurants, bars and shops that left a never ending list of places to explore.

     As much as we loved the city, we decided to venture out to a little farther afield given we had almost two weeks in Europe. So we boarded a train and headed first to Salzburg, then to Munich and finally, almost on a whim, to Prague. I concluded that one shouldn't travel to Prague on a whim, on Good Friday, when your train is guaranteed to arrive at night. I will leave the details of this for another post when I show the various trains we took to get there.

                 

This post is about the tram. Like Vienna, Prague is a tram friendly city. The trams we rode in Prague were fast, clean and efficient. I think it was in Prague that I first got the thought of taking a picture of a tram in every city we visited and it was also in Prague that I really started to explore what the digital camera could do.

     We were walking through the city on a Saturday morning heading for The Charles Bridge when we encountered these two trams on a side street. Well, it may be more than just a side street, but it was relatively quiet so I just assumed it was a side street. I held the digital camera up, held the button half-way down and clicked off a couple of shots as the trams passed. I had to learn as I went how to take a photo of a moving object with a point and shoot digital, but I got the hang of it.

     When I got home and had a chance to look at the photos in the computer and saw how sharp and crisp they were I was pretty much done with film. I went out shortly after and bought a Canon 20D, which is what I still have. I haven't regretted moving on. I contemplate, from time to time, how much I saved now that I don't have to pay to process film anymore. I also think digital has made me a better photographer -- I will take hundreds of shots of the same object now whereas with film I was always saving my shots in case ``something better'' came along. And I also love the instant gratification I get from looking at the photo when I took it rather than waiting a couple of weeks before I know if the shot turned out. After six years, I can't say there is much of a downside and it basically all started with a couple of trams on a street in Prague.