Fun You Can Have with Drunks in Prague on New Year’s Eve
I decided to avoid the usual Prague New Year’s Eve madness and opt instead for a quiet party in one of those renovated attic flats in Mala Strana. In previous years I ran the gauntlet of fire and booze on the Charles Bridge and in the Old Town Square. Bottle rockets were fired horizontally at people just to see them duck. M80s were thrown between wobbly feet to instigate an impromptu jig on glass-riddled cobblestones. Beer and champagne bottles smashed all around. If there was any booze left in the shattering bottles it could either put out the flaming trousers or if strong enough—fuel the flames.
I used to revel in this weird festival of fire in Prague—if only to remind me that my home country does not allow either drinking in public or fireworks. What a boring fucking country. But we have guns, so I guess it balances out somewhere...Enough writing and on with the pics. Self explanatory, really: people having fun in an old attic flat in Mala Strana.
And for anyone interested in technical photo details: to get the 'swirling blur of flame and booze' portraits, I simply set the camera dial on my Nikon D70 to 'drunk portrait', which is an icon with a leaning person and a bottle.
Just kidding. I set the exposure to the ambient light of the room
(combo of long exposure plus iso of about 800), then set the flash to ttl mode (or flash auto fill) -- et voila
posted by praguelodyte at 1:35 AM
3 Comments:
As a photographer, you may appreciate my page of Czech Republic and other shots. Check it out from my profile. Enlightened Fellow.
Anyway, I like your work, it shows a better sense of aesthetics than most photographers have. Keep it up. Cau.
Hey, thanks for checking out the site. I agree that the book was probably deliberately ironic. And I must admit I haven't made it through the whole thing yet, in spite of having it for almost 4 years now. I've had other things to read, what can I say?
Speaking of feckless expat writers in Prague, have you run into a guy named Misha? He told tale of being a photographer of sorts as well. He probably would have done better at everything had he not been drinking a bottle of Vodka every night. The last I knew of him, he was on the streets, wandering around with all his belongings in two Tesco bags. I felt bad for him.
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